In Defence of Purple Prose
Good afterevenmorn, Readers!
Language is fun. The way words can mean more than one thing, depending on where the stress is placed, or its location in a sentence, and where that sentence lies within the tale. It is a playground. A song devising its own music. A melody murmured that can delight not just the eyes, but the ears. How many have paused a read simply to revel in the words just read? To read and reread a sentence? To bask in the brilliance of a cleverly turned phrase?
Yet so many decry the joy in that play. Brevity, they proclaim, is king. Only he shall rule the pages, painted words slinking away beneath his stern gaze. That is good writing. The only good writing.
In truth, he is but a soldier, which, like his fellows, when craftily deployed becomes a part of a larger song. The short notes like bombs, delivered with precision to inspire fear, or awe. To drag at the breath, stealing it away. To raise the pulse; a rapid fire of words – rat-tattat-tat!
Ah! But the exhaustion of battle needs reprieve. Across the trenched-scarred fields where fearful clouds of pale green gas linger still, hugging the ground as a jealous devotee, there must be some tenderness. Some beauty. Some gentle caress that reveals a painted sky, a lone flower refusing to bow before the fire, to linger ever so longingly on a lover’s heart.
These, too, deserve their time to shine. To dance in the light. Frivolous! come the cries. Pointless! Indulgent! Foolish! What purpose could frills and silks fill that isn’t achieved with more utilitarian cloth?
Beauty, my loves. Beauty is the point. To paint with words. To make poetry of prose. To fill the pages with images that transcend description. To make the words felt instead of merely read. To revel in the wonder of words, and the music they can make if we indulge them ever so slightly. For, before they were written, they were said; every syllable deliberately placed to please, to create a rhythm, to dance with the flames beside which they were uttered.
There is no crime in returning to that fire, though the words reach an audience of naught but one. In reclaiming that dance. In revealing the beauty of words and the myriad of ways they can be put together.
Play, my dears. Play is the point. What fun to toy with meaning and expectation, to weave and weft! To delight in triplets trickling from tickled tongues. To find the fun; to splash in the sun-dappled stream of language and chase the meanings swimming lazily beneath the surface. For language can be such a joy if we let it, if we break free from the tyranny of Brevity for its own sake.
There is no sin in letting the words play. In delighting at their twisting, joyous clamour. To dance with them their strange magical rites.
So many tangled tales have been met with distaste from one, only to be adored by another. Many a phrase has stopped an artist in their tracks, struck by the beauty, only to be scorned by the scholar.
In truth, there is no proper way to present prose. Dance or do not. Play or do not. Let the tyrant Brevity reign over the page, or place him back down into the ranks to work in concert with his fellows, or abandon him altogether. It is all correct. It is all true. It is all right.
But turn not away from the colour purple because some fool said you must. Like Brevity, it has its place and its purpose, even if that purpose is simply to be frivolous, existing for nothing else but the music it makes.
Or maybe even to inflate a word count. Ahem.
Alright, I’m done playing now. Mostly. Though I’ve been terribly tongue-in-cheek with this post, the sentiment is true. I do love reading books where the author has permitted themselves to revel in the language they use; when it’s clear that they’re going not for strict adherence to the rules and order, but to create an image, to paint, to evoke an emotion.
Yes, learn the rules. Of course.
And then smash them to pieces.
Is it possible to mess it up? Yes. Perhaps it doesn’t quite work. But that’s the wonderful thing about words. They’re much like painting in oils. You can massage the colours, work them across the canvas until they form the pleasing shapes you were aiming for. Or simply scrape teh canvas clean and start again. But don’t be so afraid of messing it up that you never attempt to paint at all. Take the time to play with words. Have fun.
Know that there will be a reader who will love your “purple” prose. It will likely be me, since I love how wonderful and musical language can be.
What about you? What writing styles do you like? There are no wrong answers in this case, only differing opinions. And I love hearing them!
When S.M. Carrière isn’t brutally killing your favorite characters, she spends her time teaching martial arts, live streaming video games, and cuddling her cat. In other words, she spends her time teaching others to kill, streaming her digital kills, and a cuddling furry murderer. Her most recent titles include Daughters of Britain, Skylark and Human. Her serial The New Haven Incident is free and goes up every Friday on her blog.
Heh. I’ve heard/read some writing advice on this subject. As previously established, because it it is writing advice, it is probably bunk (at least somewhere, somehow, and to someone), but I liked the style of pith in this particular bit. Let’s see, how did it go….
Good writing is like a quilt. To function, in places it can be layered richly, inflated and stuffed with the things that keep you warm. In other places, it must be ruthlessly stitched down, compressed lest it come apart. Top-stitched redwork is the editor’s pen.
…I think that was it. Not being a quilter, I might have gotten it somewhat wrong, but that was the jist of it.
There’s a little bit of confirmation bias in my enjoyment of that piece of advice. Balanced prose is what I like to read, and sometimes what I like to write. Too much mellifluousness becomes overwrought. Too much brevity becomes parched, staccato, and tough to chew. What is important, rather, is the picture that the words paint, and how vividly it comes across to the reader. If either brevity or purple prose causes the reader’s eye to scud off the page, then it is the wrong choice.
Two more steps, and Josh sat down. He sighed. Somewhere in the distance, a droning cicada stumbled and stopped, the world holding its breath until a billowed cloud passes from the face of the sun.
The cell lock clicked.
Oh, I like that analogy. Good writing is like a quilt.
(Also, thanks! I had FAR too much fun writing this. If you imagine a little gremlin giggling manically in a dark room, illuminated only by the light of the screen, that pretty much approaches how it went)
XD It sounded like fun to write. You definitely pulled it off well. “Giggling gremlin” suits you!