by Jae Baeli

Created on: May 06, 2008

Purple Prose & Metaphoric Misdemeanors

* As usual, these are my opinions, based on my own experience of writing and editing for the last 25 or so years. Not all writers, editors and readers will agree, and that's fine. I offer it as valuable information I learned which made me a better writer, in hopes it will help another writer reach that goal.

Writers, beware: You must NOT fall in love with your words. You must fall in love with your craft. That's the thesis for this entire article, but read on, if you want details.

Let's talk about Purple Prose and Metaphoric Misdemeanors. I am forever mortified by the details that many authors place in their story, which has no bearing on the story itself-not in the development in plot, nor the development of character. It's just there, because the author was in love with the words and his/her ability to string them together like multi-colored popcorn on a gaudy Christmas tree.

Purple Prose, as a term used in the critique of writing was coined by Horace, the infamous Roman poet, in Ars Poetica. The translation of this into English tells us,

"Your opening shows great promise, and yet flashy purple patches; as when describing a sacred grove, or the altar of Diana, or a stream meandering through fields, or the river Rhine, or a rainbow; but this was not the place for them. If you can realistically render a cypress tree, would you include one when commissioned to paint a sailor in the midst of a shipwreck?"

Pouncing on the inherent humor to be enjoyed in this subject, the Edward Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest makes a contest out of mimicry of Bulwer-Lytton's penchant for Purple Prose. The famous opening to his novel, Paul Clifford, begins thus:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrentsexcept at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

It is referenced most often by the phrase "It was a dark and stormy night." The contest invites writers to submit their own version of flowery description in the beginning of some fictional fiction work.

A couple of my favorites, incidentally:

The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>