Candy’s Part of the Rant:
I have to thank Rebecca Brandewyne for writing the column on purple prose today because I had nothing to talk about; I was planning on quietly working on a few things like, ohhhh, actual WORK, but now I have something more fun to play with.
Purple prose. I hates it, precioussssss. And for those of you who read my comment in Romancing the Blog, I distinguish between lyrical writing and purple prose, which is a pejorative term. It wasn’t originally, but hey, gone are also the days when “gay” was used primarily to mean “lighthearted and happy,” and “anti-semitic” means “hatred of Jews” even though many, many Jews aren’t semitic and many semitic peoples aren’t Jewish and are, in fact, anti-semitic themselves.
Whoops, I digress. Back to discussions of purpleness.
To me, prose becomes purple instead of merely descriptive or lyrical when the author does any of the following:
1. She is a habitual noun- and verb-molester. It’s a sickness. She can’t leave the naked, quivering, defenceless word alone; she must assault it with modifiers, gleefully thrust in multiple adjectives and adverbs, and violate it merrily with superlatives and bad metaphors—not unlike what I’m doing to this paragraph now.
2. The descriptions, while elaborate, are almost always quite painfully mundane. The wind is “cruel and biting,” bare branches are “gnarled, grasping fingers,” the eyes are “sparkling orbs,” old women are “withered crones,” words are not spoken, they’re “rasped passionately.” Nothing new is offered; you’re drowned in a sea of descriptions that have been used so often, they’re well-nigh meaningless.
3. When the prose isn’t mundane, it’s jarring. The phrase “alabaster mounds,” when used to describe breasts, often makes me think of large lumps of cold, dead marble; probably not the effect the author wanted to achieve. And I won’t even tell you what I think when I read words like “slick love grotto” or “passion-bedewed portal,” though the phrase “gag me” does feature prominently in these thoughts.
4. To these authors, more = mo’ betta. The old maxim to make every word count holds no meaning to them, neither does the concept that over-described objects can interfere every bit as much with a reader’s visualization as under-described objects.
Take, for instance, this passage from the beginning of Laura Kinsale’s The Prince of Midnight. In this passage, S.T. first realizes that Leigh, the heroine, is actually a woman dressed as a boy:
He was certain of it. Abruptly and utterly certain. The soft, husky voice that didn’t rise and fall in ordinary tones, but stayed stubbornly gruff; that skin, those lips, the slender build—oh, she was a female, the sly little cat. She had the face to carry it off, too, clean and striking, marvelous, with a full jaw and dramatic brows, and enough height and carriage to pass for a youth of sixteen.
In my opinion, descriptive, but not purple. Now witness what adding and/or changing some modifiers can do to the passage:
He was certain of it. Abruptly and utterly certain. The soft, husky voice that didn’t rise and fall in ordinary tones, but stayed stubbornly gruff and raspy; that creamy skin, those beestung, lush lips, the slender build with the deliciously rounded bottom that was far, far too luscious to be male—oh, she was a female, the sly little creamcat. She had the face to carry it off, too, clean and striking, marvelous, with a full jaw and dramatic, winged brows that soared on her smooth alabaster forehead like angels in flight, and enough height and carriage to pass for a devastatingly beautiful youth of sixteen, a youth worthy of being sculpted by no less a master than Michelangelo.
One paragraph of this sort of writing is one thing, but a whole bookful of it? GAH.
I’m not going to be all PC and say that “there’s no such thing as bad or good, it’s all personal preference.” OK, it’s somewhat personal in that the purple line in the sand is located differently for different people. But once that line is crossed? Purple prose is bad writing. Bad, bad, bad.
I also don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with liking it. Shit, I like Doritos, and it’s certainly not haut cuisine, nor do they have any sort of redeeming nutritional value. I even acknowledge that they look, smell and taste kind of disgusting (especially the Cool Ranch flavor), but I don’t care, I love ‘em anyway.
Same thing with purple authors. When I’m in the right mood and when the author gets the shade of lilac just right, I enjoy reading purple prose, much in the same way I enjoy a really silly blockbuster in which the most taxing thing I have to do is trying to decide if Keanu’s semi-pained frown is indicative of his character’s inner turmoil, or whether he needs to up his Metamucil dosage.
More often than not, though, I can’t stand purple prose. It drives me nuts; the inner editor in me longs to drag out the red pen and slash out all the unnecessary modifiers. With lascivious, wanton abandon, even.
Sarah’s Part of the Rant:
My purple prose master, the author to whom I kneel when I search for the overwrought, overwritten, and overblown, is Beatrice Small. In fact, while going through books to keep or to donate this weekend, I pulled out the sequel to “Blaze Wyndham,” which is hands-down my favorite purple book, which follows the saga of Blaze’s daughter Nyssa. I put it in the ‘Keeper’ pile, as I don’t own a copy of Blaze Wyndham so Nyssa will have to do until I find one.
Hubby asked, “Why are you keeping that book?”
Sarah: “Because it is the most purple book I own.”
Hubby: “Purple?”
Sarah: “Yeah. Purple. The prose.”
Hubby: “Huh?”
Sarah: “Stay right there.” Flips to page where Nyssa has sex. (Of COURSE Nyssa has some sex! What would a purple be without some nookie?)
Sarah: “Ahem: ‘He deposited his love juices into her moist canal.’”
Hubby: “WHAT?! You can’t throw that book away! You have to keep that!”
Phrases like that define the purplest of the purple. To back Candy up, oh yes, nothing turns a book to grape flavoring like overworked words: “huskily” is my personal trigger, along with “redolent.” For some reason, I see “redolent” and my brain reads “corpulent.” Not at all what the author was intending, I imagine.
For example, I have now in front of me said saga of Nyssa and her love juices. Here are some purply examples for your titillating pleasure:
“Your love juices begin to flow, sweetheart,” he said softly, kissing her ear as he spoke. “That is how I know you are ready for me.” The tip of his finger found her tiny love button and he rubbed it….
She cried his name even as the feeling of pressure building within her exploded in a starbust of incredible pleasure… He could feel his love juices gushing forth in a great discharge of sweetness that overflowed her womb. He fell forward atop her body, exhausted, yet filled with a contentment he had never known.
Ah, the golden standards of purpleism: love juices, love button, and, further into the sexcapades of Nyssa in “Love, Remember Me,” we find his raging member.
What bothers me most is that purple prose does little to advance the story or even distinguish it from others of its ilk. I picture the author trying to come up with a masterful adverb or a devastating adjective, and unwittingly using the standby seen in hundreds of other works, even as the author tries to deviate from the pack. It’s sad – it’s like talking to someone who doesn’t express a thought originally, but couches everything in cliche so you feel like you’re not really talking to anyone. Not anyone intelligent, anyway.
“I picture the author trying to come up with a masterful adverb or a devastating adjective, and unwittingly using the standby seen in hundreds of other works, even as the author tries to deviate from the pack.”
Perhaps this is one of the reasons that “good” purple prose is a thing of the past? When the authors I think Rebecca was referring to used it, it was new and lush and exciting. Now, it’s trite and overdone, almost like authors depend far too much on the romances of old that they grew up with, and the phrases found therein.
I’ve only ever read one Bertrice Small book and while it certainly was titilating it was also……unique – yea that’s a good word, unique. I was very laughingly titilated while reading it.
Well, there goes everything I was gonna guest-bitch about. Damn.
Oh Beth, bring it on! We’d love your purple examples of purply purpleness and purpletude!
Can you see me jumping up and down and shrieking “Yes! Yes!” a la Paula Abdul? No? Good, because it was embarassing enough that all of America saw her do it!
Sarah – I’ll just mix things up a bit and call it “aubergine”—they’ll never notice…
Meljean: I think there’s a qualitative difference between the descriptive prose people like Dickens, Melville and Mitchell indulge in, if not necessarily a quantitative difference, compared to, say, Kathleen Woodiwiss or Bertrice Small. Although, hmmmm, Melville DID devote paragraph upon paragraph on the joys of squeezing the fragrant, slippery sperm with his fellow sailors…. (No, I’m not kidding—those of you who haven’t read Moby Dick should totally check out that scene, and those of you who have should totally re-read it so you can enjoy the finest homoeroticism American literature had to offer until Walt Whitman showed on the scene with his twenty-eight nekkid and frolicsome young men.)
And Beth: I don’t think we’ve even begun to mine the embarrassment of riches Foley offers.
Oh, oh, definitely a qualitative difference. I do find it interesting that the example used in the RTB column was from Melville instead of Woodiwiss—I really didn’t consider that purple prose in any way, so it was an odd example to see. If I had seen an evocative, lovely scene from Woodiwiss or another purply _romance_ author, it would have made more sense to me.
I guess what I meant was that the cliche aspect of it…I wonder if the over-the-top purple prose that is being called “good” is partly just a nostalgic look back on phrases and ways of talking that seemed new?
I have read authors who are descriptive and evocative and lyrical without going into purple territory—which is, to me, a cliche/overwrought way of writing.
So “good” purple prose seems odd to me; I realize that Rebecca is saying that the term is just getting a bum rap—but I also wonder if the defense of it goes back to a reader’s discovery of the genre, and a yearning for those days when certain phrases weren’t overdone, before they became cliche.
To me, evocative, lyrical prose excites me because of that feeling of newness—something is described in a way that I’ve never felt before (and I think you mentioned something like this as well in the RTB comments? Sorry if I’m retreading) It’s saying, “wow, I’ve never thought of this/seen it put this way before”.
And since many readers of romance discovered the genre through Woodiwiss or another purply author from the 70’s/early 80’s, I wonder if the yearning for the purple or appreciation of it is more of a desire to recall that “new to the genre” feeling, to recapture the sense of discovery. A sense of “new” that is not wholly different from the discovery of a really beautiful, lyrical passage (like you’d find in Melville).
Sigh. Not sure I’m making any sense 🙂
I’m with Angie. Except I need to hold my boobs while I jump up and down. *g*
While I don’t think there’s any need to rehabilitate the term purple prose, I do think that writing is sometimes cut way back, to the point that I find it impossible to get into the story. Lots is happening and I don’t care.
In today’s books, I find this underwriting much more common than purple prose, though pp has the definite advantage of being easier to laugh at. Apart from Beatrice Small (I think I read a chapter of hers once), are you finding much purple prose being written now?
I agree, Jorie, we may need to rework the definition of purple prose. When I refer to Small and Lindsey as examples, I’m also thinking of Old Skool romance novels with florid prose and heaving bosoms, raging members and love juices. And some rape. Usually at least once instance.
Is there over-the-top writing that sucks you in? One of the reasons I enjoyed reveling in the Gaelen Foley I read, Pirate Prince, was it felt like a trip back in time, with incredibly inflated prose, plotlines, and much less emotional depth as much as physical scintillation and setting description. Sort of the difference between acrylics and watercolors, only in writing. And I loved the contrast.
Perhaps purple prose has been somewhat replaced by explorations of physical and emotional development in the characters, with some watercolor fragility on the part of the characters, instead of constant displays of manly virile strength on the part of the hero- and on the part of the writer’s use of adverbs and adjectives?
Jorie: Like HelenKay, I can’t think of a single book I’ve read recently (much less a romance novel) that suffered from under-writing. D’you have any specific examples? Because I’d be interested in checking it out. It very well may be that my tolerance for under-writing (like my tolerance for eating foods featuring odd pork by-products) is unusually high.
Purple prose is definitely a lot less common nowadays; it’s fallen out of vogue.
And Meljean: I hear you about the novelty aspect of old-skool romances back when they were first read, but it seems like they bear a resemblance to eighteenth/nineteenth-century Gothics romances, only with more sex. And my issue with Woodiwiss et al lies every bit as much with how they can’t leave a damn noun or verb alone as with the recycling of cliches. When almost every word is modified to within an inch of its life, and these modifiers are more often than not hyperbolic or superlatives, my brain feels tired and numb—it’s as if somebody was constantly yelling and crying rightinmyear, you know what I mean?
My Captcha word is cent51, and I find that really funny. This isn’t just my two cents—I’m a long winded bitch! Have 51 of them, fools!
Is there over-the-top writing that sucks you in?
Not full-on over-the-top, if that makes any sense. At least, I can’t think of any. Now Linda Howard’s prose isn’t what I think of as over-the-top but her characterization can be and it sometimes sucks me in. Shades of Twilight was one book I should have hated, but didn’t, say.
Or Jacqueline Carey’s prose is lush (though not over-the-top, I guess) but she keeps the emotions tightly reined to counter that. (Not that I actually finished Kushiel’s Dart but I did love that opening third.)
Perhaps purple prose has been somewhat replaced by explorations of physical and emotional development in the characters, with some watercolor fragility on the part of the characters, instead of constant displays of manly virile strength on the part of the hero- and on the part of the writer’s use of adverbs and adjectives
Interesting and I think you’re onto something. (Although I totally missed reading romance in most of the 80’s and 90’s so I don’t have much historical perspective.)
Jorie: Like HelenKay, I can’t think of a single book I’ve read recently (much less a romance novel) that suffered from under-writing. D’you have any specific examples?
Well, ymmv and all that, but I find it most common in series books and chicklit. Though the latter’s breezy style is obviously popular. To give an example, Wendy Markham’s Slightly Settled was a book I could have enjoyed if the writing didn’t feel so, er, slight. I know I set aside James Patterson because it felt underwritten (to me!)
Now I may be conflating underwritten and lighter fare, or underwriting with lack of emotional depth.
I also find that some romantic suspense endings—especially in category, perhaps because of the shorter page count—are slight and underwritten, as if the meat of the story has gone into the middle and the author is either not comfortable or not as interested in the suspense wind-up. But because I’m targetting RS (sorta), I’m not comfortable throwing up names. You can certainly email me although I don’t think you read a lot of category romances, from what I’ve seen.
Anyway, I may well be overstating my case, but when I set books down it’s usually because I’m not engaged and underwriting does come into play there—as well as poor characterization, clichés, and plain lack of interest.
Candy: Please, please let me post the comment about the angel wing eyebrows on my live journal. My f-list will get a kick out of that one and surely run with it. I just get this weird picture of a woman with a monstrous nervous tic in her forehead that makes her eyebrows go bananas.
Sarah: Thanks for the laugh this morning. I read Blaze Wyndham years ago but don’t remember anything of it. I’d forgotten just how indigo B. Small could write. The part where he deposits his love juices made me think some psychotic mailman was dumping nuclear waste into people’s mailboxes. Ick.
Jorie: I used to read a fair amount of category romances, but not so much nowadays. Category romances bug me not necessarily because they’re under-written, but because the conflict and the hero/heroine getting together feel so rushed. Sometimes the hero is proposing to the heroine a week after they meet, and even if I enjoyed the story, at that point I’m thinking “Whuh? BAD IDEA.” But I guess under-written to me = inadequate use of description, and I can’t recall the last time I read a book and didn’t have a clear idea of what the setting looked like, or what the h/h’s hair color etc. was, whether they were tall/short/pudgy, whatever.
White Raven: Quote away, just make sure to mention that I was bastardizing Laura Kinsale’s prose while making a point about descriptiveness vs. purpleness 🙂 .
Thanks, Candy. This will have several of them in stitches – and I’ll make certain they see both versions of the paragraph with your reference to the bastardization of Kinsale’s work.
Also, would you and/or Sarah consider posting an entry about silly/inappropriate descriptions? Not necessarily purple prose, but stuff that doesn’t work with the reader the way the author intended. For example, I recently found this in a Linda Needham novel called Ever His Bride:
“How old?” he demanded.
“Twenty!” she whispered, and then flinched as the word brushed back against her mouth. “I’m twenty.”
He drew her closer still, until his teeth blinded her in the fireglight.
!st, how exactly does a word brush back against one’s mouth? And second, what bleaching procedure did this guy use on his pearly whites to make them that florescent?
Candy – Thanks for the second. I felt a bit alone in the wilderness yesterday. It appears to be safe for me to venture into blogland again.
His teeth blinded her?? Goddamn. You know what image came to mind? Him burying his incissors into her eyeballs. MMM-MMMMM, romantic. Maybe we could create a new sub-genre of paranormals, though? Vampires who subsist on ocular vitreous humors instead of blood.
You so get mad props for use of the words “ocular vitreous humors.”
Damn.
And I could only think of “Blinded by the light, wrapped up like a douche.”
I confess, I had to look it up on Wikipedia. In my high-school biology class I learned it was called gelemaca, but I don’t know if it’s English or some kind of Malay term.
“gelemaca?”
Your brain stores authors, titles, and the names of ocular weirdness?
You are probably one of those people who knows exactly where her keys are at any moment, as opposed to people like me, who freak out while driving that she doesn’t know where her keys are – because they are in the ignition powering the car.
Oh nonono, quite the opposite: If my head weren’t attached to my neck, I’d probably lose it. I have extremely good recall when it comes to facts and figures, but when it comes to concrete reasoning, e.g. navigation, or everyday things like remembering where my purse is, I’m terrible. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been late to work because I absent-mindedly set my keys down in some exotic location, like a bookshelf or the refrigerator. One time I was even firmly convinced my car had been stolen because I forgot which level of the parking garage I’d left it.
His teeth blinded her?? Goddamn. You know what image came to mind? Him burying his incissors into her eyeballs.
Ick! But very appropriate. %-P
When I first read it, I immediately thought of Bruce the Shark from Finding Nemo. Thank god, the hero’s next piece of dialogue didn’t start with a long drawn out “Hellooooo”.