Complaining: Purple Prose

Rarely complimentary and downright whiny are not the same thing. Even if the specific term "purple prose" is usually used in a negative sense, what it's generally used to describe is a more neutral trope. The quoted definition is not something I think we want to pattern a page after.

See also: Manic Pixie Dream Girl, which was coined as an insult but is used for a neutral trope.

Upon receipt of a perfunctory notice that this koffeeklatch of mellifleury has become pointedly stale and distressingly cobwebbed, I have therefore attached a notification of its demise in 72 hours, in the absence of a satisfactory course of action being compromised upon and duly executed.

edited 4th Feb '14 6:29:22 PM by Willbyr

... what?

Thread is clocked.

Okay, I'm seeing a lot of examples that do not fit the definition ("stretches of conspicuously florid prose used to patch up boring moments") at all. There are many that are simply "florid prose" in general. There are others that have it meshed in such a way that it's Sophisticated as Hell rather than this. There is Lavender Unicorn Syndrome. There are Technicolor Eyes. And so on and so forth.

Personally, I say leave it because we've censored the wiki so as not to offend people enough at this point. There's a fine line between removing bashing and being a door-mat, and fear we're starting to cross it.

It's not a matter of being a doormat, it's a matter of precision and quality, both of which are sacrificed here in the altar of Snark and Cheap Shots. The more I look at this page, the more I see a problem of Misuse and Lack of Clarity. Obviously a prose that obscures the meaning with Big Words and overwrought metaphors is not the best material to make a Self-Demonstrating description article from, because all people seem to have gotten from it was "this is for flowery prose I don't like", which, in practice, translates to "any flowery prose except for those of the Classic Masters, unless another Classic Master is insulting them for it, in which case I'll let them do the bashing".

More importantly, I am 100% behind being a "doormat"; the content of a wiki stabilizes at consensus. This wiki does not have an ideological mission, it does not stand for some cause, it wants to catalogue and classify the tropes in fiction, in a way that takes as little time out of its volunteer managers as possible.

edited 7th Feb '14 12:27:20 AM by TheHandle

It's not about not offending people. It's about keeping on-topic (the topic of the wiki is tropes, not bashing works you don't like or gushing about those you like), avoiding "This works sucks!/Not it doesn't!/Does too!" discussions, and keeping the discussion reasonably objective.

And here I see a big problem with Purple Prose as a trope: there is no objective definition. To me, it rather seems as a derogative label put on florid prose you don't like. If you like it, it's not purple. So does it really fit here? Is it even a trope?

edited 7th Feb '14 1:06:24 AM by GnomeTitan

If you manage to read through the horrible article (or check Wikipedia), you'll find that it does have an objective definition: namely, a cross between Mundane Made Awesome and Padding, where inherently dull transtitions are made more entertaining by describing them with florid language, when such language is not cohesive with the general style of the text, and, therefore, sticks out and draws attention to itself, hurting immersion along the way.

edited 7th Feb '14 1:58:16 AM by TheHandle

Purple Prose is literary term that certainly has a place on this wiki. It also has a generally recognized, pre-existing definition that our article should use.

The only question in my mind is how we should treat examples, given that the negative connotation of Purple Prose and given that even in the pre-existing definition, it is generally acknowledges that there is a certain amount of subjectivity as to when exactly something crosses the purple line.

edited 7th Feb '14 5:29:36 AM by Catbert

There are definitely a bunch of examples that don't fit the standard definition. If we make Purple Prose a subtrope of "Florid Prose", for example, that could do. But an instance of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome or referring to a character's eyes with exotic colour descriptors does not fit the definition.

We don't have an article named Main/Lavender Unicorn Syndrome. We do, however have:

Fan Fic/Lavender Unicorn Syndrome

edited 7th Feb '14 7:01:55 AM by peccantis

Lavender Unicorn Syndrome or burly detective syndrome is when you unnecessarily replace a character's name with a descriptor. Again, in the YKTTW, they call it "a form of Purple Prose", which it is not.

Purple Prose isn't just florid, it's when it's so florid it becomes borderline unreadable.

Not quite. Purple prose is a form of padding where you make inherently dull moments more entertaining by overusing pretty words. Readability has nothing to do with it. That would be another trope, one we do not have yet.

Which can make it near-unreadable.

Yes but that is neither sufficient nor necessary for the trope to apply. Readability is as much a function of the reader as it is of the text.

You've obviously never read really bad narration if you think it's always the readers problem.

The Handle seems to be persisting under the belief that the term "Purple Prose" is not pejorative and is about making things more entertaining. Nothing can be further from the truth. It is almost invariably an insult denoting bad writing. Our page should reflect that. That being said, I do think that outside of examples intentionally invoked or lampshaded, it is a subjective thing.

I think the following would be a good model for our approach to this page.

http://theadvancededit.com/academic-writing/purple-prose-what-it-is-and-how-to-avoid-it/

edited 7th Feb '14 7:58:47 PM by Catbert

@The Handle: I don't know what definition of Purple Prose you are using, but the general consensus I found agrees that Purple Prose is a form of bad writing.

As far as the basic description goes, it's when a piece of writing is needlessly ornate or flowery language, though the key word here is - I suppose - "needlessly". The use of flowery/ornate language that is "done well" is apparently not considered Purple Prose, and the distinction between "excessive" and "well-done" is very blur.

Some people may cringe at any form of descriptions that isn't Beige Prose (hence the complaining in the Examples section) while others may find these excessive descriptors appealing (I know several people who likes The Inheritance Cycle for precisely this reason).

At the very least, I think this page needs a YMMV tag. Examples can be cleaned up to be more objective, or limited to deliberate cases - though I'd personally rather see them just removed altogether.

There are several examples that the editor thought were "Done Well". Gustave Flaubert and HP Lovecraft, among others, are mentioned. I myself find Lovercraft's prose tedious, unimpressive, and overcrafted by today's standards, but you don't see me bitching.

There is one article on Wikipedia to define the term, and it appears to lack citations. Apparently, the term "purple prose" comes from a poem that complains of a work that's otherwise good being bogged down by "purple patches".

So:

• Purple Prose: draws excessive attention to itself, is sensually evocative beyond the requirements of its context, and is manipulative of the reader's feelings. In other words, it violates the Law of Conservation of Detail and/or Show, Don't Tell, by distracting and detracting from the story or by telling the reader how to feel.
• Purple Patches: when it does that in localized stretches of prose, that are all the more conspicuous and jarring for it.

I think people are starting to repeat themselves. It might be time to go to a crowner.

What are some possible actions we can take to fix this page?

My proposal would be to make this a YMMV page, but also allow for examples that are objectively invoked In-Universe, sort of like Stylistic Suck.

edited 8th Feb '14 9:00:20 AM by Catbert

That seems to be for the best (since all my posts here have been pretty much saying the same points over and over again), and I agree with the proposal.

Do we have any other options?

I don't think it would work without allowing for invoked examples.

I wonder if making it YMMV would cause the examples to go out of control with people justifying bad examples with it.

It is already YMMV by definition.