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Writing beautiful sentences is worth the pursuit, and completely worth the discipline it takes to swallow your pride and dig into your subconscious mind to seek the perfect metaphor that will astound and draw intricate pictures of the world you’re creating. Poetic, haunting, rhythmic beats, are not always easy to deliver in this age of hurry-up, git-er-done, Ask Alexa rather than looking it up in an encyclopedia or dictionary, or just do research (Alexa has been proven to be false in her answers, which are based on the prejudices of who programs her).

And then there are those who prefer the abrupt short sentence, and reject what they call, purple prose. In fact, it’s been denigrated by those in the book field from agents to publishers to bloggers to fellow writers, and in every genre except literary. Let’s face it, there are just as many styles of writing as there are writers. The entire profession is subjective. That includes awards. Why does one person win over another with just as much talent, sometimes, more? Those who hand out awards have their tastes in reading, too. Here’s a sentence that is so beautiful it has made me tremble:

They rode on and the sun in the east flushed pale streaks of light and then a deeper run of color like blood seeping up in sudden reaches flaring planewise and where the earth drained up into the sky at the edge of creation the top of the sun rose out of nothing like the head of a great red phallus until it cleared the unseen rim and sat squat and pulsing and malevolent behind them. ~ Cormac McCarthy

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There is a difference between hackneyed prose (what “they” mean by purple) and beautiful prose. Would anyone say Byron or Tennyson or Yeats were hackneyed, or used purple prose? Or authors Donna Tartt or Cormac McCarthy or Vladimir Nabokov? And yet, if you put the same beautiful prose in say, a noir tale, or a crime drama, or a cozy mystery, you’re castigated by those who prefer being launched from one sentence to another in a quick progression. The old page-turner analogy is used as a hammer. Wouldn’t you prefer to read a sentence from Nabokov, rather than chop your way through a story just to get to the end quickly? I would, but I’m not you. I love to savor the words I read. And I read slowly.

And I still have other smothered memories, now unfolding themselves into limbless monsters of pain. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

[image error]In the big business of publishing, authors are expected to spit out, sometimes, four books a year. Usually it’s a two book minimum. I know it’s a business, but I can’t write that fast. I write, I cut, I edit, I write, I cut, I edit, and I write, all while watching that word count in the lower left-hand of my screen. Lately, I’m into short story writing, and I’ve found that the fewer the words the easier to get to the point, and, more likely, containing less beautiful prose. Even then, I try not to fall into the trap of short, screenplay like writing.

Irwin Shaw took years to write his books, the time spent doing a vast amount of research. I had the pleasure of meeting him one time at his son’s art gallery, and he bestowed on me a signed first edition of his book on Darwin, and a lovely compliment (I was thin, young, and cute way back then). I remember eagerly devouring Ray Bradbury’s books as each came out. I also had the pleasure of meeting him on my college campus after a lecture one year. He produced short stories and books in rapid fire. Every writer is on a different timetable and process, and yet we can become mired in getting the product out before it’s ready.

If we are to be writers whose books will remain long after we shuffle off this mortal coil, then we should take the time to do it right, no matter the genre. And yes, let’s put stunning prose into every one of them.

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