Purple Prose and how to combat it?

[megalomania]

Oh boy; hello, there!


I hope this isn't too inappropriate of a place to leave my whining, though given the context I felt like it might be alright... Also, I'd like to apologize beforehand for choppy verbose and the like; I'm writing this on my phone, and in my state of mind, I haven't the wits about me to be concise on the matter, aha. 


In any case! On the topic of purple prose...mine, to be more specific:
I only just heard the term used about two days ago, and I naturally found myself looking into it. (So begins the swift spiral into madness.) I quickly got caught up in the phenomenon that I wasn't at all aware to be a problem/common pet peeve of many writers and readers. All through my education I'd always been taught to write fairly descriptively. To establish scenes/settings and reflect on characters' emotions/developments in correlation to this, which translated to my roleplay responses/posts via both establishing scenes *and* interactions. I've always been a horrid rambler, be it from casual conversation to my writing. Naturally, my innate desire to describe things as they appear in my head only more so weighs down my writing. I was aware that it's an annoying thing, and thus far I've tried to be mindful of it through my writing. But to realize that my "crap writing style" is black and white purple prose, and to learn that most people despise it, is extremely disheartening. Not in that I feel like the problem people have with it is unjustified, because I don't. It's merely that I feel like I'm stuck here. I genuinely don't know how to correct this, which is a little scary. 


I've honestly been mortified to reply to any of my roleplays for the last little while. I adore each one I'm a part of, and I have the feeling that I'm wearing out my partners. The last thing I want to do is to make a fun activity taxing for them or push it to a point that they no longer wish to roleplay with me. 


That said, I'm pretty desperate to cut my habit before it gets worse or harder to ward off than it already seems to be. Would anyone be willing to provide advice, past experiences, tips, etc.? Where the line lies between a flavorful post and purple prose, how to combat it, so on and so forth?


Anything is super helpful, honestly, and I just want to get rid of my awful habit, aha. Thank you in advance, I hope to hear back ! Hah. 

 

[punkinblackk]

(quite honestly I love super descriptive posts)


Could I perhaps see a few of the possibly offensive posts before i try to offer much in the way of advice.

 

[LegoLad659]

I'm on the other side of the spectrum, where I tend to condense everything I write down into its most compact form (I don't quite want to call it beige prose because I still try to be descriptive about what I can, it's just less than most people I've found - If anyone knows a term for my writing style I'm curious to know :smile1: ) So I honestly can't speak at all for your writing style or thought process when writing your text. So feel free to take my advice with a grain of salt.


But the best thing I can think of to say is do what I said above - While you're writing, think about what you want to write, and if there's any way you can condense it into a smaller form. This may entail removing a string of words in favor of a single one that says all of them, or getting rid of extensive details that don't add anything of actual value to the story.


If it helps at all, here's my own personal thought process when writing anything:


First, I look at the scene. Is there anything new in the scene? Maybe they're in a new location? Describe the new things in as few words as possible. If it's a new room, describe the layout of the room, and try to avoid talking about the specific details of the objects in the room (Notable features such as gemstones inlaid into an urn or what a picture on the wall is depicting are fine) If the new thing is an object, describe what kind of object it is, any irregular shaping it may have, and notable features as mentioned above.


Then, I look at what happened last. Specifically, the character's thoughts on the event. Does it change anything about what they're thinking? If so, explain their thoughts - Don't take too long, though! Their thoughts are still taking place in real-time, so they don't have the time to contemplate the design of the brooch the nearby girl is wearing unless it's important to the plot. I tend to have problems with this, since I like to go into great detail about character thoughts. If their thoughts don't change, then simply do nothing and move on to the next step.


Next, I think about character actions. Is there anything they should be doing? Perhaps they're responding to an attack, and reply with their own. Or they're walking across the room to look at the trophy on the wall. These usually don't take much description at all.


Finally, there's dialogue. I shouldn't have to explain this one XD Character dialogue is usually driven by the character and how they speak, not the writer. So any detail contained within is the character's choice to speak.


I repeat these steps every time I write something - Be it a sentence or a paragraph, but usually no more than that. The only other thing I'd say is that dialogue and actions don't have to be last. They will happen whenever they need to happen, sometimes or even often in the middle of another step. If the character has something to say, and it's a convenient point in the text for them to say it, then they will say it.


I hope this at least helps a little bit  :smile1:  I probably didn't write that very well, since it's difficult to articulate a thought process like that and put it into a text form that makes sense.


PS: I don't know if it'd help much at all, but I usually limit my paragraphs to a maximum of 5 to 6 lines of text, and that's pushing what I usually write.

 

[Windsock]

Beige.

 

[Umbrie]

detailed posts are fine, purple prose refers to when the detail is excessive or gratuitous in a way that detracts from the message the post is trying to convey. the key is to only describe what is relevant to the current actions in question and to use no more details than you feel you truly require. for a character's outfit, you generally want a primary color, maybe a secondary or tertiary color, a style or aesthetic, and maybe an accessory or two. using Umbrie's standard attire as an example, "Umbrie can usually be seen wearing an onyx and cerulean winter weight formal schoolgirl uniform where the thighlength stockings are covered up to the knee by the buckles of her flat bottomed dress boots."

 

[Cadryn]

There are some of us who do enjoy purple prose sometimes. Most Lovecraft fans have to have a stomach for it.

 

[Coward]

lol you need an iron stomach for purple if you're going to read Lovecraft. TBH I can't take it.


Here are some tips gathered from writers I respect for keeping prose clean. Sorry, I can't remember what came from where.


1. Describe the unusual elements of a scene, leave out the parts everyone knows. So, in a busy urban intersection, don't describe cars going past. Describe the donkey pulling a trash cart, or the guys selling fried octopus from their car windows.


2. It's more effective to describe character appearance by meaningful details than by naming the colours of things. I'd rather know someone's t-shirt is spotted with engine grease, crisply ironed, tattered etc. than that it's blue. Details tells me something, the colour tells me nothing. Most people own one blue shirt.


3. Following that, readers don't actually care about our character's clothes. At least, not as much as we'd like to believe. You should have it in your own head as you write, sure, but it only becomes relevant if it's important to their personality or effects the plot. So I need to know about Bilbo's ring and sword, but who gives a fuck about his waistcoat?


Even better, if you've established a character's personality well enough the reader will fill in their outfit and appearance for you. I found this out first hand when I started a RP recently, and a few posts in the partner described my character as 'stylish'. I had never described his clothes. Not in my sheet or anywhere else. But he was the sort of guy who'd dress like that, so she had imagined a stylish outfit for him.


4. Adverbs suck. They muddy the prose, and can usually be eliminated with a moment's thought. Just choose a stronger verb.  eg. 'Ran quickly' --> 'sprinted', 'said quietly' --> 'whispered'.


5. Specific nouns are more evocative and will save you words. You mostly won't even need adjectives with the right nouns. eg. bracken > 'thick shrubby plants', Nikes > 'expensive shoes'.


Gah that might be enough for now. Also there's like a million guides online for this stuff, so don't just take my word for it.

 

[Tedronai]

I was once given some great advice that helped me. 'Remember that when you've stopped to describe something, the story has stopped.'


To combat this quite simply I try to ensure that every sentence moves the story forward. That sentence can then be as descriptive as need be so long as it serves the story and isn't there just because I like it.

 

[welian]

Read novels written in compact writing styles.


In my experience, the best way to change your writing style is to read, read, read. When you read someone else's work, you are absorbing their voice and it reflects in your own.


So, I suggest reading The Things They Carried, as I really enjoy the writing style in there. Read short stories from the Science Fiction & Fantasy magazine. Read published works that have been run through a professional editing team. Editors are very good at removing superfluous details that detract from the story.

 

[Eye of Nowhere]

Important questions when writing:

• Does this action contribute meaningfully to the story?
  
• Is added backstory appropriate for the current scene?  How does it explain certain things in a way the reader should know? 
  
• Is additional information required to truely convey the action/scene as intended?
  

It's also beneficial to proofread your completed piece afterwards.  Does it feel too long?  Too short?  Don't look at the number of words. Focus on the feeling of the post.  If it feels drawn out, it probably is.  

 

[LegoLad659]

If it feels drawn out, it probably is.  

One thing I'd like to point out, if he felt his posts were drawn out, he likely wouldn't be posting them in the first place.

 

[wonderandawe]

This topic is a good reason to have someone else read and edit your posts.   When you look at your words for too long, you can miss things you can fix.  A second person can read your writing and tell you what descriptions detract from your purpose.  

 

[One Last Dawn]

Oh boy; hello, there!


I hope this isn't too inappropriate of a place to leave my whining, though given the context I felt like it might be alright... Also, I'd like to apologize beforehand for choppy verbose and the like; I'm writing this on my phone, and in my state of mind, I haven't the wits about me to be concise on the matter, aha. 


In any case! On the topic of purple prose...mine, to be more specific:
I only just heard the term used about two days ago, and I naturally found myself looking into it. (So begins the swift spiral into madness.) I quickly got caught up in the phenomenon that I wasn't at all aware to be a problem/common pet peeve of many writers and readers. All through my education I'd always been taught to write fairly descriptively. To establish scenes/settings and reflect on characters' emotions/developments in correlation to this, which translated to my roleplay responses/posts via both establishing scenes *and* interactions. I've always been a horrid rambler, be it from casual conversation to my writing. Naturally, my innate desire to describe things as they appear in my head only more so weighs down my writing. I was aware that it's an annoying thing, and thus far I've tried to be mindful of it through my writing. But to realize that my "crap writing style" is black and white purple prose, and to learn that most people despise it, is extremely disheartening. Not in that I feel like the problem people have with it is unjustified, because I don't. It's merely that I feel like I'm stuck here. I genuinely don't know how to correct this, which is a little scary. 


I've honestly been mortified to reply to any of my roleplays for the last little while. I adore each one I'm a part of, and I have the feeling that I'm wearing out my partners. The last thing I want to do is to make a fun activity taxing for them or push it to a point that they no longer wish to roleplay with me. 


That said, I'm pretty desperate to cut my habit before it gets worse or harder to ward off than it already seems to be. Would anyone be willing to provide advice, past experiences, tips, etc.? Where the line lies between a flavorful post and purple prose, how to combat it, so on and so forth?


Anything is super helpful, honestly, and I just want to get rid of my awful habit, aha. Thank you in advance, I hope to hear back ! Hah. 

I tend to look into what others have posted as advice before myself going in to see if my two cents are worth the zinc they're stamped on. In this particular case I feel you've already received a great deal of information regarding how to cut, and what to ask yourself while writing your posts. So instead, I am going to provide you some differing food for thought.


All roleplayers are as much readers as we are writers. In some cases it may be fair to say that reading is primarily why we roleplay at all. Roleplay is an interactive medium for creative writing. Without that interactive element we are simply writing a fiction piece. The interaction comes in the form of reply, which is to say the posts that are put forward in response to our writing. We read, we formulate our next contribution to the collaboration, and we post back. The issue of "purple prose" and the dislike of it does not need to be an earmark of bad writing. Our reading preferences often coincide with our roleplay preferences, meaning someone who does not like having to soldier their way through thick blocks of detail in literature likely won't like to do so in roleplay either. This is of course a generalization, but you understand my point.


The bottom line is that you should not force yourself into a style of writing you will not enjoy. You like building scenes and constructing strong, concrete setting with your detail, correct? Do not give that up because you and your roleplay partner fail to mesh. Not everybody enjoys Tolkien, or Stephen King, or Asimov, or Phillip K. Dick. Preference is a large part of this whole beautiful mess we are a part of. Of course you should hone your skills, but do so to your own desired specifications, not those of others. Research the pitfalls of detailed writing rather than how to thin your style into something that feels like the bones of a once fleshed out process. Avoid repetitive detail, balance your story mobility, play with the lens of your details --in short: sharpen your tools and add to your toolbox!


In closing I would like to stress that in no way am I insinuating that others in this thread are asking you to surrender your style, or that anyone is wrong. Writing and roleplay should be fun and feel like our writing. If either of those cease to be true, you've gone awry! Don't lose heart when roleplayers are not compatible, for I am certain that there are others in this very same place who are!

 

[AtlannianSpy]

Like some people here have said, I don't think it's a bad instinct to want to be detailed and evocative in your writing. I tend to be little long winded and Lavish in my detail too and I like to think of it this way.


The words you put down on the page should all be in service to creating a certain mood, a certain tone for the reader. Purple prose is the opposite, it's when the specific words or sentence structures used actually undermine the intended feel of your writing. Purple prose is so flowery and overwrought that it pulls the reader ouy of the scene, out of the story to consciously think about the fact that they are looking at words on a page in the real world.


So when you're going back over something you've just written wondering whether a particular passage is purple or not just try and think about whether the words evoke the feel of the scene at hand or get in the way of it. I mean some scenes deserve to have the detail slathered on with trowel. Longer, more descriptive sentences slow down your pacing, you can use them to create tranquil, relaxed atmosphere or of the scen is unpleasant or scary a slower pace builds tension and unease.


A useful strategy is to read aloud your work. This'll give you a good idea of the rythmn of your writing and a lot of the problems with purple prose: run on, clunky sentences and excessive adjectivery ate much more noticeable when you read it aloud.

 

[WhipDing]

One thing I have noticed is that when RP writing, in general, people do tend to be a lot more descriptive than they would, say, just writing a story alone. I think it's something to do with not being able to take as many "shortcuts" - if you're the only one writing a story, it's easy enough to not mention details until they actually become relevant (e.g. what a character is wearing, what's in the room they've just walked into, etc.), but RP writing needs to inform other RPers about these details before they're relevant. And unless you've got some pretty intense OOC stuff going on, you're not always going to know which of those details will be important to either you or the other RPers beforehand, so it's inevitable that some of those details will be brought up, and never actually become relevant. So you end up with a little extra "fluff" than normal, just for the RPs sake. Not that it's a bad thing, just thought it was interesting  :smile1:

 

[Husk]

You know, this is where I'll toss up the Hemmingway App as a suggestion even though it can be... off sometimes, so take it with a grain of salt. It is made in mind for more compact, shorter prose so it will point out when you have some very lengthy sentences. It'll label it from hard to read (highlighted in yellow) to very hard (highlighted in red). 
Keep in mind that just putting the word sausage in there will give you a readability of like 12 on there so it definitely has its flaws. It will also point out any abuse of adverbs, which someone mentioned above using stronger verbs will cut down a lot. I use it more as a guideline when I toss anything through it. I can cut down on wordier sentences if needed since I tend to get a bit in depth as well.

I actually like quite a bit of detail in a reply unless it hits the over excessive mark. I guess it's subjective. I like simpler prose as well. There is a point where it becomes an issue on both ends of spectrum, too simple or too complex. 
 

 

[Idea]

I will avoid trying to repeat anything that´s already been said, sticking to the "it´s fine to be detailed" bit.


Since much of what I would say has already been said, here are my two cents: Leave some bait.


Even if a post is relatively long and descriptive, the write way to phrase things and an exciting content may still bring in anyone who likes to read. To give an example, Terry Pratchett. While it isn´t permanent, he tends to write really descriptive things sometimes, as he has to convey all the whacky worlds he comes up with to an audience that would otherwise have no idea what was going on. How he succeeds? Well, one of his main strategies is humor. The way he phrases things, and his comparisons and the sequence of events all lead to the reader being amused by the little details.


One pitfall a lot of people fall into is assume that they can "awe" a reader with descriptions. You can´t. Nomatter how amazing the setting, a reader will only give a dam if they are already invested and immersed enough that they bother actually picturing it and putting it into perspective. Remember to put descriptions into action, and to occasionally make them relevant close enough that a reader will notice that you´re using your setting like that.


Not sure if that helped much, but good luck either way!

 

[Tedronai]

Gotta love the Pratchett.