Wondrous Wordplay, Amazing Alliteration, Vitalizing Vocabulary

also known as: Purple Prose and How to Avoid It

One of my favourite things to do as a writer is to find new ways to weave words into surprising sentences. To put playful, poetic prose to page. To grab gripping garble and make it magnificently memorable.

Annoyed yet?

Have you ever seen a block of description that is so ornate and so wordy that by the end of it you weren’t sure what was being described? You were likely looking at a piece of purple prose.

Simply put, purple prose is writing that is so over-the-top and elaborate that it draws unnecessary attention to itself. It is, in a way, a writer showing off their massive vocabulary by putting too many big words on the page — or showing off their ability to use the thesaurus.

Don’t get me wrong, descriptions are great! Descriptions are necessary! You want to be able to set the mood of a scene when writing a description of something. But having big words that require the reader to flip through the dictionary more times than not in a sentence will probably make them throw your book out a window. Don’t be gaudy. Don’t flaunt your superior vocabulary. Leave that for academics.

Here are a few tips to avoid purple prose in your writing:

Use the thesaurus sparingly

The thesaurus is your friend, not your lover. There are only so many times you can use the word “hall” in a paragraph before it becomes repetitive. Change it up — hall, hallway, corridor, aisle. This works well for common words that tend to be overused multiple times in a paragraph or scene. This is not for describing a sunset — red and pink and orange are good words that will get the point across without sounding obnoxious. Keep your cerulean and chartreuse to yourself.

(Fun fact: I always thought chartreuse was red. This is because it’s a dumb word and no one cares about it.)

Engage the five senses

Sight is great, but you can only describe what one sees so much before you start losing your reader’s attention. Engage the other senses! What does the room smell like? How does the thorny rose feel? What does that sweet iced coffee taste like? How does the screeching cry of death grate against the listener’s ears? Using the five senses will bring a whole new dynamic to your description without being overbearing.

Avoid overusing literary devices

Things like alliteration, imagery, onomatopoeia, metaphors, and repetition are all literary devices that can bog down your writing if you’re using them wrong. Look through your writing and see where you use literary devices and how often you’re using them. Literary devices should be impactful, or used to create tension. Obscure metaphors likely won’t add anything to your writing and will probably go straight over your reader’s head.

Before anyone calls me a hypocrite: I’m a huge fan of alliteration in prose. I get excited when I see a sentence that sounds so nice on my ears. (Read that sentence. Then read it again to see what I mean.) My writing has been described as a “dance” by one of my writing group buddies, because of the flow and rhythm I employ in my prose, but there is a difference between poetic prose and purple prose. I don’t use big words to mean something else, but I love weaving words together in an intricate dance across the page. I use alliteration and repetition and melody and cacophony to create a mood depending on the scene, not to flaunt my vocabulary or writing skills.

That’s it for this week! Show me your worst (or best) purple prose 😎

As always, happy writing!