Vaporo
Inkling
Something occurred to me while writing today. I wrote this line to set the scene, but something about it bothered me:
"It was late afternoon, and the sun would soon set below the hills and turn the sky to deep shades of red and orange."
Eventually it hit me. This line is completely literal. Another author might write it as "Soon, the sky would become a great fiery ceiling and turn the world to a great dome of charcoal" or something of that nature.
The thing is, I actively struggle to write like this, partially because I really don't like the result. I HATE purple prose. I tend to be a very literal person. I'm a believer that metaphor should be applied sparingly, if at all, and only when a precise description has failed. To me, the sky is the sky and to call it anything but the sky is just a waste of breath.
I've heard the advice that I should write from the perspective of my characters, and say things the way they would see them. However, I have a hard time believing that anyone actually thinks that way. I certainly don't go around calling lakes "great wavering mirrors" and what have you. To me, it's a lake that happens to have a reflective surface.
Is it really something that I need to do, though? Like I said, I hate reading purple prose. Can I rely on my literal descriptions, or do you consider this style of writing a necessity?
"It was late afternoon, and the sun would soon set below the hills and turn the sky to deep shades of red and orange."
Eventually it hit me. This line is completely literal. Another author might write it as "Soon, the sky would become a great fiery ceiling and turn the world to a great dome of charcoal" or something of that nature.
The thing is, I actively struggle to write like this, partially because I really don't like the result. I HATE purple prose. I tend to be a very literal person. I'm a believer that metaphor should be applied sparingly, if at all, and only when a precise description has failed. To me, the sky is the sky and to call it anything but the sky is just a waste of breath.
I've heard the advice that I should write from the perspective of my characters, and say things the way they would see them. However, I have a hard time believing that anyone actually thinks that way. I certainly don't go around calling lakes "great wavering mirrors" and what have you. To me, it's a lake that happens to have a reflective surface.
Is it really something that I need to do, though? Like I said, I hate reading purple prose. Can I rely on my literal descriptions, or do you consider this style of writing a necessity?
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