Open Door Critiques [CLOSED]

🚪 You, or Your Story?

Have you heard of the 5 love languages?

There's words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch. These are all the different ways in which people feel most loved.

Now say one day, I feel particularly compelled to show my husband that I love him. How would I go about it?

Well, since my love languages are mostly acts of service and receiving gifts, maybe I buy him a nice new headphone. And on another day, when I want to especially show him my love again, I do his house chores for him. On and on, I use my love languages to tell him that I love him.

Except, at the end of the week, he confesses that while he appreciates all that I've been doing, he still feels strangely neglected. He still feels strangely unloved.

But, how can that be? After all, I've been loving him the exact way I would want to be loved.

So let me ask you this.

What is more important? Loving the way you want, or making sure your partner actually feels loved?

Hold onto this question and your answer. We'll be coming back to this.

***

Do you know what Purple Prose is?

This picture sums it up quite nicely.

Purple Prose is like wearing stilettos to a hike. The language doesn't match the occasion, mood, or character. It is out of place, and draws attention to itself. 

Let's do a little exercise. We'll write a sentence in a 'normal' or 'modern' way, and then we'll transform it into purple prose.

___

"He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall."

becomes

"He coiled his arms into a knot-like shape across his chest and tilted at an incline against the vertical structure."

"The hot tea spilled over her hand, and she jerked back in pain."

becomes

"The boiling liquid of the herbed beverage cascaded violently over the limb of her hand, and her skin registered hot pain before she retreated hastily."

___

Which one do you prefer? If you say the purple prose, that is genuinely fine. We all have our own tastes and styles, after all.

But let me ask you this:

Which one gets the point across more clearly and cleanly?

And: Which one do you think most readers would be willing to read through for hours?

Let me ask you something else:

Would you watch an entire movie in slow-motion? No? Because purple prose, when pushed to the extreme, is exactly like watching a movie in slow-motion, with gaussian blur and bloom cranked up to the max. Like this, all scenes become tediously slow, inappropriately melodramatic, and unbearably blurry. Like this, all scenes become unbearably boring.

You wouldn't sit through a movie played in slow-motion. So why make your readers go through what you wouldn't?

***

Purple prose can be beautiful. Every writer, to some extent, utilizes this style. And again, it is genuinely alright if this is the kind of writing you want to pursue.

But remember that question I asked you in the beginning?

What is more important? Loving the way you want, or making sure your partner actually feels loved?

What was your answer?

Mine is: a healthy mix of both, with the latter taking priority.

If you love your partner, making sure they feel loved is what's truly important, even if you have to step out of your comfort zone.

And now, finally, is the point I'm trying to make:

What is more important? That you write the way you want, or that your readers are receiving what they need from the story?

The answer? If you are writing solely for yourself, with no care whether or not people want to read your work, then the former is what's more important. Just write however you want.

If, however, you are writing because you wish to be read, because you have a story that you wish to share with others, then you will have to challenge yourself to find that perfect balance of staying true to your vision, while at the same time taking care of your readers, of meeting them where they're at.

Purple prose, when misused, elevates the writer. It says, "Hey, look at me. I use very complex structures and words and complicated ways of getting to a point, which means I as a writer am very smart and talented."

So finally, here is the crux of the matter:
Do you want to elevate yourself?
Or do you want to elevate your story?