Purple Prose? No, it's Called Style.

[norilana]

I have been, upon occasion, described as writing purple proseAs someone whose native linguistic mindset was formed by the Russian language first before any other, and whose reading was shaped by old literature, I used to find it curious, but understandable -- cognitive and linguistic differences abound between various languages and evolving eras of

Comments

[superversive]

I’ve noticed that the people most apt to complain about purple prose, and insist on writing in the painfully spare and flat style that one clever duck has called ‘The Heming Way’, are also among the most self-consciously literary. ‘Transparent prose’ (a complete misnomer, for reasons I may get around to blogging one of these days) was a fad of the 1920s that gathered momentum and became received critical wisdom. It’s still being taught in English departments, largely because it’s easier than learning the art of rhetoric and the uses of language.

In terms of your last metaphor, this movement has nothing to do with eating simple food instead of gourmet fare. Rather, it’s the literary equivalent of nouvelle cuisine, where three beans and a gerbil cutlet, artfully arranged on a plate, are supposed to count as a $60 entrée. And I say nuts to them both.

[starshipcat]

Yeah. I keep getting dinged for having "too many" named characters -- it seems at least some editors have this formula that a story of x length should have no more than y named characters

[marycatelli]

Wrestling with natural naming patterns and drowning the readers in characters they have a hard time keeping straight -- and which may be given undue importance in readers' eyes by names -- is something I've been arguing with for a long time.

[norilana]

Great points, and elegantly put! :-) And I really like your nouvelle cuisine comparison.

[jryson]

Yes, a side of nuts might help.