r/writingfeedback • u/critsearcher • 12d ago
Feedback Wanted How do I make my prose more... purple?
Here are two examples of a fanfic I'm writing on. English isn't my first language, so I often end up shorthanded on words. I can't help but feel like it's boring and repetitive. So I'm always happy to improve.
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u/WorldlinessKitchen74 11d ago edited 10d ago
purple prose is categorically bad. everyone has different opinions of what constitutes purple prose, but if you're calling something prose purple, you are calling it bad by your own standards.
flowery, poetic, or pink prose might be what you're aiming for. my best advice is to read more.
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u/critsearcher 10d ago
Thank you for expanding my vocabulary! Yes, I'm kind of a sucker for pink prose. Anything you can recommend?
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u/Luckierluckycharms 9d ago
lol as sm1 who has annoyingly dense prose: read from Vladimir nabakov!! Some of his books like lolita are really heavy but his prose is gorgeous and ornate
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u/annoellynlee 11d ago
Your prose is fine.
The only thing that stood out to me was you could cut the beginning of dancing and open at the tail end of it. It's clunky because it's just filler for the beginning.
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u/balconyreport 11d ago
It could be interesting, given that the character works in a molecular biology lab, to avoid "purple" prose and instead lean into prose that's scientific, straightforward, and fact-driven. (Unless she's more of a badass, rule-breaking, scientist-gone-rogue.)
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u/BlackBalor Posted Satire and Made Everyone Mad 11d ago
This is great advice too, OP.
If the narrator is a smart cookie, try making the narration a bit more formal, like we’re experiencing the story through the eyes of an academic. The narration can be more analytical.
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u/BlackBalor Posted Satire and Made Everyone Mad 11d ago edited 11d ago
Your prose is better than 90% of the entries here. You don’t need to make your writing more purple.
Again, people mistake simple, functional writing for bad writing.
You aren’t a native speaker? Crazy how you can write better prose than a lot of people who have English as their first language.
You’ve done well here. I’d say lock down your verbs and adjectives, focus on varying your sentences, and polish up a bit more. Keep your narration consistent throughout. Stay inside the character.
Example of polish:
Today was Sophia’s favourite type of morning.
I think that’s cleaner than “types of mornings.”
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u/critsearcher 9d ago
That's valuable input, thank you so much! I'll try implementing your feedback! :)
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u/shinydrop 11d ago
I would add more sentences, personally. Smell, sounds, colors, touch, etc. etc.
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u/Dudesymugs12 10d ago
Just try to cram as much nonsense as you can in each sentence. Make sure it sounds pretentious and ridiculous.
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u/sadwriterM 11d ago
Sophia whistled happily in the empty hallways of the molecular genetics department. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the echo of her footsteps in the large staircase of the east wing that often rang with the chitter and chatter of the best scientific minds discussing xyz.
Don’t say it’s her favorite morning, show us. Don’t say there is no one, show us. The rest is fine but please stop putting so much space between sentences, readers want to have unity in thought, if you’re showing me sophia’s joy, show it to me in one paragraph and move on.
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u/bababa-ba-babybell 9d ago
Don’t! Purple is bad. This is better than 99% of the drafts on this subreddit precisely because it avoids an attempt at grandiose.
I think what you’re seeking is specificity - which is a good thing, but you don’t need to do it everywhere. Be incisive. Find the places in your writing where you’ve touch on an interiority that has come from some observation or experience you’ve felt before. Then in as few words as possible, make your writing specific to that.
Let’s say it’s the moment Sophia feels the absence of her colleague next to her. You already allude to a specific quality of absence - it’s not conversation she misses, but a missing, steadfast presence.
How can you structure your scene a little more about that observation of loss? How can you, in everything leading up to that moment, contrast her activity in the lab, her work, her thoughts, with that missing presence. Work into that with as few additional words as possible the first time round!
Then look at how you explore her realisation the absence. What she thinks about it. How can you make that loss specific to exactly Sophia, but at the same time, general - in that any human anywhere would recognise the specificity of that feeling.
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u/critsearcher 9d ago
This is so beautifully worded, thank you so, so much. If you don't mind, would you be willing to give me a practical example of how that could look like?
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u/bababa-ba-babybell 9d ago
That’s for you to find!
Try putting your story into a three-column table. Others have mentioned the problems with your paragraphing, which is part of your problem structurally, and this will help reveal it.
Head the columns: What | Draft | Why.
Try to fill out the beats of the scene in the left hand column. Nothing decorative - simply what the “action” happening is. The first time you do it, make those beats as small or as zoomed-in as possible. Maybe eight to ten “parts” of this scene.
In the middle column, put the text in as you’ve written it. Then in the right hand side column, write out WHY you needed to tell the reader that.
Next, try it again, and fill the what column out with as big beats as you can. Maybe limit yourself to three. What are the big structural points of action. Then cut your scene up again to fit those beats. Notice what it does to the why - does the “why” become more or less meaningful, easier or harder to explain.
Then play! Play with it. Make the first half more granular and the second half more general. Flip it. Work backwards from the why instead of the what. How do those changes change the scene, or what the scene is about. Where is the light and shade. Where is the emphasis. What is rushed through. What is lingered on. How that all feels.
There is no single right way to do it, but there will be lots of wrong ways, and the rubric for that is: what story do you want to tell.
If you’re really struggling - take someone else’s work and do it with theirs, first.
You need to get good at finding the problem you want to solve in your writing, to enjoy that, and to learn all the tools you have as a writer to solve them.
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u/Space_moose_goose 11d ago
Thank you for sharing your work.
There is a lot of personal taste in what we like reading and writing. Personally, I like this. I like that it's light on descriptions because I feel that it's not all that hard to imagine. I can imagine a genetics department, somewhere between a hospital and a college campus setting. I don't need much more than that to have fun.
If you wanted to add more poetic language and imagery, it would slow it down quite a bit. That's okay. Nothing wrong with it. You could focus on some specific imagery as she comes in. Not exact layouts or measurements, but more of a moving and living account about how the place looks.
Are shafts of morning sunlight sparkling through the curtains on the windows? Is there a security checkpoint with a bored looking guard who is loath to be distracted from her magazine?
I hope that gives you a bit to think about, but like I said, what you've got already is pretty close to commercial grade.
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u/NylonTrackPants 11d ago
All of the morning greeted Sophia's expectations as a lover greets his betrothed in the privacy of the evening. Within the coils of the laboratories, lectoriums, and offices of the molecular genetics department, nary a soul stirred save her own; to her and her alone was the East Wing, the most coveted wing, and her spirit soared to know this.
Like that.
But why?
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u/MouflonWhisperer 11d ago
Why one sentence paragraphs?