What it is, and how to avoid it.

Lesson 8: Purple Prose

Hey writers, it’s Savannah again! 😎 Today, we’re going to talk about something with an evocative name and a provocative reputation: purple prose.

What is purple prose?


Purple prose is writing so stylistically embellished that it muddles the reader’s understanding of what’s going on. Symptoms include excessive adjectives and adverbs, overblown similes and metaphors, faux-philosophical musings that drag out way too long — or, heaven forbid, all of the above.


We’ve all seen purple prose from time to time. Hell, we’ve all probably written it (I know I have!). The key is to recognize when your writing veers too far in this direction so that you can pull it back. It’s especially crucial to watch out for purple prose when showing in your story, as evocative descriptions can easily slip into overwrought, distracting prose — which defeats the immersive purpose of SDT.

A quick example of purple prose

For those who may not be sure where the line is, here’s a “purple” passage I’ve just whipped up:


When it comes to the nature of fraternal relations, the tragic melancholy of each unit is vastly different from the seemingly similar next, and those who remain buoyantly disposed are actually fundamentally identical. The strange befuddlement that befell the normally calm household that morning was the unfortunate result of the husband’s unscrupulous infidelity, and the righteously indignant wife declared that her residence was to quickly and violently diverge from his.


Unreadable, right? If this scene sounds at all familiar, it’s only because it’s a way-too-adverbial version of Anna Karenina’s opening lines:


Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Everything was confusion in the Oblonskys’ house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl… and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house as him.


The second passage is much clearer and more striking, while the first is bloated with 50-cent words. And while this distinction is easy to grasp, avoiding purple prose in your own writing is more challenging than you’d think! To that end, here are a few concrete tips to help you SDT without purpling out.

How to avoid purple prose

👀  Scrutinize longer sentences. Run-ons are a hallmark of purple prose, as are sentences that aren’t technically run-ons but have way too many words. For each sentence longer than 25 words or so, ask yourself: do you need all of that? 99% of the time, the answer is no.


💪  Replace adjectives and adverbs with strong verbs. Martin touched on this in yesterday’s lesson, but adjectives and adverbs crumble in the wake of verbs. To make your writing more concise and powerful, cut these telling descriptors in favor of showing actions: “She cried forcefully and hysterically” → “She gasped and sobbed.”


❌  Don’t force figurative language. If you have to struggle for a metaphor — or if upon rereading, it just sounds bizarre — do yourself and your readers a favor and skip it. (I’m reminded of Zadie Smith critiquing Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, in which taxis are likened to grapefruits, and cricket balls to “giant meteoritic cranberries”; needless to say, not every comparison can be a winner.)


🙇🏻‍♀️  Get someone else to read your writing. And if you, like me, sometimes can’t bear to kill your darlings, get an editor to do it for you. What you might perceive as an uncuttable sentence, they’ll hack apart without mercy — and again, to paraphrase Hemingway, your writing will be better for it.

Need an editor to de-purple your prose? Hundreds of the world's best literary editors are right here on Reedsy. Sign up for your free account and connect with them today.

With these tips in your arsenal, you’ll be much more style-conscious and careful not to overdo it in the prose department. Still, you might be wondering: how can I show everything in my story without lapsing into purple prose from time to time?


The answer is that you don’t have to show everything — sometimes, it’s okay to tell. And that’s exactly what tomorrow’s lesson is all about. Stay tuned to find out when telling is acceptable and how best to use it in your own story.


— Savannah


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