Overly Poetic

I'm editing. Again. Joy.

It's funny. The first time I edited the draft, I found prose which was lifeless, stilted and dull. I added a bit of poetry, a touch of spice.

This time around, I'm toning some of that down. You could call it purple prose, but that's not specific enough. It's more like odd twists on words. I love to turn verbs into nouns, nouns into verbs, play on puns, throw in alliteration and even rhyming! Sometimes it works (in my opinion) but sometimes I think it detracts from the story by calling attention to the words. I'm trying to find the happy medium. My goal is simple, clear, translucent prose.

Comments

Getting simple, translucent prose is freaking difficult. I work really hard at that and don't always succeed. What I've read of yours it doesn't seem like you overdo it with the poetics. Poetry is an integral part of my writing. I'm happy to hear you love using such a wonderful device, too!
Tara Maya said…
I seem to go to extremes. For the most part, I just toss out words in slipshod fashion, but every now and again I try to get too clever.

While I was reading Cinders, one thing that impressed me was the prose, which was very beautiful, without tripping up the reader. If I could get my writing like that, I would be happy.

I don't mind poesy as long as it does not sacrifice clarity.