Lyrical writing style means8/28/2023 The goal of truly great writing is to make the reader forget that they’re reading a book. If those lines had been as long and vivid as the first one, it would have taken so much longer for us to get to the actual crux of the scene-which would have brought us perilously close to purple prose, because… But immediately, Menon grounds us back in the real world, with short sentences that give us the information without any adornment. Notice how that first line is deeply poetic, verging on the fanciful it uses description, an unusual metaphor, the striking image of sunlight through brown glass. She followed a bunch of vintage photography accounts on Instagram, and old apothecary bottles were a favorite subject.” One of my favorite lines from the book was this: “His eyes reminded her of old apothecary bottles, deep brown, when the sunlight hit them and turned them almost amber.” Can’t you just feel that description? Yet Menon’s followup is much simpler: “Dimple loved vintage things. Last month I read and loved Sandhya Menon’s bestselling young adult debut, When Dimple Met Rishi. If each line of your book is filled with metaphors, descriptions, and ten-dollar words, your story will quickly sink under its own weight. True lyricism is a mix of plainer, more serviceable lines with lines that stand out and sing. If you’re trying to write lyrically, it’s important to realize one thing: quality over quantity. Purple prose, in case you haven’t heard the phrase before, is-according to its Wikipedia entry-”text that is so extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw excessive attention to itself.” So how, exactly, do you know when you’re writing something that would be classed as literary or lyrical, and when you’re veering into purple prose? Recently I got into a discussion with some friends on Twitter about how to find the line between pretty prose and purple prose. I love authors like Laini Taylor and Maggie Stiefvater, who have such a deft touch with phrasing that their books are not only engaging, they are positively delicious. I love writing that makes you see the world differently, that pulls you so deeply into its narrative that you can’t seem to leave that fictional world once you’re done. I live for poetic prose, for dazzling descriptions, for the sentences that make you feel like you’re sipping something delightful as you read. All in all, then, the novel’s style leaves readers with the sense that Nick is conflicted about this time in his life, as he seems to both romanticize it and deeply regret it-and the novel, too, seems to share that sense of conflict in its depiction of the culture of the Roaring Twenties.I have always been a line-level writer. In this way, the book reads like an elegy for Gatsby and for Nick’s lost innocence in the wake of the death, suffering, and moral corruption he witnesses. For instance, he describes the “valley of ashes” (a polluted and economically depressed part of New York City) as “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens.” And later, he calls Gatsby and George’s deaths a “holocaust” and the subsequent news reports “grotesque, circumstantial, eager, and untrue.” Though still emotionally charged and evocative, the book’s language in moments like these is more dark and mournful than light and optimistic, which parallels Nick’s feelings of grief, confusion, and cynicism surrounding all that he experiences while living in West Egg. As such, the book’s style helps convey Nick’s nostalgic, romanticized view of his experiences.īut this highly descriptive style also helps convey Nick’s more somber feelings about the events he’s recounting. Scott Fizgerald’s lyrical writing style, rich sensory descriptions, and use of hyperbole reflect the extreme opulence of the Roaring Twenties. Rather than presenting the characters’ reality in a pared-down, minimalistic way (a stylistic choice that was common among other modernist writers, such as Ernest Hemingway), F. The novel also uses alliteration and rhythm to lend musicality to the prose, perhaps as a nod to the jazz music that was popular at the time the novel is set.
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