Purple prose Puns

So I was browsing a thread yesterday where a user complained about H.P. Lovecraft.

H.P. Lovecraft was a magnificent writer, no doubt, but the user complained about his abundant use of adjectives. Lovecraft would insert tons of adjectives into every sentence as an effort to prolong the book rather than adding anything of substance.

So I got to thinking, what other authors are guilty of this? Purple prose can get annoying as it can come across as pretentious or pompous.

One of the reason I like George R.R. Martin is because although his books are 900 pages long, I've always found his writing to be descriptive but not overly descriptive as to be pretentious or disrupt the narrative flow.

Who are the worst offenders in your opinion?

My editor has recently told me that I use purple prose way too much, which they say is a bad thing. Thing is though, purple's my favorite color; what should I do?

I'm really confused.

I recently sent a manuscript to a publisher but they rejected it and said my 200k word slice-of-life short story needed to be shorter (fine, I can maybe lose 3000 words if I start using contractions more) and there was too much purple prose.

I checked very carefully and changed the font colour to black, even put it in bold to make sure it's not purple but nope I just got an email saying not to contact them again.

I tend to use graphic, vivid language because I try to show rather than tell. I can say that a character's voice is annoying, or I can say that it 'serrates through someone's head'...like a cutting tool. The word itself is harsh and a bit annoying.

A piece of feedback I got recently was that my writing comes off as purple prose - too much flowery description. 'Serrate' rather than 'cut', for example.

How do you balance the need to show rather than tell with the need to avoid overdoing the flowery language? 'Cut' seems a bit too generic and doesn't have the onomatopoeia of saying 'serrate'...maybe a word with the same type of meaning but less formal? 'Her voice drills through my head' maybe? Or 'grates'?

i especially like books that can be interpreted as a queer story. I'm partial to teen-young adult protags for this genre, especially if they're in high school or undergrad.

problem is, all the recs i get are just novelized YA garbage. it all reads like Drarry Dark Academia Fanfic! I'm thinking more like A Separate Peace or Catcher in the Rye or Dorian Gray.

Any suggestions? short stories are cool too if they're relevant :)

Danny isolated himself to think about what was going on inside him. The feeling of victory was running through him like racing carts. It felt as empowering as being in a sauna, though it didn't dampen the feeling that gnawed his head. Was it dissatisfaction? It could be: giving Aunt Amy her what she deserves was great, but on this occasion, the dissatisfaction didn't want to let him succeed. Danny concluded that it was the same dissatisfaction you see in a good movie that failed at something that ruined part of the experience. If that's so, what failed? Razvan was flawless, Celia used the puppet card very well by always coming unannounced, and Sara was a delightful scream queen. Maybe he was the one who failed - could he have gotten more out of his participation? Maybe, but Danny was satisfied with his performance, given the circumstances. If it wasn't that, it had to be something else. Danny massaged his temples with his fingers, thinking about what it could be. A flash of his memory reminded him of a term he read in a book: Pyrrhic victory.

From what Danny remembered, if you won a victory like that it meant you won at the cost of sacrificing something you weren't willing to lose. Still hesitant, Danny wondered if that was it and if he should put it all aside. No, he was too responsible for that. He realized he had won, that much was clear, so the crux of the matter was not that he had suffered a Pyrrhic victory per se. With a bad taste in his mouth - of dissatisfaction - he realized that the problem was figuring out what he was losing. Danny didn't know, but the answer would come relatively soon. That is if you look at time from the eyes of a vampire.

Edit: thank you all for the comments. They were very useful for my first try so I could make an new attempt. Hope you like the second try:

[...]

*Danny didn't stay talking to the others, as he needed his space to think. He was supposed to be happy that he had given Aunt Amy her comeuppance, but like a pebble in his shoe, he felt that something was bothering him. Was that dissatisfaction? It could be: it was the same dissatisfaction of watching a failed promising movie. It had to be that: someone screwed up a little and that ruined everything: however, his colleagues did a great job -Razvan was the one who carried the most weight, and to take credit away from him or anyone else would be selfish. Fine: it wasn't any of them then. The only to blame was him. Could he have gotten more out of his partic

Personally, I don't like writing multiple paragraphs devoted to just describing all five senses of an environment because I think that just drags my story. People say that purple prose is not a good thing but then there are others who love how descriptive someone writes a scene, so what makes descriptive words go too far?

I feel rather alone in this topic, but I got to confess; I love purple prose.

I'm a little nervous even admitting it. It's an unpopular opinion, I know guys. Hope I don't get too much backlash for it.

Before you light the mob torches let me explain. A while ago I realized that my favorite books had this style. Sadly writing that is highly descriptive and uses many adjectives/adverbs is deeply frowned upon in the community. Yet somehow I can't get enough of books that take a leisurely pace and go into detail with lots of 'redundant' yet yummy words. The consensus seems to be 'write with the sense of economy, use as few words as possible,' but I can't abide by this rule! Give me all your descriptions, all your adverbs, all your over the top metaphors! Mwahahaha...

Some of my favorite authors and/or books thar I consider to use this style are;

Anything Bronte Sisters Anything Charles Dickens Mervin Peake's Gormenghast trilogy A Winters Tale, Mark Helprin Books of Babel, Josiah Bancroft Jonathan Strange and Mr norrell, Susanna Clarke Perdido Street Station China Meiville Strange the Dreamer Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy

Is anyone with me? Please tell me I'm not the only one. Drop a comment.

Edit: wow I didn't expect to get so many great responses. You guys really help me get a lot of clarity. When I have the time I'm going to going to reply.

I really like Euphuism, but I can't tell the difference.

I recently got to thinking about Purple Prose and remembered an old game I used to play.

Essentially you write something in heavy Purple Prose and the next person had to try and translate it. For example:

Her optical orbs seized the facade of a beauteous equine of the female variety.

Translation: Her eyes caught sight of a beautiful mare.

Essentially; just thesaurus the FUCK out of your sentence.

It's a great way to expand your vocabulary.

Just post a comment with a Purple Prose sentence and me or someone else will try and translate it!

How common is it for someone to be turned off from a work when the prose is purple, fancy, poetic, or archaic in style?

Edit: Thanks for the answers, you guys. To clarify, I don't think 'purple', 'fancy', 'poetic', and 'archaic' are synonymous to one another. It's just that I've seen different people call a work's prose all of those things.

i'm looking for a book similar to cmbyn or even dorian gray where the purple prose just feels.. right. i'm a big fan of flowery words expanding on the internal conflicts/emotions the characters are going through and making them feel more real and relatable so if there are any books that fit that description please shoot a suggestion in the comments thank you

Recently got to reading a certain Naruto fanfic -- that shall not be named-- that a lot of my friends recommended. The grammar is good and it's well made but I just can't get myself to like it. The plot is kind of dragging and the purple prose is just too much that it's distracting for me. Ugh.

Flowery writing doesn't equate to good writing but it's just so silly how people think it is. As long as you get your point across, have good dialogue, and entertain readers, then the fic is good. It doesn't matter how descriptive your book is. Some people should just put down the thesaurus from time to time. Just saying.

I started playing Disco Elysium and the opening dialogues came off as very purple prose-y? I really liked it but the original term has sorta a bad rep.

I got this guest review today, and I had to laugh:

>Interesting first chap. Characterizations are solid. Could use more descriptive sentences.
>
>Example of Descriptive Writing;
>
>Her last smile to me wasn't a sunset. It was an eclipse, the last eclipse, noon dying away to darkness where there would be no dawn.

No, what you want is purple prose, I don't do purple prose unless I'm really in the mood to imitate Matthew Stover, and my Code Geass and Fate/Stay Night fanfic is NOT Matthew Stover style material, if you want Nasuverse purple prose, go read the Fate/Stay Night VN! LOL!

For those who don't know, purple prose is unnecessarily long or descriptive passages, typical written with flowery language that people wouldn't use in real-life conversation. It sometimes sets a mood, or it bores readers.

There are some writers who pull it off like Cormac McCarthy (The Road) or Rick Yancey (the 5th Wave). Other times it gets on my nerves.

My sister and I both have different writing styles: hers is Purple Prose. She'll use longer words in long sentences to describe something that didn't really need that long of a description or narrative. My writing is to the point and doesn't mince words. Where I would do well as a technical writer, my sister would fail miserably.

What's your opinion? Is Purple Prose a legitimate style, or is it a literary turn off?

Hey, I had posted earlier about overtly wordy and aimless writing and wanted to share an excerpt to see if I had honed that in a bit on this piece. I'm providing two excerpts, the beginning of this piece as well as the latter half of it, and wanted to get an overall feel for it.

(The piece)

They say that New York is the city that never sleeps, but no city sleeps, all cities are their own organisms that never start or stop at any given time, and Okinawa was no different. It was midnight and the coffee pot was still warm, but I didn’t remember making coffee. That’s what these overseas trips did to you, fucked with your sense of time, disillusioned your own reality when you were really just eleven hours ahead. Pennsylvania was the place I called home, but for now the towering summer residences of Okinawa would be my temporary stay; flown out on all paid vacation that I won in a ‘Lottery’ at work. It had been two days since I got here, and I yearned for home about as much as I did when I arrived. I yawned as I grabbed the pot and poured myself a cup, walked over to the window and looked down below. The LED screens that swarmed each building had only expanded with each decade, and Japan helmed the forefront of implementation. I stared at an ad for coffee grounds despite one being in my hand because the animated child reminded me of Clarice, and fuck me if I were to ever let her drink coffee but the ad tempted me.

\

\

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I pulled up my phone and mapped out my path, what seemed so close through the window was actually fifteen minutes. I tossed on the overcoat and walked out the door, doing a double take to make sure I had my wallets and keys, and strutted through the hallway towards the stairs. Passing each room, some enraptured with their do not disturb tags hanging around nearly every doorknob, whilst others remained vacant until more lovers arrived. I headed through the door and down the stairs, six flights of them, then through the inventively decorated lobby that was all too beautiful for myself, and headed outside. The wind had died down as well as the rain at that point, so I started on my path, waiting at intersections and crosswalkings before proceeding with my nightly quest.

Each light I passed slapped me with the fact that I did in fact overdress, and with each night owl I passed the thought grew all the more wearier. Jeans, and sleeveless t-shirts roamed through the belly of this city like pigs to a slaughter, and I, the rancid of the

Are there any other fantasy readers out there who enjoy reading what some might call "purple prose?"

I happen to really appreciate a well-crafted "lyrical" sentence, and I think there's always a place for extra flowery, over-embroidered prose in the fantasy world.

I understand the desire for windowpane prose in some situations and in some books, and of course everyone has their preference, but for me it's just fun sometimes to read a sentence you can chew on for a few minutes. Words I have to pick from between my teeth. Metaphors and dense images piled upon one another like my grandma's ten-layer caramel cake. In the hands of the right author, lyricism is one of my guilty pleasures.

I'm curious to learn what books the contributors on this sub consider "purple prose." As an example, I'm a huge fan of the Gentleman Bastards series, due in part to Scott Lynch's poetic way of writing. I'm looking for more good fantasy books that can rival the way Lynch makes a simple sentence sing and fill the mind with super-dense imagery. What other authors have that kind of style?

I feel like there is a fine line between purple prose and using precise language, and I'm usually on the wrong side of it. I tell myself that my target audience is intelligent, so it's alright, but it probably isn't.

I've been working on shaving the multisyllabic words out of my work, but what's left just seems so dull. When I try to find a middle ground it seems I only manage to capture the worst qualities of each.

Here's an example of something that I know is at the very least flirting with purple prose.

"Somewhere in his mind he realized that the severity of the infraction did not merit the intensity of his response. However, the day’s trials had eroded the palisade that he usually relied upon to halt the unauthorized immigration of his anger. His calm rationality attempted to catch the border jumper, but it was exhausted from overuse, and only managed to reach its quarry somewhere near his throat. His rationality made an impressive leap -it was quite fit and even when tired, could outperform most others -but it was too late. The two flew out of his mouth in sync, twisting and dancing around one another to form a ridiculous tirade of verbose rage."

In your opinion, is this an acceptable style, or does it come across as overly complex and unreadable?

I have recently learned the term "purple prose". I read about it from this site: https://blog.reedsy.com/purple-prose/

Thing is, the reasons listed by this blog didn't really resonate with me. The only point I agreed with, if the blog even made that point, is that ornate and superfluous writing is unnecessary, pseudo-literary and often pretentious.

However, the blog mentioned three other points. Purple prose takes attention away from the narrative and redirects it to the prose itself, it slows down the pace and it's hard to get through. The two last points are connected, because the slowing down of the pace is partly due to the text being harder to get through (or maybe entirely due to that, tf do I know lol).

I disagree with all these points, or rather, that they're bad things. To take the attention away from the narrative doesn't need to be a bad thing. Sometimes it's nice to appreciate the writing itself. Obviously, it's prose and not poetry, but still, sometimes the narrative can step back a little and let the writing itself shine. This brings me to the second point; slowing down the pace isn't a bad thing, it's actually necessary at times. Now, when one does slow down the pace, this is a great time to let the writing shine a little, as the narrative has already stepped down, and can therefore step a little back as well. Basically, compensate for the lack of narrative tension by increasing the stimulating effects of the writing itself.

The last point, "it's hard to get through", is a point I'm a bit unsure about. I don't think I've read that much purple prose, but the example provided by the linked blog was not hard to get through. Now, obviously, this is quite subjective. I wonder if I'm perhaps not so affected by long, multisyllabic words because my mother language has a lot of long, multisyllabic words. Even small words tend to be quite multisyllabic, and long words are abundant. So, maybe I'm just more used to it, or maybe purple prose really isn't that difficult to follow, and some people are just a bit lazy. So, below is the example included in the blog, let me know if it was hard to follow for you (say what your mother language is too, in case there is a correlation there).

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*The mah

I've always tried writing high fantasy books but I could never finish them. It felt like I was swimming against the current. Recently I've read a lot of literary fiction and decided to write one. I'm only a few thousand words in but I've noticed that I can finally breathe again.

But one thing is worrying me, do I need to write flowery when writing in this genre. I have a simple writing style and I pride myself on analogies but other than that, I don't consider myself a flowery writer.

Do you have any thoughts on this? Thank you in advance!!

I'm sure we've all got an opinion on this topic. Some of my readers love some description and flowery scenes while others just want me to get to the point. Lately, I've been struggling to find the balance.

I had an almost out of body experience recently, when two different and separate beta readers gave me feedback on a specific line:

The line was: Her voice was like melted honey, and he regarded her warmly when he did look back.

Beta 1: "Love this!"

Beta 2: Hate it. Try - "She spoke softly, in a voice that made him turn to her with a smile."

In the olden days, I loved Stephen King and Anne Rice for their purple prose, and Dean Koontz for his pages and pages of description, but now I can't even have one line.

What do you all think?

Hello,

I was just wondering if anyone else had a perspective on this. I’m currently reading Jerusalem. I think I have just about finished book one. The stories themselves are really interesting.

However the prose is... wow! I don’t mind a bit of purple prose, sometimes the beauty and poetry of the words is enough. But I’m finding Jerusalem, pointlessly descriptive. Describing what someone is eating, how they chew it, what colour it is when chewed! This entire wall of text adds nothing to the story and if removed would change nothing.

I have to say, reading this is souring my opinion on Moore. This is the kind of thing you’d expect to see from a new writer. Either Moore is less experienced than I’d expect (seems unlikely, but then again most of his work has been in comics rather than novels). Or is it an ego thing, where he believes every word is genius and refused to do any sort of editing and redrafting which ‘lesser’ writers have to do?

I do like it and it seems there is a really good 300 page novel here... with 900 extra pages mashed in. Does anyone else have a different take on this?

Are purple prose considered as descriptive writing with extra fancy words?

Purple Prose- prose that is too elaborate or ornate.

descriptive writing - involves paying close attention to the details by using all of your five senses.

Hi all, recently I've discovered the term 'purple prose' which basically means prose that is so flowery that it comes across as trying to hard and takes away from the plot. It's usually associated with inexperienced writers. I'm realizing that my writing must come across that way (even work I took pride in) so I would love some feedback about if I'm way overdoing it or if a little is ok or what. Ok I will post my writing below and please leave a comment, thanks! :)

Moon Cave

June comes softly to my lap, like a sleepy child who has been warmed and browned by the sun. The flowers do make a sound as they grow, morning frowns into dusk, and a seemingly imperishable veil of void covers my little wooden home entombed in the heart of the forest.

When a sad man awakens, there is a moment where he feels not sorry or wishful, it is within this brief moment- before he involuntarily leaps back into his being- that he is not truly himself nor any other being. The man either interrupts life with sleep, or in an intangible spontaneity he wrongly believes he has lived a life (but awakes anew after each sleep) and that he is a man who must remember his plague of all consuming, unfulfilled desires that will never be properly appeased and his past that he can never be liberated from. There is a similar moment one can experience in the first moments of waking when we do not remember ourselves- yet we wake fearful with a bone deep, cold ache sense of wrong, before an awareness of a specific idea of self can overwhelm us. This morning, I awoke with this sense.

I wear the bed’s silk blanket like a cloak as if I am a queen in royal blue and allow it to slide across the floor like a snake gliding behind me- a curious yet obedient creature- as I rise from sleep. Stirring about the house I prepare breakfast and find my book to alleviate the off feeling permeating my body. I read and read, thoughtlessly for an indefinite amount of time. Then, I immerse myself in a soapy bath, reading more of my book and finally begin to wonder where mother might be as I haven’t seen her all day and it is already afternoon. A half hour later I rise covered in tiny bubbles, and after drying myself I put on a cream color nightgown because I know I won’t be leaving the house anyhow. I return to the living room area of the house to check for my mother, but instead I observe there is a folded paper on the dining room table with a hurried Aurielle written on top. I figure mother has left a no

Hi everyone! Was wondering if anyone has book recommendations for the fantasy genre that are more “magical”??? I’m not sure how to describe my taste in fantasy :”

Basically, I enjoy books that a lot of people critique as kind of long winded haha. I LOVED The Bone Witch trilogy, and many people criticise this trilogy for being too long-winded with its descriptions but I loved the world building, and enjoyed that style of writing.

The best fantasy books I’ve read that have a similar (?) style of writing are by Madeleine Miller! I prefer books with a lot of imagery I guess!

Also, I prefer books that are more whimsical in nature, like I can’t really get into books that are, for lack of a better word, more “hardcore”??? Like I couldn’t really get into A Song of Ice and Fire, I prefer books like the aforementioned books, and Erin Morgenstern’s (The Night Circus), Sarah J Maas’ (A Court of Thorns and Roses) Marissa Meyer’s (as cheesy as they are: The Lunar Chronicles and Heartless) books!

I’m already planning to read: A Starless Sea, Till We Have Faces, Tensorate series (by Neon Yang)

But was hoping someone would have more recommendations!

For anyone with similar preferences, I recommend The Gatekeeper by Nuraliah Norasid! She’s a writer from Singapore, and even though the novel is allegorical in nature and about racism in my society, I really loved the fantastical aspect of the novel!

I made a similar thread in another subreddit and someone suggested the iron key series as well!

Thank you!!!

This is an issue I have when writing, and when I am trying to analyze a text and I find it really difficult to tell the difference. It sometimes seems to me that an example of vivid language, or purple prose, is only distinguished by whether or not the author likes it.

Exhibit A: "goldenly, youthfully, it bubbled with all the melodious characteristics he knew"

Now if I just read this somewhere I would think that it was written by a romantic teen who just feel in love for the first time and is being super sappy trying to express himself. But it's from Lolita apparently, which is considered a classic.

So how do you tell?

For me, the most important thing I look for in a book is the writing style. A book could have an imaginative world, gripping plot, and compelling characters, but I can't get through it if the writing style is lackluster. For reference, the most recent books I've read that really "scratched that itch" have been Catherynne Valente's "Deathless" and Tamsyn Muir's "The Locked Tomb" trilogy (currently just a duology).

Can anyone point me in the direction of more books like this? Books that simmer in the character's psyche and douse me in unorthodox metaphor. I'll take almost any genre (sf/fantasy, horror/mystery/thriller, contemporary literature) if the writing's lovely enough.

Thanks!

My enjoyment of "modern" fantasy (mid-90s onwards) is often hampered by the prose and very samey characters coming up. Big guy's been to war a lot and is weary and just wants to go back to their homestead (maybe has a missing finger or two)? Overly naive character becomes horrified by the realities of war? You know the drill. Been there.

Also, I happen to like good prose. Rhythmic, efficacious prose that delights in language:

> The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam, but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea.

Or, to get an example from outside of fantasy:

> Moon-faced, mountainous, moderately stoned, Archy Stallings manned the front counter of Brokeland Records, holding a random baby, wearing a tan corduroy suit over a pumpkin-bright turtleneck that reinforced his noted yet not disadvantageous resemblance to Gamera, the giant mutant flying tortoise of Japanese cinema. He had the kid tucked up under his left arm as, with his free right hand, he worked through the eighth of fifteen crates from the Benezra estate, the records in crate number 8 favoring, like Archy, the belly-meat of jazz, salty and well-marbled with funk.

I need your help, /r/fantasy.

1. The wind was the musician and the leaves of the trees the instrument. The tall red grass were the audience dancing to the rattle of leaves.

2. Embarrassment and shock battled to determine which of the two got to be shown on his face. Before they could finish he ran away.

So I was browsing a thread yesterday where a user complained about H.P. Lovecraft.

H.P. Lovecraft was a magnificent writer, no doubt, but the user complained about his abundant use of adjectives. Lovecraft would insert tons of adjectives into every sentence as an effort to prolong the book rather than adding anything of substance.

So I got to thinking, what other authors are guilty of this? Purple prose can get annoying as it can come across as pretentious or pompous.

One of the reason I like George R.R. Martin is because although his books are 900 pages long, I've always found his writing to be descriptive but not overly descriptive as to be pretentious or disrupt the narrative flow.

Who are the worst offenders in your opinion?

I feel like there is a fine line between purple prose and using precise language, and I'm usually on the wrong side of it. I tell myself that my target audience is intelligent, so it's alright, but it probably isn't.

I've been working on shaving the multisyllabic words out of my work, but what's left just seems so dull. When I try to find a middle ground it seems I only manage to capture the worst qualities of each.

Here's an example of something that I know is at the very least flirting with purple prose.

"Somewhere in his mind he realized that the severity of the infraction did not merit the intensity of his response. However, the day’s trials had eroded the palisade that he usually relied upon to halt the unauthorized immigration of his anger. His calm rationality attempted to catch the border jumper, but it was exhausted from overuse, and only managed to reach its quarry somewhere near his throat. His rationality made an impressive leap -it was quite fit and even when tired, could outperform most others -but it was too late. The two flew out of his mouth in sync, twisting and dancing around one another to form a ridiculous tirade of verbose rage."

In your opinion, is this an acceptable style, or does it come across as overly complex and unreadable?

Hi all, recently I've discovered the term 'purple prose' which basically means prose that is so flowery that it comes across as trying to hard and takes away from the plot. It's usually associated with inexperienced writers. I'm realizing that my writing must come across that way (even work I took pride in) so I would love some feedback about if I'm way overdoing it or if a little is ok or what. Ok I will post my writing below and please leave a comment, thanks! :)

Moon Cave

June comes softly to my lap, like a sleepy child who has been warmed and browned by the sun. The flowers do make a sound as they grow, morning frowns into dusk, and a seemingly imperishable veil of void covers my little wooden home entombed in the heart of the forest.

When a sad man awakens, there is a moment where he feels not sorry or wishful, it is within this brief moment- before he involuntarily leaps back into his being- that he is not truly himself nor any other being. The man either interrupts life with sleep, or in an intangible spontaneity he wrongly believes he has lived a life (but awakes anew after each sleep) and that he is a man who must remember his plague of all consuming, unfulfilled desires that will never be properly appeased and his past that he can never be liberated from. There is a similar moment one can experience in the first moments of waking when we do not remember ourselves- yet we wake fearful with a bone deep, cold ache sense of wrong, before an awareness of a specific idea of self can overwhelm us. This morning, I awoke with this sense.

I wear the bed’s silk blanket like a cloak as if I am a queen in royal blue and allow it to slide across the floor like a snake gliding behind me- a curious yet obedient creature- as I rise from sleep. Stirring about the house I prepare breakfast and find my book to alleviate the off feeling permeating my body. I read and read, thoughtlessly for an indefinite amount of time. Then, I immerse myself in a soapy bath, reading more of my book and finally begin to wonder where mother might be as I haven’t seen her all day and it is already afternoon. A half hour later I rise covered in tiny bubbles, and after drying myself I put on a cream color nightgown because I know I won’t be leaving the house anyhow. I return to the living room area of the house to check for my mother, but instead I observe there is a folded paper on the dining room table with a hurried Aurielle written on top. I figure mother has left a note of h

Hi everyone! Was wondering if anyone has book recommendations for the fantasy genre that are more “magical”??? I’m not sure how to describe my taste in fantasy :”

Basically, I enjoy books that a lot of people critique as kind of long winded haha. I LOVED The Bone Witch trilogy, and many people criticise this trilogy for being too long-winded with its descriptions but I loved the world building, and enjoyed that style of writing.

The best fantasy books I’ve read that have a similar (?) style of writing are by Madeleine Miller! I prefer books with a lot of imagery I guess!

Also, I prefer books that are more whimsical in nature, like I can’t really get into books that are, for lack of a better word, more “hardcore”??? Like I couldn’t really get into A Song of Ice and Fire, I prefer books like the aforementioned books, and Erin Morgenstern’s (The Night Circus), Sarah J Maas’ (A Court of Thorns and Roses) Marissa Meyer’s (as cheesy as they are: The Lunar Chronicles and Heartless) books!

I’m already planning to read: A Starless Sea, Till We Have Faces, Tensorate series (by Neon Yang)

But was hoping someone would have more recommendations!

For anyone with similar preferences, I recommend The Gatekeeper by Nuraliah Norasid! She’s a writer from Singapore, and even though the novel is allegorical in nature and about racism in my society, I really loved the fantastical aspect of the novel!

Thank you!!!

Hi all, recently I've discovered the term 'purple prose' which basically means prose that is so flowery that it comes across as trying to hard and takes away from the plot. It's usually associated with inexperienced writers. I'm realizing that my writing must come across that way (even work I took pride in) so I would love some feedback about if I'm way overdoing it or if a little is ok or what. Ok I will post my writing below and please leave a comment, thanks! :)

Moon Cave

June comes softly to my lap, like a sleepy child who has been warmed and browned by the sun. The flowers do make a sound as they grow, morning frowns into dusk, and a seemingly imperishable veil of void covers my little wooden home entombed in the heart of the forest.

When a sad man awakens, there is a moment where he feels not sorry or wishful, it is within this brief moment- before he involuntarily leaps back into his being- that he is not truly himself nor any other being. The man either interrupts life with sleep, or in an intangible spontaneity he wrongly believes he has lived a life (but awakes anew after each sleep) and that he is a man who must remember his plague of all consuming, unfulfilled desires that will never be properly appeased and his past that he can never be liberated from. There is a similar moment one can experience in the first moments of waking when we do not remember ourselves- yet we wake fearful with a bone deep, cold ache sense of wrong, before an awareness of a specific idea of self can overwhelm us. This morning, I awoke with this sense.

I wear the bed’s silk blanket like a cloak as if I am a queen in royal blue and allow it to slide across the floor like a snake gliding behind me- a curious yet obedient creature- as I rise from sleep. Stirring about the house I prepare breakfast and find my book to alleviate the off feeling permeating my body. I read and read, thoughtlessly for an indefinite amount of time. Then, I immerse myself in a soapy bath, reading more of my book and finally begin to wonder where mother might be as I haven’t seen her all day and it is already afternoon. A half hour later I rise covered in tiny bubbles, and after drying myself I put on a cream color nightgown because I know I won’t be leaving the house anyhow. I return to the living room area of the house to check for my mother, but instead I observe there is a folded paper on the dining room table with a hurried Aurielle written on top. I figure mother has left a