WFC meta discussion: purple prose and lyrical prose
At WFC last weekend, on Thursday night, someone made a reference to purple prose. Context made it clear that everybody understood what was meant. An hour later, in another conversation altogether, someone made a slighting reference to lyrical writing, making air quotes around the word lyrical. When I asked what was meant, I got an interesting volley of answers, too fast to write down.
First, everyone agreed that though purple prose generally is trying to be lyrical, not all lyrical prose is purple. So what makes it purple?
Sentimentality--overly ornate--Did you know that the original meaning of lyrical prose meant bad prose?
"Not bad in the sense of bad grammar or spelling," someone else said. "Bathos."
I pointed out that ‘ornate’ can be in the eye of the reader. There are some literary traditions, especially non-English speaking, that delight in figurative language, especially complex metaphor.
Half agreed, then someone said that she didn’t know if it was translators’ problems, or writers for whom English is a second language, but too often the ‘ornate’ turned out to be ornamental adjective and adverb built around clichés. But the ESL writer might not recognize that a phrase so rare it becomes poetic in Estonian, or Thai, has been overused to deadness in English. And the other way around (after which that conversation dwindled into attempts to write in other languages, and how tough it is.)
I was sufficiently intrigued to ask different groups of people through the weekend what they understood the term "purple prose" to mean. After all, it was a con full of writers. And not one of them was confused by the term. They all knew what it meant. What I found interesting was the variety of definitions.
The most frequent definition had to do with overloading adjectives into sentences. I believe it was Ellen Kushner who pointed out that purple prose could also be the loading of adverbs into a sentence to bolster an ineffective verb.
Other definitions included overelaborate--pretentious--an effort to sound poetic but failing --and mawkish. There was a lot of agreement about sentimentality instead of real emotion.
The two times I tried asking for examples of specific works broke up the discussion, because so often such questions come down to taste.
But people did offer concrete examples to which others would agree. I will get to those in a moment. The first subject I wanted to dig into was sentimentality. Most agreed that this was excessive or affected attempts at Big Emotion, often without it being earned. Of course, how you earn emotion wasn't so easy to pin down. But there was more agreement about cheats, such as introducing characters who are too good to be true that experienced readers know are redshirts--to be offed in the next chapter in order to make the reader feel sorry for the hero.
As usual, examples weren’t so easy to agree on. One person said she was totally disgusted by the introduction of Kvothe’s parents in The Name of the Wind. They were so perfect that they simply had to be killed ten pages later. But someone else mourned, "Nooo! You cannot touch that awesome book!"
So we went back to discussing specifics in prose without mentioning books, short stories, or authors. One person said that poetic oxymorons drove him nuts, but it seemed to him that writers who employed a lot of that trick were praised for it. Overused metaphors--overused superlatives piled on--trite expressions masquerading as new expressions, but not really. Like "A shiver trickled down her spine."
Another person pointed out that such clichés, whether sentimental or not, were not always recognized by readers as such. This is how a lyrical writer for one person is syrupy for a writer, who (supposedly) has a keener ear for trite and overused expressions. Uncritical readers will accept the author’s claim to poesy without recognizing whether poetry actually happened.
Commenting on that, somebody pointed out that such expressions serve to remind the reader "Important Emotional Moment Here!" So the reader might acknowledge that the characters are feeling it, without actually feeling the emotion themselves. And many readers don’t actually want to feel emotions such as gnawing fear or heart-breaking grief. Clichés are safety valves. But they can also keep the book from being memorable.
I wondered if this might explain why a given ‘lyrical’ book, though popular now, is forgotten two years down the road. It's like the author told us what to feel all the way through but we didn't actually feel it, there was no genuine emotion on the part of the reader, and so the story is easy to forget. In contrast, the book with genuine emotion, or complex emotion that rings true to experience, draws us back to reread. It doesn't have to be bad emotion--it can be good, too.
Anyway, I asked if anyone else had automatic sentimentality triggers. Like mine is ‘achingly vulnerable.’ "Throes used seriously." "Abound." "Utterly, especially when no one is uttering anything--utter darkness, utter despair, utter nutter." *snickers*
"Myriad." "No, I like that word!" "But it’s practically lost its meaning, it means thousands, ‘myriad emotions’ how can anyone have thousands of emotions?"
While that jetted off into another subject, I recalled a word from a couple centuries ago--‘poetaster’. That was someone who wanted to be seen as a poet, and who might put together strings of popular ideas, clothed in threadbare classical metaphor, but who didn’t (or couldn’t) do the work of real poetry.
I mentioned that to a couple people while conversing in a corner of a noisy room. We talked it over. Would the modern poetaster be the person whose prose throws out breathless metaphor and superlatives that are commonly employed ("gazed into the very depths of despair") without actually furnishing any real insight? All the trappings are there--usually restated in increasingly bombastic words, as if the writer senses that it’s not quite working.
Bombastic: "Eyes that project emotions, especially from behind.'Behind her eyes he saw the depths of the abyss. . ."
"Redundancies for emphasis, like ‘Fundamental bedrock, or blackest midnight.’"
"’Very’ as an adjective," someone said, to a hail of agreement, and "Behind her eyes he saw the very depths of despair."
Another commented that ‘very’ as an adjective almost always modifies clichés, as if to give them more heft. I thought of several, like ‘the core of one’s being’ modified by ‘very core of one’s being.’ Doesn’t help. That one is a definite sign of sentimentality--an overused signal for deep emotion without actually having to do the work to make that emotion personal or insightful.
The examples came fast, ‘very abyss’ instead of ‘abyss, ‘the very idea’ instead of ‘the idea’ but it can cheapen any ordinary noun: ‘very heartbeat’ ‘very joy’ ‘the very thought.’
Someone pointed out that very, like any other intensifier, can be effective once in a while, but like semi-colons, once you find a sprinkling on every page, the effect lessens correspondingly.
First, everyone agreed that though purple prose generally is trying to be lyrical, not all lyrical prose is purple. So what makes it purple?
Sentimentality--overly ornate--Did you know that the original meaning of lyrical prose meant bad prose?
"Not bad in the sense of bad grammar or spelling," someone else said. "Bathos."
I pointed out that ‘ornate’ can be in the eye of the reader. There are some literary traditions, especially non-English speaking, that delight in figurative language, especially complex metaphor.
Half agreed, then someone said that she didn’t know if it was translators’ problems, or writers for whom English is a second language, but too often the ‘ornate’ turned out to be ornamental adjective and adverb built around clichés. But the ESL writer might not recognize that a phrase so rare it becomes poetic in Estonian, or Thai, has been overused to deadness in English. And the other way around (after which that conversation dwindled into attempts to write in other languages, and how tough it is.)
I was sufficiently intrigued to ask different groups of people through the weekend what they understood the term "purple prose" to mean. After all, it was a con full of writers. And not one of them was confused by the term. They all knew what it meant. What I found interesting was the variety of definitions.
The most frequent definition had to do with overloading adjectives into sentences. I believe it was Ellen Kushner who pointed out that purple prose could also be the loading of adverbs into a sentence to bolster an ineffective verb.
Other definitions included overelaborate--pretentious--an effort to sound poetic but failing --and mawkish. There was a lot of agreement about sentimentality instead of real emotion.
The two times I tried asking for examples of specific works broke up the discussion, because so often such questions come down to taste.
But people did offer concrete examples to which others would agree. I will get to those in a moment. The first subject I wanted to dig into was sentimentality. Most agreed that this was excessive or affected attempts at Big Emotion, often without it being earned. Of course, how you earn emotion wasn't so easy to pin down. But there was more agreement about cheats, such as introducing characters who are too good to be true that experienced readers know are redshirts--to be offed in the next chapter in order to make the reader feel sorry for the hero.
As usual, examples weren’t so easy to agree on. One person said she was totally disgusted by the introduction of Kvothe’s parents in The Name of the Wind. They were so perfect that they simply had to be killed ten pages later. But someone else mourned, "Nooo! You cannot touch that awesome book!"
So we went back to discussing specifics in prose without mentioning books, short stories, or authors. One person said that poetic oxymorons drove him nuts, but it seemed to him that writers who employed a lot of that trick were praised for it. Overused metaphors--overused superlatives piled on--trite expressions masquerading as new expressions, but not really. Like "A shiver trickled down her spine."
Another person pointed out that such clichés, whether sentimental or not, were not always recognized by readers as such. This is how a lyrical writer for one person is syrupy for a writer, who (supposedly) has a keener ear for trite and overused expressions. Uncritical readers will accept the author’s claim to poesy without recognizing whether poetry actually happened.
Commenting on that, somebody pointed out that such expressions serve to remind the reader "Important Emotional Moment Here!" So the reader might acknowledge that the characters are feeling it, without actually feeling the emotion themselves. And many readers don’t actually want to feel emotions such as gnawing fear or heart-breaking grief. Clichés are safety valves. But they can also keep the book from being memorable.
I wondered if this might explain why a given ‘lyrical’ book, though popular now, is forgotten two years down the road. It's like the author told us what to feel all the way through but we didn't actually feel it, there was no genuine emotion on the part of the reader, and so the story is easy to forget. In contrast, the book with genuine emotion, or complex emotion that rings true to experience, draws us back to reread. It doesn't have to be bad emotion--it can be good, too.
Anyway, I asked if anyone else had automatic sentimentality triggers. Like mine is ‘achingly vulnerable.’ "Throes used seriously." "Abound." "Utterly, especially when no one is uttering anything--utter darkness, utter despair, utter nutter." *snickers*
"Myriad." "No, I like that word!" "But it’s practically lost its meaning, it means thousands, ‘myriad emotions’ how can anyone have thousands of emotions?"
While that jetted off into another subject, I recalled a word from a couple centuries ago--‘poetaster’. That was someone who wanted to be seen as a poet, and who might put together strings of popular ideas, clothed in threadbare classical metaphor, but who didn’t (or couldn’t) do the work of real poetry.
I mentioned that to a couple people while conversing in a corner of a noisy room. We talked it over. Would the modern poetaster be the person whose prose throws out breathless metaphor and superlatives that are commonly employed ("gazed into the very depths of despair") without actually furnishing any real insight? All the trappings are there--usually restated in increasingly bombastic words, as if the writer senses that it’s not quite working.
Bombastic: "Eyes that project emotions, especially from behind.'Behind her eyes he saw the depths of the abyss. . ."
"Redundancies for emphasis, like ‘Fundamental bedrock, or blackest midnight.’"
"’Very’ as an adjective," someone said, to a hail of agreement, and "Behind her eyes he saw the very depths of despair."
Another commented that ‘very’ as an adjective almost always modifies clichés, as if to give them more heft. I thought of several, like ‘the core of one’s being’ modified by ‘very core of one’s being.’ Doesn’t help. That one is a definite sign of sentimentality--an overused signal for deep emotion without actually having to do the work to make that emotion personal or insightful.
The examples came fast, ‘very abyss’ instead of ‘abyss, ‘the very idea’ instead of ‘the idea’ but it can cheapen any ordinary noun: ‘very heartbeat’ ‘very joy’ ‘the very thought.’
Someone pointed out that very, like any other intensifier, can be effective once in a while, but like semi-colons, once you find a sprinkling on every page, the effect lessens correspondingly.