Writing with Exaggeration

[Androxine Vortex]

It seems that whatever I write, I try and exaggerate what is happening, making it seem or appear more grand in scale or epic in content. For example, I have an army of religious warriors who go to war. They are accompanied by orchestras and choirs singing battle hymns and blessing the warriors' weapons. Anointed champions who can bear the blessed marks of their gods favor them by letting them wear armor ten times as heavy as normal armor and wielding weapons with mass quadruple what it normally should. These weapons are blessed with holy fire and glow white with crackling energies radiating from them, and these champions are only able to wield these as their spirits are imbued with the powers of their gods. Now of course it sounds a little ridiculous but when I write I don't write with realism as my top priority. I like making things extravagant. I guess I am the type of person who would say,"You know what this knife needs? An RPG attachment." Would stuff like this bother you when reading a story? Do you exaggerate at all when you write? And just to be clear, not every character is running around doing backflips and decapitating people left and right. I just "flourish" where I feel I need/want.

 

[Penpilot]

All writing is exaggeration. What you're doing is perfectly fine. But one thing you absolutely must do is let the reader know that this is the type of world it is and establish enough rules where these things make enough sense.

If you introduce a world as dark and gritty and grounded like Game of Thrones then all of a sudden have fight scenes and dialogue like the Princess Bride, you're going to get a lot of WTF moments in the reader.

Set up your reader expectations well, establish a consistent set of rules for how the world operates, and communicate everything effectively to the reader and you can have anything happen in your world and the reader will buy it. Comic books are a prime example of this. Its a world where a rich dude with a belt full of gadgets and martial arts skills can stand equal to a guy who can shoot lasers from his eyes and cleave continents in half.

 

[Androxine Vortex]

Yes I agree it is important no matter how crazy you are going to make things, they must have to follow or be based on some sort of foundation of rules. Or make a plausible reason as to why something might defy a law of physics. I also agree with making things consistent. If your story is about humans being killed by aliens and non of our weapons are effective but then a hero emerges who can punch them and kill them in one blow sounds very far fetched so either don't do that or have a pretty good reason to justify that.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I also agree with making things consistent. If your story is about humans being killed by aliens and non of our weapons are effective but then a hero emerges who can punch them and kill them in one blow sounds very far fetched so either don't do that or have a pretty good reason to justify that.

I'd like to point out that this is literally the premise of Heroman. Nukes don't work, but one punch from an alien robot is enough to kill them. I actually like that show, so . . .

As for my main point, I don't know how to say this without being rude, so I'll just be blunt and hope for the best. For me, this is barely readable:

For example, I have an army of religious warriors who go to war. They are accompanied by orchestras and choirs singing battle hymns and blessing the warriors' weapons. Anointed champions who can bear the blessed marks of their gods favor them by letting them wear armor ten times as heavy as normal armor and wielding weapons with mass quadruple what it normally should. These weapons are blessed with holy fire and glow white with crackling energies radiating from them, and these champions are only able to wield these as their spirits are imbued with the powers of their gods.

This, on the other hand, sounds pretty cool:

I have an army of religious warriors who go to war accompanied by orchestras. Choirs bless their weapons with holy fire, making them glow white with crackling energy. The gods favor them by letting them wear armor ten times the weight of normal armor and wield weapons with quadruple normal mass.

Pace and organize what you're describing. Establish a framework, then amp it up step by step. Don't just slam the reader headfirst into a massive wall of words.

 

[K.S. Crooks]

I think if this is your style there will be an audience for it. I think you need to be consistent with what activities or people get this extra flourish. It helps if there is a reason for each of the flourishes, which you seem to have done. Pay as much attention to the ordinary moments otherwise the story can become irrelevant. It's like having a perfectly spiced T-bone that was just burned to a crisp.

 

[Terry Greer]

Hard to say much out of context, and I don't know your story and world in detail - and I don't want to offend.

But the problem I've always found with everything being on a grand scale is that there is then no contrast - and nowhere to go.

For me story/ settings etc all rely on contrast to work.
You can't have darkness without light. You can't have hoards without individuals or smaller groups. You can't have huge rooms without smaller ones. You can't have opulence without something less than that (even if you don't go as far as outright poverty - just comparing a comfortable merchant's house with his Lords palace. If everything is grand and exaggerated - then nothing is as its then just the way everything in the world is described.
I've found this with working on level design in games - if everything is exaggerated hugely then it becomes boring really quickly.

Having said that - Penpilot is right - all writing is a form of exaggeration (or simplification) of something so perhaps I've got the wrong end of what you mean - perhaps you exaggerate in both directions.