Vociferation #1

Language sounds beautiful. Hasn’t every dedicated reader re-read the line that was just surgically composed? People keep and share carefully crafted quotes. A lot of writing, however, weakens itself with purple, flowery language and pretty yet useless (and often nonsense) sentences mashed together when the writer focuses more on technique and literary posturing than brevity, precision, and sense, like an architect staring only at the aesthetic of a structure and paying no attention to functionality. Who cares if it collapses so long as someone snaps that beautiful picture first? Go ahead and pile on the novel yet absurd metaphors. Shall I compare thy eyes to a cosmic ray?

Is it the writer’s attempt to sound profound and original? I find it most often in mawkish romance stories and young/new adult books, though a thriller for adults is not impervious to the trend. For example, The Fault in Our Stories could have been exponentially improved if someone cut out the parts where John Green tried painfully to sound philosophical. Philosophy and Manufactured Romanticism for Dummies, as I like to call it.

Not only does the ornamentation detract from the actual story or even sound illogical, they sound obvious. Such writers try to peddle obvious statements or observations as creative or philosophical achievements. They color themselves as titans towering above the rest of us when only just coming to the same conclusion as the rest of us, or even drawing the incorrect conclusion. It's a tragedy to challenge Macbeth.

You’ve seen it, right? It’s harder to miss than finishing calculus II or physical chemistry with an A. Writers usually signal it, practically pointing at their darlings with tank-sized, light-up arrows. And why wouldn’t they? They went to all this trouble, beautified and polished every syllable. Taking pride in such work is natural, but as we know, natural does not inherently equate to good. When writers make a point of showcasing their proud achievements, it feels even worse. It feels like they are now insulting my intelligence, so driven by fear that all their hard work may go unnoticed, that their readers are too stupid to see something for themselves and must have everything spelled out slowly.

To compound on the suffering, the self-important prose often isn’t even beautiful. It sounds ridiculous, sometimes even inherently contrary, like something an angst teenager scribbled and decided to call “deep.” I know; I was one of those teenagers once upon a dreadful time.

Maybe these authors consider themselves modern-day bards, sacrificing sense and logic in the hope that people will turn one (or more) of their quotes into tweets, gifs, profile descriptions, captions, or anything of the kind to spread their masterful creation. Poetry you can hang on your wall or display on your shelf.

I am not bashing quotes in general nor lyrical writing. There are several quotes I love. Good writing makes a book all the better. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield and Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor are written beautifully. Lewis Carroll wrote cleverly. I am targeting the select, ostentatious, purple prose that sacrifices sense in the failed hope of sounding perfect. To all writers, you are, theoretically, writing a story, not a quote. Please practice restraint and resist the allure of purple prose, otherwise I’m just ranting like a madman here.

I recognize that this all sounds harsh, maybe even cruel. I know books are difficult monsters to create. I am critical, not hateful, as a reader.  

Fun little fact: According to Merriam-Webster, the term “purple passage” was first used in 1882, derived “from the traditional splendor of purple cloth as contrasted with plainer materials.”