Do we all know what that is? It’s what made Barbara Cartland famous, made romance for decades the object of scorn and derision, so that to this day, we all still have to defend not only writing it but reading it.
Purple prose is the use of words that are colorful and overly descriptive. The earliest citation of is in the 1598 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, where it was cited as a purple patch or purple passage. It is commonly understood that the phrase was taken from a reference in the Roman poet, Horace, in Ars Poetica:
“Your opening shows great promise, and yet flashy
purple patches; as when describing
a sacred grove, or the altar of Diana,
or a stream meandering through fields,
or the river Rhine, or a rainbow;
but this was not the place for them. If you can realistically render
a cypress tree, would you include one when commissioned to paint
a sailor in the midst of a shipwreck?”
But what the heck does it all mean?
We’ve all seen it. The description of women’s breasts as “luscious melons of fruity delight.” the male penis as “His throbbing sword of marble.”
Get it now? :)
Most of us groan and roll our eyes when we see these terms used. After al, isn’t that why people made fun of Romance novels in the first place?
However, in looking through the internet to research the terminology, i came upon a 1985 article by the lofty NY Times which stated in part:
- “It takes a certain amount of sass to speak up for prose that’s rich, succulent and full of novelty.Purple is immoral, undemocratic and insincere; at best artsy, at worst the exterminating angel of depravity. So long as originality and lexical precision prevail, the sentient writer has a right to immerse himself or herself in phenomena and come up with as personal a version as can be. A writer who can’t do purple is missing a trick. A writer who does purple all the time ought to have more tricks.”
(Paul West, “In Defense of Purple Prose.” The New York Times, Dec. 15, 1985)
So the NY Times itself has decreed that purple prose takes a certain amount of talent, correct? Why do people still make fun of it then?
I think that maybe it’s because so many of these familiar tropes and phrases are used over and over and over again, in the same book.
We are all guilty of using these flowery descriptions, right? On the mega successful blog, Smart Bitches Trashy Books, they have taken a step further and started the Romance Novel Workout, which is a snarky take on the familiar language and tropes that are found in many romance genre novels.
Some examples of that are:
Nipples that are pebbled
Someone says something silky or huskily
Comparison of nipples to fruit
Something is laved
You all get the point. But what I want to know is…for all the joking and winking about it, how would they write it?
I think that there is a place for the objectification of certain sex scenes. Look, there is a difference between pornography and romance novels. In romance novels, the story isn’t supposed to be geared towards the next sex scene. There is character development, emotional conflict and the sex adds towards the tension and the ultimate love between the hero and heroine. Maybe I shouldn’t admit it, but I don’t mind a little purple prose, if it is done without old tired clichés. I get angry when I read novels where the same phrases are used over and over again.
I think there is a place for plain speak, but not throughout a romance novel. I will admit, I like some of the purple prose, but not the over the top ones (I’ve read “He wielded his throbbing weapon of manhood” and wanted to hurl the book and my lunch!) One thing I have learned from being critiqued and critiquing is that it is very easy to fall into the trap of using the same word over and over again. use your thesaurus, read a hell of a lot, but don’t keep using one word through out your book. Then again, I don’t want to read overly melodramatic descriptions of women’s breasts. It is something to think about while we write and edit. Adjectives are our friends. We need to embrace them
So what do you all think? As writers, how do you feel about purple prose?
As a reader, what do you think when you read these descriptions of body parts and emotions-do you groan and ignore, or do you think the writer could work a little harder?
Or do you not care either way? 
March 1, 2013 at 10:43 am
Great post! I love romance novels and still read the old ones (the ones written in the late 70s/early 80s, which I stole off my mother’s bookshelf when I was far too young to be reading them). Back then I didn’t yet know the phrase “purple prose” but I knew enough to laugh at it. The one that sticks with me to this day, 20 years later, is from one of my favorite books of all time. The hero and heroine are going at it and the hero says “my love lance was made for your honey oven.” What??? If a guy ever said anything like that to me in the heat of the moment, I would do something he probably wouldn’t appreciate and might not ever recover from. So funny and yes, eye-roll inducing. I too like the purple prose every once in a while, when it’s done well. But I agree. No melons, pebbled or otherwise, and no throbbing marble.
March 1, 2013 at 12:10 pm
OMG, that’s the funniest one I’ve heard to date! Honey oven??!!!
March 1, 2013 at 11:21 am
There has to be a certain amount of purple prose in romance novels. But it depends on HOW purple your descriptions get.
March 1, 2013 at 11:47 am
Great post! I think the one that always got me was ‘with every fiber of my being’! Still see that one sometimes
March 1, 2013 at 12:06 pm
Erotic romance writer – we call it like we see it. But still – you get tired of using the same words and occasionally have to look elsewhere- and sometimes something more flowery goes with the flow of the description.
March 1, 2013 at 12:12 pm
Daryl, that’s exactly what I mean. Erotica is what it is what it is. With romance novels, the trick is to walk that fine line.
March 1, 2013 at 3:29 pm
Great post and interesting subject. I pick up a Barbara Cartland once and after a few pages put it down again. As for purple prose, I like “every fiber of my being.” I quite frankly don’t think “pebbled nipples,” is a good example. In fact, both of those may be more cliche than purple. I believe I was told somthing like, perfidious, pretentious, prig was purple. I tweeted.
March 1, 2013 at 3:31 pm
I agree with you on the pebbled nipples-That is from Smart Bitches. Its those words that some use to describe body parts that can be so very, very funny, like when Courtney mentioned “honey oven”
March 1, 2013 at 4:09 pm
I agree, that “honey oven” is over the top.
March 1, 2013 at 4:24 pm
Great post, Nancy! This line had me LOLing “His throbbing sword of marble.”
As a writer I’m fairly bare-bones. Purple prose isn’t something I really flow with. I love dialogue, and my description is normally minimal. As a reader, I sometimes like purple prose–if I’m in that kind of mood…sometimes it’s a little too much for me. Normally, I don’t like that much though. Thanks for sharing!
March 1, 2013 at 7:08 pm
I’ve never been a fan of purple prose whether it relates to scenery, sex, or lunch. While I love my garden, enjoy sex and eat lunch every day, I want all those details kept to minimum in my reading. I won’t reject an author for writing it, but I will skim over it. Garden….garden…still garden…ah story1 read…..sex, okay getting bored, gone to skimming…skim, yawn, skim, ah story, back engaged, lunch…okay getting hungry. set book down and go eat.
That’s pretty much how my reading goes. Which is why if I tell you that your your sex scene kept my attention, it’s up there with miracles.
I read for great stories and characters,
March 1, 2013 at 7:11 pm
It all comes down to this for me: a great story is a great story, purple prose or no. I still read the classics and love them. There’s a reason Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Flame and the Flower sold 4.5 million copies in six years.
March 1, 2013 at 7:43 pm
Ha, I do sort of like it to a degree. Granted, not that really out there stuff like honey oven. But, being a lover of historical romances, many of them have just that sort of writing. Great post, Nancy.
March 2, 2013 at 12:02 pm
Loved it, great post, Nancy. Not much of a fan of purple prose