How do yoy feel about long prose?

[Xitra_Blud]

How do you feel about long prose?

I like long prose. I like long, beautiful and complex prose. I especially love when the author uses metaphors and similes. I like what many might even call, purple prose. I bring this up because my beta readers are always telling us to tighten our prose. Don't get me wrong, I think they are very good critiquers and I normally like their advice and apply it to my own work, however, I'm not so certain about the thing on prose. One of our members wrote what I thought were beautiful prose and I told him to keep at it, but everyone else in the group knocked him down for in it.

I honestly think that's an opinion based thing. Thing is, it's often about a person's voice and the mood of the story. Some people write short, to the point prose others may write longer more poetic prose. I personally favor longer, poetic, but I don't think there is anything wrong with either one. I think it is what you are going for in a story.

I do understand that some things can be overly described which I think, to anyone, that's frustrating, but it's not what I'm referring to. I'm referring to the older, more poetic style of writing. I also understand that some people over do it, but you have others who can do it and pull it off well. I believe if you can make it work for you then go for it.

I guess what I'm saying is, if someone's over writing then point it out to them, but to say that long prose is the "wrong" write for no other reason than the prose are just long, I think is bad advice.

What do you think? Are long, poetic prose bad?

 

[Steerpike]

I like it just fine. It is great when done well. When the author doesn't know how to handle it, that's a problem.

 

[X Equestris]

As far as I'm concerned, prose becomes over poetic when it becomes difficult for the reader to follow what's happening. Also, some of the more...colorful similes and metaphors can be distracting.

 

[Steerpike]

There are some great works that are difficult and require a lot of effort by the reader to follow

 

[Ayaka Di'rutia]

I like longer, more descriptive prose that presents the characters, world, and plot in an interesting and flowing way. I don't like purple prose, though, when the author is obsessively getting off-topic trying to fit in a lot of description.

 

[BWFoster78]

Xitra_bud,

The general wisdom, as far as I can tell, is that the current marketplace tends to favor lean prose. That's not to say that there isn't an audience for longer prose, but the general feeling seems to be that finding that audience might be more difficult than finding an audience for leaner prose.

A lot of critiquers, myself included, tend to try to steer authors toward the techniques that are more widely considered popular.

I think that pursuing something less popular is perfectly valid as long as one realizes that future commercial appeal may be limited by the decision.

Thanks.

Brian

 

[Feo Takahari]

I feel like I would need to see the prose in order to know what you're talking about, but at the very least, I'd like to point out that "poetic" prose doesn't have to mean "long" prose. I've seen plenty of nice prose that resembled this poem more than this poem, pretty but precise.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

I have nothing philosophically against "long prose." But, it does present a challenge of keeping the reader entertained. I know a lot of people who dislike Crime and Punishment. I am not one of those. I actually enjoy that book. Those people that dislike the book hate how long some description parts are. I enjoyed those parts. They were beautiful in my estimation. Or, people I know dislike East of Eden for similar reasons. I can safely say that this book is in my top 10 all time favorites. But these were both very well done.

However, I felt that Eragon's longer prose pieces were just...awful. Seriously I skipped whole pages. So, the long prose thing depends not on the validity of the concept but on the ability of the author.

 

[Miskatonic]

If the author is gifted at it then long prose can be a joy to read.

 

[wordwalker]

Much of it is knowing your own style. Whatever degree of length and poetry you want, try to be consistent about it. Let your reader know this is what you're delivering, and don't rush one part or pad another. Then work hard to get good at that style, including knowing its limits (longer prose can get unclear, and it may work best if the story moves quickly so it has room for the language to slow it down; leaner prose can learn to make the most of the right one word).

That and, "consistent" means knowing your average, not that every passage is automatically the same density. Some bits are just less important (or more urgent) and need to be a little shorter, and some deserve an extra touch or three.