How to use Purple Prose effectively?

I bring a much more boring topic today. I'm sorry.

I'd like to talk to you about purple prose, a literary term that's been given to a shockingly large amount of hobby-writers. From here on out referred to as PP because I'm a lazy sod and you can only type those words so many times before they lose all meaning. For those of you uninformed, here's a brief tidbit from mankind's greatest easily accessible resource for trivia;

Purple prose is a term of literary criticism used to describe passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in prose so overly extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself. Purple prose is sensually evocative beyond the requirements of its context. It also refers to writing that employs certain rhetorical effects such as exaggerated sentiment or pathos in an attempt to manipulate a reader's response. ~Wikipedia (who else?)

Now let's throw down the cards. For starters, I despise PP. Or rather it's recently shown up in alarming quantities in books that I despise and it's the closest thing I can find to justify my scorn. Secondly, I apparently am a victim of it's beguiling ways and made a habit of having to prune through my text with great big gardening sheers to try and remedy this. Thirdly, PP is occasionally put into text, as the quote above says, to create a response from the reader, but managing this has been... a hurdle to say the least.

That's where the first sticking point presents itself. It is, by definition, using text so over done that it draws attention to the fact that it's so overly elaborate. This works well if you're trying to represent a character that's heads over heels in love with some one else to the point they've become a bit unbalanced, but can there be other applications? Is the only way this style of writing can be applied when the perspective of the writing is deranged or otherwise in a state that the writing can be used to draw attention to? Does this mean that PP can be useful, but only as a gimmick in the odd paragraph?

Hell if I know. I am trying a few experiments though.

How Canadians write novels.

Purple prose is actually kinda fun to write, you see. It's a hilariously over-wrought description of...well, everything if it gets bad enough, but if you can make it passable in your work you can actually slip a number of critical details into it. Little things about the scenery or people that wouldn't otherwise fit into the narrative. Using PP to set up something that'll become much more prominent or important later one is an idea I've been fiddling with for a while. It effectively hides those few real bits of information in a dump of worthless stuff, making it either the best use of Red Herrings possible or eliminating the need for them all together. I'm not certain which yet.

The big issue is finding a way to incorporate it into a story that doesn't come off as gimmicky, forced, or detract from the bigger picture. Since part of PP is inherently distracting I think it might be impossible to accomplish the last point, but minimizing it's effect should be doable. My best idea is working it into one of the major characters as a trait - perhaps giving perspective to a savant with photographic memory? It'd fit, and if it was a re-occurring perspective it wouldn't be a one-off thing, but rather a part of the story as a whole. Seeing the world through common eyes, and then again through the infinitely more detailed ones of the savant, portrayed basically with PP. Many works of mystery (and every other Law & Order) have characters with acute or different ways of seeing details, but never is the perspective given to them that I've run across. It might be interesting.

I'll try it with a couple short stories, who knows? Maybe I'll even post them here. My dog was never the best critic anyways.

My turn to Wlog

Before we begin, Twoson's theme from Earthbound Listen to it.

So, That Canadian Guy got two posts up before I got one, eh? I'm not surprised every time I've gone to write an introduction post, there's been some problem or another every single time. Of course, it had been too long since the first introduction post for me not to post something of Substance, or so my thinking goes. Alas in 10 days I post nothing

Wait...

Harr, Harr bad joke.

If I can be forgiven for the bad visual pun (warning: more to follow in future posts) then we can get back to my introduction.

Starting from the beginning, I will propose a purpose for this Wlog. Primarily the function is to write and just to write, to get myself to write, to make it easier. As addressed in his previous post this is something that I share with my colleague. As for why there are the two of us we are going to be like workout partners, except for writing and eventually as this becomes more and more regular we will push each other into writing more often and (hopefully) with more depth. Writing for me has a bonus secondary function however, Success.

Or Hopefully. At the moment I am studying Film in University and I was told that if I do not write “[I] Will Fail!” Harsh words, but probably true. I was encouraged to, over the summer to review and analyze whatever I can to sharpen my skills and out of interest. Obviously, the summer is past, but better late than never. I was also told not to focus on just movies, but books, games, music, plays or pretty much anything which works well for me. This also has the bonus of helping me once I’m out of University given my area of study. Even after all that though, I’ll probably focus on Games since I play more than I watch or read or listen.

I am also in hopes that I can write enough about myself, religion, politics and all that stuff so that it doesn’t become to narrow focused on my end. Mind, with two of us I think we’ll be safe. I won't promise to have any content out in any amount of time as I am doomed to fail myself in that regard. I have a large backlog of half-written material that might make it up here since it's just easier to finish than write something new.

Oh, one last thing “Why Wlog“? Pretty simple, the term Blog is a combination of Web and Log and the portmanteau Blog is dumb, especially if we have V(ideo)logs. I just think a web log should be a Wlog and I am a very stubborn person so that‘s what it will be... I guess.

Huskies and writing and stuff

Let's talk about Huskies.

Or is it Husky's? Whatever.

Why should we talk about Husk(y/ies)? For a couple reasons.

First and foremost because I hope to be getting one shortly. This is, I've been lead to believe, a blog. It's meager descriptors include that things are rambled about on it and they presumably come from a person in Canada. I do think I've met the criteria to bring this topic to hand.

Before I dive madly into things about the dogs though I think it's worth mentioning the second reason. This blog was put together on the spur of the moment when I had cobbled together enough courage to make the introduction post. It was assumed (stupidly perhaps) of me that I would follow along and make a post or two every single week regular after that. The theory was something along the lines of once the first one is out, it should be like shattering a damn -- a torrent of pent up rants would just flow from my fingertips like an endless wave of bad water based analogies.

Whoosh? Swoosh? What kind of noise does that even make aside from 'lots'?
 What the hell does this have to do with writing?

Regrettably that was not so. See by now I've halfsies planned out a post about Limbo (an interesting game), another for Scott Pilgrim Vs the World (a fantastic movie) and finally a small tidbit on  The Expendables (a fun movie) -- hell I even began writing a combined post for all three put together. Nothing ever got posted though. I kept peering back at that first post I made and found I couldn't make something comparable in size and thus never tried. Now however I've come up with a solution, one that mirrors the actions of countless guys striving for the unattainable. I'm lowering my standards incredible amounts.


Which is why you can now see another post about, essentially, nothing. I haven't even gotten back on topic about the damn dog I want to buy yet. I'm just going to keep typing until it becomes natural. I still hope to make interesting posts, but that'll happen when my urge to type happily coincides with something interesting going on in the world. All the rest of the time? You'll get whatever thoughts are going through my head. Sometimes in very tiny posts sometimes in bigger less coherent ones like this. It may not be cool, it may not be relevant, but it puts me down at the keyboard and makes me type.









So. Yeah. Uh. That digressed a bit further than I anticipated it. That was meant to be about a single paragraph. Anywho, about them Husk(y/ies) again.

OK. It's now going to be Huskies. Damn it if I'm wrong, I don't care.

I've actually learned a great deal about these dogs in the recent months. It appears they have the odd poor trait, or so I found out when I started telling people that they were the dog I was aiming to nab. I dug up (translation; was forcibly made to read) several books on them before anyone was going to admit the idea wasn't entirely stupid. Amongst their bad traits are an unnerving habit of being able to out think their owners and escape virtually any environment they're put in, a tendency to destroy furniture if not properly trained and the ability to jump up and stick their face in yours to say hello. Personally I've lived with dogs all my life, gone through about a dozen pairs of shoes due to them and them alone and am not in the least bit upset when a dog can bound up and around head height. I appreciate this isn't the case for everyone though, so having a furry ball hurl itself through the air might be a cause for concern for any room mates or guests I may have around. Oh, they also howl. This is considered magnificent and beautiful for dog enthusiasts and a bloody nuisance by all their neighbours.

I've learned how to keep the dog from running madly away, I've learned how to safe guard my stuff and keep the dog entertained so it doesn't want to eat it anyways, and I've even picked up the odd trick to keep even the most excited dog's butt planted firmly on the ground when it would rather be sailing through the air. Now comes the real test; trying it with a new dog. Oh yes, the difference between theory and application. In the next couple weeks I'll be picking up the new puppy, and one can expect me to either post lots about it (yes, including pictures) or to just disappear off the face of the Internet as my time is consumed utterly.

Either way, that's what the future holds -- here's hoping the next post wont be so bloody difficult.