Complaining: Purple Prose

Let's summarize the options we've considered so far, and perhaps make a crowner.

The main options I've seen so far are:

1. Make this a YMMV page
2. Restrict it to examples which are purposely invoked for the sake of spoofing Purple Prose, as a kind of Stylistic Suck
3. Re-write the definition so as to make the term "Purple Prose" not be so negative.

I'm fine with either of the first two. The last would be, in my opinion, a mistake, because it would put us out of sync with how most of the world uses the term.

My vote would be for number one. I rather not cut examples at all.

Well, it's certainly the simplest, but the examples could use a cleanup in their presentation. Right now they sound like something right out of Something Awful or Encyclopedia Dramatica; all bile and no substance. The What An Idiot page is an excellent example of how to do this right.

Also, we need a precise definition of Purple Prose. I'd suggest "Filler that the writer attempts to make more interesting by using unnecessarily pretty, flowery language, sometimes to the point of making the text hard to read and otherwise being counter-productive to the delivery of the story." Examples that are just "this writer uses flowery prose, right or not" could have their own trope. Examples that are "this writer uses flowery-prose-as-filler right" would either not be examples or be sub/a/inversions.

I'd personally choose 3, because otherwise we'd have the "Trope X done well/Trope X done badly" issue

Normally that's not a problem, but this trope is supposed to be inherently bad.

I know. On one hand, Tropes Are Tools, on the other hand, the Mary Sue pages we have here is still defined as a "badly-written character".

Re-clocking.

Oh, what to do, what to do...

Ask for a crowner with the options described in @77.

A contest! Of strength! Agility and guts! Let's put our proposals to the test!

Here's the crowner.

ETA: I just realized that the issue had actually been raised before, but never reached consensus for some reason.

edited 27th Apr '14 6:25:52 AM by theAdeptRogue

Calling something purple prose is not compliment. Ever. We're defining he term here for people who may not be familiar with it. We're never going to rewrite it so that it is neutral, because it isn't ever neutral. It would be like rewriting Evil because it not complimentaary.