Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Needs Help
, started by Catalogue on Apr 6th 2012 at 10:09:50 AM
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Complaining, started by TheHandle on Jan 2nd 2014 at 11:49:07 AM
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Needs Help, started by SantosLHalper on Jun 2nd 2015 at 3:47:40 PM
Verbiage is misspelled in the alternative title in the bottom... Can't figure out how to edit it. Someone please help!
I'm a bit bothered in general with this page. As it seems to need a purge in design. If it gave straight examples of the embellished writing but got rid of all the snobbish remarks in the main paragraphs an examples it would be a better page.
Or is that point? And this is just a page for those that have a problem with any writer's description to come and write a complaint? If so then it really needs to be made a YMMV entry instead of a trope.
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I think that 'V' from 'V for Vendetta' definitely constitutes a good film example. Was it based off a comic? If so, perhaps another example there. Although I suppose it is part of the characterisation and with the story told through the perspective of 'Evie' it could be argued it doesn't create variance in the style of expression. Up to the interpretation of the articles' administration I suppose but just a suggestion I thought to be merit-worthy.
People really, really seem to have an issue with Purple Prose here; as if any kind of flowery or descriptive use of writing translates to bad fanfiction pretending to be sophisticated literature. There's a difference between being poetic and creative to make the reader feel like they're right there in the scene, and taking pages and pages of the gutted entrails of a mutilated thesaurus to describe someone's eyeballs. There's a difference between the kind of subtle, velvety tone of the solemn, placid twilight, and the tacky, garish neon-amethyst color of Mary Sue's Technicolor Eyes. See what I mean?
Note how they are technically both cases of this trope, but the key to doing this trope well is to use it sparingly.
Edited by 76.28.217.19 Hide/Show Replies
If you use it sparingly, then it's not this trope. Purple Prose is an insult-by calling something purple prose, you are stating that it has gone too far, and crossed the line from flowery/descriptive into just plain nonsense.
I made a additional thread on the subject because that seems far too snobbish. The literature section of this page really comes off like "waaah the author was too wordy for me waaaah". Which in that case every example should be a YMMV, just because you think they went too far certainly doesn't give you the right to impose everyone else think that way.
I understand how much many people hate this, but I figured out a way to use this in a way that makes sense. It shows up in a fanfic whenever the perspective flips to a character who I've more or less diagnosed with histrionic personality disorder. As such, being a melodramatic Large Ham and Emo Teen to boot fits right in with everything about this person going overboard, including the narrative. Hilariously, I have to flip-flop between that person and another guy who is curt and concise practically to a fault. The second one is actually harder for me to write, because, as for the first guy and me...
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It may make narrative sense, but that doesn't make it any less bad to wade through. The narrator of Rebecca is really bland and dips into Purple Prose a couple times, and this is all important and relevant, but the book is still hard to read and often boring because of it.
Found this bit of purple prose in the literature examples section. That seemed like entirely the wrong place for it, so I'm relocating it here.
- Despite the numerous aforementioned examples wherein the intensely lurid and potentially malapropism-laden pith of the amaranthine compositions which this article is devoted to cataloguing serves to facilitate the general mediocrity of the works mentioned therein, it should be noted withal that to the contrary of previous examples, a merely esoteric and extravagant expository affectation contains within it the potential to bring about a type of literary experience which would otherwise be impossible, rather than sufficing only to engender the unequivocal condemnation of the magna opera here referenced:
Drolyt decided to pull this one and I agree — it's not that Harry Potter has no Purple Prose, it is the fact that this passage is not accurately recalled. The natter is also probably correct with respect to the purpose of the prose style at that point. If someone is replacing Harry Potter on the main page I would suggest scraping this non-example and choosing a valid passage to cite.
- Harry Potter isn't immune to this. Probably the worst offender comes after Sirius' death, when Harry is sitting in Dumbledore's office, and the narrator mentions that, " the hole in Harry's chest had been filled with a weighty, writhing parasite" to paraphrase. Yeah, he just lost his godfather ... but that makes it sound like he's being attacked by some kind of alien too.
- Except for how, well, it doesn't say anything remotely similar to that at all. (In fact, most of the descriptions are purposely raw, rambling and unsatisfying, since Harry can't put into words the horror he feels at Sirius's death.) On the other hand, a chunk of the ''Deathly Hallows" chapter "The Flaw In The Plan", between the beginning of Harry and Voldemort's final duel and the very end, where Harry wanders to bed longing for a sandwich, is cringe-inducingly purple.
I'll just leave this quote here, couldn't find a place for it on the main page... (Source: a discussion thread from SCP Foundation wiki)
[NAME REDACTED] wrote: This is the shittiest shit ever shat. You've gone beyond purple prose and managed to shart out ultraviolet.
No wonder the SCP in question got deleted...
Afterthought: No wait, it was a Foundation Tale written from SCP-682's POV.
Edited by Kimura
I think TV Tropes would collapse if we listed all the examples from anime. Whenever I watch an adult anime it feels like it was written (or at least translated) by Burt Shlubb and Douglas Klump.
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Quote changes
, started by MrDeath on May 18th 2011 at 12:19:36 AM