Purple Prose: A Manifesto

In writerly circles it has become popular to denigrate purple prose and throw the phrase around like an epithet, putting it in the same category as the adverb, and terming it a bane, a blight, and a pox upon all literary endeavors. Not so, say I!

Purple prose is ornate, descriptive, poetic or sensually evocative writing which is thought to break the flow of the story or to draw excessive attention to itself. I contend that, in an effort to distance themselves from the criticism of purple prose, many authors have devolved to the other extreme and write flat, dull and lifeless prose—words that live in a colorless void which lacks any sensuality (and I speak in terms of touch, sight, sound, scent, and taste) or context. This extreme effort to eschew the purple has caused bland, deaf, dumb, and blind writing to become the new norm.

It will come as no surprise to anyone that has read my work, that I have been accused of purple prose. One critic told me that my “dense, descriptive prose gets in the way of the action.” I beg to differ, but ultimately I leave it to the reader to decide if my balancing act between action and description has been successful. Some think so, others do not—and it comes as no surprise to me that the modern reader might find my writing style odd and alien, just as though a child raised on saltless and spiceless foods might find a sudden infusion of flavors strange and unpalatable.

I revel in the muscular verb, the evocative adjective, the sights and sounds transcribed by a far-reaching vocabulary that breathes life into mere markings on a page. Give me the colorful, the lurid, and the vivid and I'll leave the limp, lifeless, and unpoetic to other writers.