Colors of prose is new to me, so I asked my best friend, Google Search, and he (she?) told me the stylistic opposite of Purple Prose is Beige Prose. (Masterclass.com) I think I'll stick with black on white prose.
Beige prose sounds awful though. I guess I am talking about writing that isn't stuffed full of adjectives and wordy descriptions, what I would call 'lean writing'.
You asked for the opposite of purple prose. That's what I found. I apologize for not doing a better job.
Ha ha. The artist in me immediately thought 'orange prose.' (That's the opposite of purple on the colour wheel ...not 'beige.' ) But it's probably best to go to the writer's definition, and work from there. Wikipedia says: So I quite like the Dick-and-Jane notion, as mentioned by @Homer Potvin and @peachalulu, if you want to consider the opposite of purple prose to be an equally undesirable writing style. You don't want to diminish the appreciation of the prose overall by swamping it with verbiage, but at the same time you don't want to reduce it to Me-Tarzan, You-Jane either, do you? That's equally unpleasant, I reckon. I'd say maybe the middle term is 'Economical?' 'Lean' implies (to me anyway) that all the fat has been cut. But as anybody knows—referring to steak—a good steak needs a bit of fat, otherwise it's tough to chew. 'Economical', on the other hand, means not wasting anything, including words. It's the lack of waste that's important to this definition, not the actual lack of words. If certain adverbs, adjectives or metaphors are needed to convey the exact meaning you intend to convey, by all means use them. Figure out what sharpens the nuances you want to create, and leave out anything that doesn't. That takes practice, and isn't a matter of simply eliminating all adjectives, adverbs, or what-not. It's learning how and when to use these writing tools effectively.
If I were looking to compliment an accomplished stylist for such writing, I would probably describe it as spare prose. If I wanted to go a little farther, perhaps even suggesting that a shade less spareness would have sufficed, I might call it austere.
Purple prose is typically used as a criticism; it's not just poetic or descriptive prose, but prose so excessively extravagant that it distracts from the narrative or is full of embellishments that add no meaning. It makes sense that the opposite would not be particularly flattering either. If I wanted to describe a spartan writing style in a positive way, I might go with 'Clean', 'Clear', 'Direct', 'Lean', or 'Minimalist'.
Let's just call it 'uninteresting with little emotion or impact' or alternatively 'writing an essay paper that's worth 90% of my grade' when done right purple can be acceptable, the thing that makes it 'purple' isn't the style of writing, but that style of writing in excess. I don't have much right to speak on it as I can't think of many examples of purple prose that I seen, but still lol
I certainly wouldn’t say the opposite of purple prose was this. In fact I’d go so far as to say I prefer it. To me, purple prose’s foil is the kind of stuff Kerouac, Bukowski, and Fante write, and I love it.
It really depends on the story being told I think. A story that takes place on boring 'normal' earth would probably be fine with less purple. A story that takes place on an alien world and MC is a human who'd never been there before probably would like some embellishments and fancy phrases. Aside from the magical artifacts and such, Laura Croft's earth is pretty normal. So I imagine it wouldn't need too much purple prose. I know I certainly wouldn't try to tell a fantasy epic with the same kind of writing I'd write a school essay on biology at the very least heh.
