"To write in an artificial or an excessively elaborate, wordy style."

That's the short definition but the one below, which I found by Googling has some good advice for writers - and for reviewers who are sometimes not quite clear about what the term means.


Purple Prose, and What to do Until the Doctor Arrives
By Dave King


Overwritten prose. It's the bane of every writer's very existence, corrupting his or her work like some noisome plague from the black depths, undermining the very foundations of that sacred contract between writer and reader upon which his or her livelihood depends, stalking his or her work like the wraith of a past --
Um . . . sorry.
Nothing kills the pleasure of reading quicker than pretentious and overblown writing. But no one sets out to be pretentious. How do you tell the difference between rich, textured prose and baroque excess? What are the warning signs that you're about to cross the line from one to the other? How do you find your authentic, unforced voice? How much is too much?


The Curse of Ignoring Reality
Consider the following description of a passing storm from the deck of a ship, taken from Opening a Chestnut Burr by mid-Victorian hack, E. P. Roe:
A storm had passed away, leaving not a trace. The October sun shone in undimmed splendor, and all nature appeared to rejoice in its light. The waves with their silver crests seemed chasing one another in mad glee. The sailing vessels, as they tacked to and fro across the river under the stiff western breeze, made the water foam about their blunt prows, and the white-winged gulls wheeled in graceful circles overhead. There was a sense of movement and life that was contagious.
Now consider the following description of a passing storm from an island in the middle of the Atlantic, from H. M. S. Surprise, by Patrick O'Brian:
It was over. The rain stopped instantly and the wind swept the air clear; a few minutes later the cloud had passed from the lowering sun and it rode there, blazing from a perfect, even bluer sky. To the westward the world was unchanged, just as it always had been apart from the white caps on the sea; to the east the squall still covered the place he had last seen the ship; and in the widening sunlit stretch between the rock and the darkness a current bore a stream of fledgling birds, hundreds of them.
O'Brian's description is longer than Roe's, but overwriting is not so much a matter of wordiness as a matter of focus. Overwritten prose, such as the Roe passage, usually centers on the author's elegance of language. Strip away Roe's commentary -- the rejoicing nature, the madly gleeful waves -- and note the actual meat of the passage. The sun shone. The waves had silver crests. The breeze was stiff, the prows blunt, and the gulls white-winged. Movement was happening. The actual seascape underneath the linguistic bells and whistles is boring.
O'Brian, on the other hand, is focused on the storm itself. Note the details: Perfect calm where the storm has just been, darkness where it is at the moment, and fledgling seabirds floating in the widening gap between the two. Roe's storm is a vague and amorphous thing that fades away and leaves a cliché-ridden nature rejoicing. O'Brian's is a specific violent squall that blows through and leaves calm in its wake.
Look at your descriptions. Are you showing your readers what's really there, or are you so involved in your language that you've left reality behind? If the latter, then understand that opening your readers' eyes to see reality in a new way is worth far more than the most elegant, ornate prose. It's what original writing is all about, and it's even easy. All you have to do is open your eyes and ears to what's really there.
For instance, teakettles often sing or scream in overwritten prose. My wife, a novelist, recently asked me to listen to our own teakettle come to a boil. It banged and thumped, then began to hiss -- details I had never noticed before. If E. P. Roe had actually sat on the shore after a storm and paid attention, he could easily have shown us more engaging things than gulls with white wings.

Quoted article continues in Overwriting - a cure (2)

It's what you use to boilwaterforapotoftea.
The ABC Checklist for New Writers

Visit my website: Lorraine Mace

Personally, I only boil the teakettle if there is a chance of some heavy fandango skipping. I'm not interested in the light stuff. I mean, what's the point in going to all that trouble unless there is going to be some serious fandangoing going to be going on? Er, I'm going to be going now.

The ABC Checklist for New Writers

Visit my website: Lorraine Mace

There was a time when a kettle was a tin thing you put on the gas, and it had a whistle in its spout. As it began to boil, it put out a supposedly musical sound, rising in tone and pitch as the boil approached full force. Anyone who writes about singing kettles these days merely reveals their age.

Boil tones ! I think you might have found a niche in the market Andrew !

Definitely agree. Agas make the best toast in the world and the tennis racket thing makes a great weapon when your other half is annoying you. I wonder who first came up with Aga Sagas?