BY SAM PAULEY Bella wistfully detected her gaze towards the luminary before her, belovedly christened Edward, staring into his obsidian orbs as they playfully appraised her own cognac globular organs with a distinct sensation of ardor, and all the while her abdomen effervesced fearfully as if enchanted by a singular coterie of papillons. Translation: Bella looked at Edward. He looked back. She had butterflies in her stomach because she liked him. Further Translation: Bad writing. If I never have to write a sentence like that again, it will be too soon. Purple Prose is writing that is so excessively flowery or ornate that it breaks the flow of a piece, drawing attention to itself instead of progressing the story. New writers often see the extravagant writing of authors and strive to replicate it, in the process sometimes forgetting that fancy, big-worded writing does not good writing make. Detected her gaze? Why couldn't Bella have just looked, or glanced? Why have obsidian orbs where dark eyes will work just as well? And don't even get me started on cognac globular organs. So now that we know what Purple Prose is, what are the common traps and how do we avoid them? First, try and limit your use of adverbs. Here's the sentence from above, with adverbs highlighted. Bella wistfully detected her gaze towards the luminary before her, belovedly christened Edward, staring into his obsidian orbs as they playfully appraised her own cognac globular organs with a distinct sensation of ardor, and all the while her abdomen effervesced fearfully as if enchanted by a singular coterie of papillons. None of these adverbs add anything to the sentence other than length, and it does much better without them. Bella detected her gaze towards the luminary before her, christened Edward, staring into his obsidian orbs as they appraised her own cognac globular organs with a distinct sensation of ardor, and all the while her abdomen effervesced as if enchanted by a singular coterie of papillons. Another option for limiting adverbs is to replace it with a stronger verb. Since there were no examples in the above sentence, I'll put a few here. "Mom," Alice said persistently, "Why can't I go to the mall?" "Sweetie," her mother said, quickly opening the front door. "There's just no time." reads a lot differently than "Mom," Alice repeated, "Why can't I go to the mall?" "Sweetie," her mother said, yanking open the front door. "There's just no time." In the second example, much more urgency is injected into the writing through just two verb swaps and dropped adverbs. Be on the lookout for anywhere in your writing you can make the switch, though understand that adverbs are not evil in and of themselves. It is perfectly okay to have a few adverbs in your writing, and sometimes they can add a lot to a piece. However, I maintain, you have to know the rules to break them well. Second, never use several words where one serves just as well. Be concise. Again, here's our sentence. Bella detected her gaze towards the luminary before her, christened Edward, staring into his obsidian orbs as they appraised her own cognac globular organs with a distinct sensation of ardor, and all the while her abdomen effervesced as if enchanted by a singular coterie of papillons. Rather than detecting her gaze, what if Bella just gazed? Or if we accept that eyes is an English word that is perfectly acceptable in our writing? There are several other examples of things that can be written in more common language here, and rather than highlight them all I'm just going to rewrite the sentence for you below. Bella gazed towards the luminary before her, christened Edward, staring into his obsidian orbs as they appraised her own cognac eyes with a sensation of ardor, and all the while her abdomen effervesced as if enchanted by a coterie of papillons. And in the spirit of being concise, don't use big words for the sake of it. Let's be honest. Do you know what every word in that sentence means? I don't, and I'm the one who looked up the synonyms to write it. The thesaurus is your friend, but only in moderation. Bella gazed towards the luminary before her, christened Edward, staring into his obsidian orbs as they appraised her own cognac eyes with a sensation of ardor, and all the while her abdomen effervesced as if enchanted by a coterie of papillons. becomes Bella gazed towards Edward, staring into his dark eyes as they appraised her own with a sensation of ardor, and all the while her stomach churned as if enchanted by the flutter of butterflies. I think we're almost at a decent sentence. It could be rewritten one more time for clarity: Bella gazed towards Edward, staring into his dark eyes as they appraised her own with a sensation of ardor. Her stomach churned with the flutter of butterflies. Here we've found out middle ground. The reader isn't distracted, hunched over a dictionary trying to figure out what the heck they just read, but they also aren't bored reading how "she looked at he and he looked back." When looking through your own writing, it's important to remember that vivid description and purple prose are not one in the same. If you read something you wrote and you think it's good enough to have come from The Great Gatsby, you could be right about its awesomeness. But it's important to consider the purpose of your words. If something you write doesn't contribute to the meaning of a piece, no matter how much you love it at the time, you could be suffocating the piece. Removing purple prose gets the readers more involved in your writing, rather than distracted by the author. What exactly counts as purple prose will change from author to author, as each one has their own unique voice that dictates their writing. Some styles and genres call for more description than others. While these certainly are things to consider, in the end, there are no rules for writing. If you really want to write about coteries of papillons, go right on ahead! But do try and keep your audience in mind. Happy Writing!
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