This is the same thing we ran into the last time you were posting... you will NOT GIVE UP on your attempts at extravagant, purple prose. You are fully capable of writing clearly... "Okay, I revised my third passage for clarity, but preserved the rhythm" and "I dropped the rest of it for now" are both crystal-clear sentences. But you don't WANT to write clearly. So... stop asking for advice. This isn't something you can't do, it's something you don't want to do. Why ask us how to do something you don't want to do?
I'm not trying to write purple prose. I'm trying to write clear prose, but it must have the kind of rhythm I choose. I'm trying to make sure my prose is rhythmic as well as clear.
It's purple, whether you're aiming for that or not. It takes a real master to pull off purple AND clear (e.g. Nabokov) which is why most of us prioritise clarity in our writing.
Have you seen those videos of babies who don't know how to talk yet but have picked up the rhythms of human speech and babble in meaningless words but standard phrasing? Like: That's what your writing feels like, and it's really frustrating because you KNOW how to talk, and you're choosing gibberish instead.
I recently read a delightful little piece posted by a new member wherein their was an element that one doesn't see much of in modern writing because it's just not part of modern style. The intrusive narrator, a.k.a. purposeful narrative intrusion. But the member gave me a quick line right at the beginning of the short story letting me know that this piece is to be read as though penned by a Victorian hand. Excellent. With that I know which filter to pull out and pop over my spectacles as I read and consider the piece. Now, I'll be honest and say that I'm not a fan of the intrusive narrator as a device, but knowing what I know of period writing, knowing that the intrusive narrator was a very common writing device at the time, my personal tastes are beside the point and aren't appropriate to mention if I am to give words of critique. The only thing I should be considering is whether there was success in execution. Has it been written convincingly. Do I see and hear this Victorian man recounting to me the strange events of this story. This is what we are missing here. The appropriate filter for consideration of your words. Is this being written/thought/said by someone sitting in a Regency Style drawing room for whom said drawing room is not architecturally antique but instead all the new rage? And the rhythm and cadence which you have just now mentioned and which you have mentioned before and which I tried with honest, heartfelt intent to understand and grasp the last time around remains an alien mystery. You say those words, rhythm and cadence, but you don't tie them to a why or a reason or a purpose, so mentioning it is almost worse than not because all we know is that there is this other something in your writing that you want to achieve, a something you won't or cannot tell us, so we lack a frame of reference and all advice is for nought.
What constitutes purple prose in this case? I don't undetstand why it is so hard for people to figure out what my words mean.
In the first example you gave, the meaning became completely opaque in the middle; thus, the second half of the sentence did not read as a logical predicate. The sentence, other than being opaque, feels broken and incomplete. I understand all of this here perfectly. But it is wildly purple. And this coming from someone who has a tendency to the lavender himself. Again, you are going to hear nothing but comments concerning purple prose unless you give a context and frame of reference for why it is this way.
Because you're aiming for a certain rhythm (whatever it is), forcing you to use words that you wouldn't use if you were talking to a friend in McDonald's, as ChickenFreak pointed out. You're sacrificing meaning for whatever you're trying to achieve. Of course meaning is going to suffer. You wouldn't say this to a friend, would you? You'd say "Sandra's beautiful. She's really sweet." or something equally straightforward. Nobody could misunderstand that. Who are you writing for? If you're writing to be read, then say what you mean. If you're writing for yourself, then our opinions won't matter. Judging by your responses, I'm guessing it's the latter.
I'm writing to be read but I want people to hear the rhythm. The fragment uses no words other than those are convey the intendend meaning. I mean to say, fictionally of course, that Sandra is the most charming and noble of girls. So how is that purple? The purpose is not to write the way people talk in ordinary conversation, but in a poetically and musically elevated style. Of course I don't want to sound unnatural, but the way people talk, in my opinion, is not the standard of natural diction. My question then is this: Is the cadence unnatural or the word choic, for surely you would not deny me a particul cadence. I want to improve, so please explain.
Yes, the cadence is unnatural. All I can suggest is that you read more published books. They're not written how we talk, verbatim, but they sound natural. Our brains don't have to process and rearrange words to work out what the author is trying to say. Maybe read Victorian books - someone like Wilkie Collins uses 20 words where three will do, but his sentences sound wonderfully crisp and clear. It might give you an idea of how to deliver this cadence you're after (I've still no idea what it actually is) without sacrificing clarity.
No one in my 46 years of life on this planet - and I have circumnavigated the globe twice in this long, long journey - speaks in this way other than in the most arthouse of period films. It's purple because no one speaks in the lavish, crimson velvet, parlor room manner. Finally! The answer! Here. This. This is all that was needed or wanted to give context. The way people talk is the definition for the standard of natural diction. The term to describe this is idiomatic. I would not deny you its use, but I do deny its current presence (notice that deny has two meanings). The last time around I gave you an example from Delany wherein rhythm and cadence in the prose of a fictional piece is not only musically clear, but also clear in purpose. I gave that example to show that I am not deaf to such things. I am aware of them and note them and consider them and appreciate them. That example went ignored and passed over.
The combination of your word choices and the cadence of your sentences produces an unnatural effect that is neither poetic nor musical. But you can fix this if you are prepared to put in the time to study work that successfully employs poetic style. As I said previously in this thread, you seem to be striving for something that sounds Shakespearean or biblical. Study those texts. Learn their rhythms and their grammar. The English in the Kings James Bible was archaic when the book was translated in the early 1600s, and the translation was Latinate, so obviously that book has its own peculiar rhythms. And Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter, which is a form of poetic verse, so of course he sounds poetic. Find yourself some reference material that's close to the style you're after. Study it until you can write in that mode without thinking about it. And then, and only then, you can start experimenting and developing your own poetical and musically elevated style. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Study the masters and then build on their work. Don't try to make it up as you go along.
Questions: If I immitate the full cadence of an epistle in the King James Bible will I have done enough to learn and use the voice. Will I be able to write a new epistle in the same style with variation in the rhythm? How will commanding the voices of the Bible or Shakespeare help me to create my own musically elevated style? Will I be able to deviate so far from the learned styles as to invent something completly new yet just a powerful. Any further insights?
1) I have no idea. Try it and see. That's the thing about learning new stuff. You have to do it for yourself. 2 ) Respectfully, if you can't answer this question for yourself, then I can't help you. 3) I have no idea. See my answer to question 1. 4) None that would be more useful to you than those I have already given. Good luck, my friend, and happy writing.
No, because you'll still be ignoring the damn MEANING of what you're writing. The KJB has cadence and clarity. You can imitate the rhythm all you want, but you'll still be babbling nonsense until you look at clarity.
The best advice I ever got came from my dad when I was trying to do some songwriting, years back. You have to right for the everyman. Sure, your passages might be understandable by somebody, somewhere, but you are severely limiting your audience.
I can see your point, but I think it's important to understand that in this case, it's not a question of the readers being too uneducated or unintelligent to understand. I have a degree in literature and in law (and if you want to learn to understand convoluted phrasing, go to law school!), @Wreybies speaks a bunch of languages and is great with formal grammar (and probably has degrees, too - I just don't know what they are!), @ChickenFreak consistently offers really perceptive and useful critiques on writing and language (and probably has degrees of her own), etc. This is a pretty educated crowd, made up of people who love words. It's not a question of an "Everyman" audience, not in this case. There are issues with the writing, not with the readers.
So that brings us back to this question? How do I write rhythmically and clearly at the same time? Is the problem really of lack of clarity or vernacular idiom?
If I know how to write clearly without rhythm, and I know how to write obscurely with rhythm, should I not also be able to write both clearly and rhythmically? What is preventing me?
Can you write in the rhythm you want without the archaic words? That might help, at least. I don't mean help us understand, but help you see where there are problems. Like, in that first example, toward the end, you were just throwing words out I assume because they sounded right, but there was no grammatical connection to anything. Maybe you need to study formal grammar? I mean, my formal grammar is terrible, so it's weird for me to recommend the study of it to someone else, but you seem pretty intent on really playing with words and pushing the boundaries, and you can't really do that until you understand what the boundaries are. Have you seen some of Picasso's early work? Absolutely gorgeous paintings in a fairly traditional style. He was great at technique before he started playing with technique. So maybe you need to understand writing better in its technical forms before you try to use it in more complicated ways?
I never implied that you all weren't highly educated folks. What I was saying is that somebody, somewhere might, understand it.
Prosody dear man, if you're to write with rhythm, then the pattern of the rhythm ought to be discernible—to be able to be gotten used to and stuck to. This'll enable a reader to trust you and know there's a deliberate precision with your word choices. Otherwise comes the clank after clank of cacophony/ad hoc word whimsy and their unwillingness to persist. I think I get what you're trying to achieve @waitingforzion (an appreciation of prose rather than point?). I also think it's a big task for you and a big ask of any potential reader(s). Put a lot of time and effort into it mind you'll get your audience all be they nichely-cultish. Therein lies the rub.
I think what Bayview means is that the advice you received is sound advice, but that here we have a case where the consideration is of a more elevated nature and still there is an impasse. No one thinks you implied that we're dolts.
@Wreybies good. I wouldn't want to offend anyone. I already respect the advice of y'all seasoned veterans too much to go pissing y'all off. My comment was directed soley at the OP, as a way of indicating that the passage was too hard to follow.
I'm not really sure if I have a poor knowledge of grammar. It seems I just failed to use it. About the original sentence, I rewrote it as these two. I don't know if it is clear or not. I hope I will not get attacked for not being clear again. I did try to be clear, and I did not force the rhythm all that much, not that there is much rhythm there in the first place? Can you understand it now? In time past I wrote you a letter, declaring this, that your time to befriend me was nigh to ending, and your choice to reject me was nigh to being sealed. But I wrote to you not having this wisdom, that warning you in such ways is wrong and arrogant. I don't consider any of the above phrasing to be archaic. I feel like it can be understood based on modern vocabulary and syntax. Also, the word sealed can mean to irrevokably decide something. To for a choice to be sealed, someone has irrevokably decided that choice will stand. Please let me know if it is still not clear.
