Purple Prose - Kill Your Darlings
I am not singling out any specific author or Fandom. But I've run into this particular problem seven times this week in various fandoms and it's driving me nuts.
Yes, purple prose is fun. It creates fantastic images and feelings and understanding, and is, yes, a little show-offy. Who doesn't love to show off? We should all show off, we're great and we're celebrating our love for our Fandom.
When your prose gets in the way of actually telling the story you want to tell, that's when it's a problem. This is when the writer makes their writing the main character and focal point, not the story or the characters. It kills momentum, makes it difficult to focus on flow or action, and practically makes the words shout "look at me! Aren't I clever?"
So I'll pass along something my creative writing teacher told me, which is to "kill your darlings". We labor long and hard to create our wonderful prose, and we love each sentence equally. But no matter how much we love them, if they get in the way of the story, if they distract rather than help, it needs to be axed.
Kill. Your. Darlings. No matter how much you love them. Your writing, overall, will benefit from it.
I just read a fic with a high stakes police stand off with eight PARAGRAPHS of prose between one line of dialogue and the next. And it was a re-write of a cannon scene that, based on synopsis, would not change from cannon, so all this prose is just dragging it out and making me bored and just highlighting the problem of too much purple prose.
Drop the purple pen. Pick up the red. Do what must be done.
Signed, someone who loves all fanfic authors and all of your prose and writing development. Just, you know, in moderation.