It’s my party
No really, it is! May is my birthday month. and so this month’s challenge is all about me. I have been accused by some – and not without some basis in fact – of letting my writing slip from the lyrical into the florid. I pile lovely phrase upon lovely phrase, mixing metaphors until the reader is hard pressed to focus on what, exactly, I am trying to say.
So, you know how we usually tell you to cut, cut, cut? To make your prose spare and elegant? And to tell a complete story? Well, this month, we’re swinging the other way. This month, I want your purple prose. And because there’s not room to do that and tell a complete story, we’re going to focus on openings.
Characteristics of purple prose
- Long sentences, often comprised of multiple clauses
- Overwrought vocabulary
- An abundance of metaphors and figurative speech
- Overuse of modifiers (adjectives and adverbs)
In other words, purple prose is everything that good microprose is not. My hope is that in pushing ourselves to write something over-the-top on purpose, we’ll learn to recognize when we start doing it out of habit, laziness, or honest unwillingness to murder our darlings. For a great dissection of a truly marvelous example (marvelously bad, that is), check out this month’s Technique Toolbox.
(Are you a fan of purple prose? So is Paul West, or at least, he argued in favor of it in his fantastic New York Times opinion piece, In Defense of Purple Prose.)
It was a dark and stormy night
Thus began Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s dreadful “masterpiece” of purple prose. We’re taking a page (ha!) from the annual Bulwer-Lytton competition and asking you to write the opening of your very own opus, beginning with the phrase “it was a dark and stormy night.” Your total wordcount, including this phrase, should be exactly 44 words. That means adding 37 words of your own. You don’t have to tell a complete story, but you should give the reader enough story to imagine the novel that would come afterward.
Here are a couple of examples from this year’s Bulwer-Lytton contest, just to give you a sense of the style. Pay attention to the language, the phrasing, the metaphors, and the overuse of modifiers!
A sweaty Hector threw off his shirt, passion burning, skin glistening, his deodorant congealed to little chunks ensnared among the matted jungle of his armpits like so many crumbles of pungent blue cheese over a bed of sprouts, moistened with a dressing of perspiration, and lustily asked, “Are you as hungry as I am?” to the confused busboy. — Tyson Canale, Rochester, Minnesota
This one uses the classic opener:
It was a dark and stormy night, the wind at the windows demanded admittance, the rain beat upon the towers as if it would topple them, and the very starry ceiling seemed as if it would collapse upon us from the sheer weight of the gloom; while from behind the bedchamber doors as well came frightful shrieks, but since my mother was in there with her boyfriend, I didn’t want to interrupt them just then. —Gregory Payne, Norwalk, Connecticut
Tips for your submissions:
- We really are looking for purple prose here. Go over the top. Use those ten-dollar words. BUT: use them correctly. Don’t just rely on your thesaurus; check the definitions in the dictionary as well.
- We’d like more than just a description of a setting. Introduce a character or a conflict. Convince us that there’s a story coming… eventually.
- Your submission may be a single sentence, a la Bulwer-Lytton, or several. However, keep in mind that one of the hallmarks of purple prose is long-windedness – short sentences detract from the overall effect.
- [ed’s note: please be better at punctuation than the Bulwer-Lytton writers. The semicolon is your friend. /rbg]
Bonus challenge
Now that you’ve let loose, let’s rein it in a little. Take your flowery, overblown language and pare it down. Keep a phrase or two if you must, then build on what’s left and come up with an opening sentence or paragraph that remains true to your original, without resorting to pomposity. Post your rewritten piece to the Weekend Writing Showcase, which opens on Friday at 6 p.m. US Eastern time.
This is the badge you need:
Below is the YeahWrite badge you need for this month’s microprose challenge. Under the badge is a few lines of code. See that? Copy it and then paste it into the “text” or HTML view of your post editor. If you don’t copy it exactly, the image will not appear correctly in your post, and you will receive an error message when you submit the post to Inlinkz. If you have any questions regarding adding this code to your post or website, please contact us at editors@yeahwrite.me.
Need a hand?
Microprose sounds easy. After all, how hard can it really be to write a story with fewer than 100 words incorporating a prompt or two? But it turns out it’s our hardest challenge to really get right. Whether you’re a seasoned micropro or a brand new microwriter, it’s worth taking a minute to glance through the tips and tricks our editors have put together, like this quick refresher on what makes a micro great, or this one on how to incorporate mandatory prompts into adjudicated challenges. Make sure you make it to the vote this week: check your wordcount (we count those footnotes!) and prompts!
The microprose challenge ends in:
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How to submit and fully participate in the Microprose Challenge
Basic YeahWrite guidelines: must be in response to the prompt found in the introductory post; your entry can be dated no earlier than Wednesday, May 2; purple prose told in exactly 44 words, beginning with “it was a dark and stormy night” and adding 37 words of your own. You may enter only one microstory per monthly challenge.
How to submit and fully participate in the challenge:
- Please grab the code beneath the microprose badge in the body of this week’s post and paste it into the HTML view of your entry;
- Follow the Inlinkz instructions after clicking “add your link” to upload your entry to this week’s challenge grid;
- Your entry should appear immediately on the grid if you don’t receive an error message;
- Please make the rounds to read all the entries in this week’s challenge; and
- Consider turning off moderated comments and CAPTCHA on your own blog.
Submissions for this week’s challenges will close on Wednesday at 10pm ET. Voting will then open immediately thereafter and close on Thursday at 10pm ET. The winners, as always, will be celebrated on Friday.
Thank you for sharing with us your hard work! Good luck in the challenge…
Loading InLinkz ...About the author:
Christine Hanolsy is a (primarily) science fiction and fantasy writer who simply cannot resist a love story. She joined the YeahWrite team in 2014 as the microstory editor and stepped into the role of Editor-In-Chief in 2020. Christine was a 2015 BlogHer Voices of the Year award recipient and Community Keynote speaker for her YeahWrite essay, “Rights and Privileges.” Her short fiction has been published in a number of anthologies and periodicals and her creative nonfiction at Dead Housekeeping and in the Timberline Review. Outside of YeahWrite, Christine’s past roles have included Russian language scholar, composer, interpreter, and general cat herder. Find her online at christinehanolsy.com.
