/lit/ - Literature

>>16730157
i like whatever kafka's style of prose is. brief and elegant.

>>16730157
McCartheyan Prose that rides the line between poetry and the roughly-hewn notes of a workman.

>>16730157
The obvious choice is Berple

>>16730157
I love accusing books of purple prose. However, purple is a vague term to critique prose you don't like. What is too dramatic? What is too flowery? The usual answer is, that, if it defies the purpose, then it's purple. Well, what's the purpose? Most people love extravagant speech in dialogue, but oftentimes hate it when it's the narrator doing it.

>>16730170
Mauve Prose.

>>16730157
there is no formula
it works or it doesn't, there are innumerable styles and techniques that all work in one way or another

>>16730231
This. The perfect balance is between the two. Cormac McCarthy comes close like >>16730164
said, but instead of blending the two styles he switches between them

>>16730157
Purple prose.

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents - except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

>>16730157
Purple prose. Beige prose is for academic, legal and technical material.

>>16730285
>It was dark and the rain came in droves, the wind sweeping it along the streets and the flames in the lamps struggled and waivered.
fixed

I don't need either. I just want the words to elevate the story. I read some of these novels that you all like, and I couldn't be more bored. Most novelists tend to write an "oh so deep" book that is nothing more than prose. If that is really what you like, I don't understand you.

Good to have a balance. Purple prose can be good, but not when the author spends 3 pages describing a field of grass

>>16730306
Demonstrably worse. Hope you aren't an editor or writer

>>16730285
Not purple prose.

>>16730306
Lol

>>16730157
Personally I like everything to be written as a draft to city council by my local alderman and so beige.

>>16730157
Purple

>>16730306
soulless

>>16730285
That paragraph is fine. It's only denounced as the pinnacle of bad writing by Hemingway wannabes

>>16730157
None. Prose is for women and children.

>>16730157
only redditors dislike purple prose

>>16730157
Good prose is good prose, purple—by it's design—would be inherently more enjoyable, however purple prose cannot disguise bad prose, which it is often deployed to do. Bad purple prose is often far less enjoyable than bad beige prose for the same reasons good purple prose is more enjoyable: purple prose is longer and more complex, thus, when done poorly, its length becomes bothersome and complexity becomes convolution. While beige prose is more efficient in conveying information, it is not to say it is artistically inferior in writing; if brevity or simplicity aids in what is being told than a good writer will see it as superior, but with good pieces that utilise the style effectively it is more so the substance of the work than the style of it that is more enjoyable—what is being conveyed is interesting and the prose suits that well. Purple prose is more stylish (that isn't to say it suits works with less substance better), and when used by an effective writer is more enjoyable as a style through the added complexity that can be added on the means of conveying the story. Purple prose is also harder to do well, or perhaps it's more accurate to say "to not do poorly". Both are valid styles and which should be used depends on the work and author, however, when done by a good author appropriately, purple prose—taken as prose alone—is more enjoyable, but not that works written in purpled prose are.

>>16730550
What defines bad prose?

>>16730582
being beige

>>16730157
lovecraft is extremely enjoyable to read

When I write I tend to write long passages in beige prose and let purple purpose appear in self-contained bursts when I think I've hit some decisive point in the narrative. It's not really a blend of both or some middle-ground.

>>16730285
SOVL
>>16730306
so*lless

>>16730582
When you don't like it.

>>16730285
The parantheses are the only bad thing in this reviled piece of writing. Sure, dark and stormy nights are some of a cliche, but the section about the flames struggling is comfy-tier.

>>16730608
>Sure, dark and stormy nights are some of a cliche
why did you mention this? prose and story elements are different. whether it's a cliche start to a story doesn't influence the quality of the prose.

>>16730582
When it's written by a minority. But seriously, what makes prose good or bad can be a thing of opinion but I'd say bad prose is one that lacks clarity in the explicit, lacks subtly in the implicit, lacks brevity in the unimportant and precision in the imperative, mistakes vagueness for depth, is lacking in consistency and/or variety in its vocabulary, is clunky, awkward, or ignorant of convention, or is otherwise derivative; it fails to convey its ideas effectively or enjoyably.

>>16730680
Because certain words and images are overused, thus being prose clichés.

>>16730157
>Purple Prose
>Extravagant, ornamental, or flowery text that makes a sentence dramatic and fancy.
>Beige Prose
>A sentence that is too brief and to the point, has an overly simple structure, and too few figures of speech.

autistic prose for me please

>The nursing home started phoning me and phoning me to say that Father and Mom were not behaving. The nursing home kept badgering me about what I would do about Father and Mom misbehaving. But I could think of nothing to do. You think I could think of something to do about it? Who was I to think of something to do? I expected those two to be dead already! Can I tell you something? They weren't dead, they weren't dead at all. You know what else? I was not prepared for something like misbehaving

>>16730285
Based