Time and time again, I have been told that my unfounded focus on description distracts from the main story line.
I mostly write stories in English, which doesn't happen to be my first language but I'm fairly good in it. My native tongue is a very colourful one, full of interesting idioms and sentence structures. I'm more of the chatty, girlish teen type, and so I tend to be annoyingly descriptive in my language. And that extends to all the other languages I speak.
Now every time I manage to scribble off a piece that's remotely worthy of civilised beings' time, it is deemed "purple". Not unexpectedly, given my tendency to be overly descriptive at times. However, I do try my utmost not to clutter the text with elaborate, beauteous descriptions of elements that bear next to no significance to the plot in the long-run.
The problem is when I immerse myself into writing, I cannot forego the temptation to for example, do justice to the long, lustrous locks of my otherwise average protagonist.
It took all of what she had to restrain from even so much as stealing a quick glance at her flushed, bony limbs. A blow of cool, spring breeze tickled Sabrina's ears, and whooshed aside a stray curl covering her left cheek. Instead of feeling revitalised, a surge of irritation rippled within her, which manifested itself in her sudden moans of annoyance and shuffling uneasily in the rickshaw seat. Sabrina had spent the better half of that morning painstakingly ensuring that that curl stayed fastened to its rightful place. Apparently, the clip had slid down her watery waves of decidedly unimpressive plain, crow-black hair. Cursing the silkiness of her slick, stick-straight hair, she moved onto focusing on the wide roads of concrete they whirled past.
So how should I go about disciplining myself to write with more consideration?
What are the limits to description in story writing? How do I know if I have crossed them?
EDIT
Keep in mind that the sample text used to illustrate my point is just something I came up with while writing this question. So it is not at all a true representation of my actual writing skills and I would request you not to base your thoughts on me as a writer solely on that little tidbit.
Answer
First, let me start by saying...wow! Your command of the English language is impressive.
Some people think purple prose can be boring and unnecessary, but when done well, I think it can really make plain words come alive. Considering we're always told that good writing requires you to cut out the excess fat however, that usually means doing away with all that purple.
I think it's important to first define and what purple prose is. Because of its poetic roots, it's not always easy to find a straightforward answer, but Wikipedia describes it simply as:
Purple prose is characterized by the excessive use of adjectives, adverbs, and metaphors.
But I prefer this definition:
Superfluous, extravagant, showy, elaborate, and flowery language.
You certainly have that going for yourself.
The thing is, I've read a fair amount of books in my lifetime, and I have to say, not everyone can purple prose like a pro. In fact, too much of the purple stuff can immediately stamp your work as amateur by the second time you've described what her hair is doing.
I always say, if you want to know how to do something right, learn from those who've already done it and do it well.
Author Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash starts off with nothing but purple goodness, and none of it makes us cringe. Check out the first paragraph of his book:
The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed sub-category. He's got esprit up to here. Right now he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night. His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air. A bullet will bounce off its arachno-fiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. Where his body has bony extremities, the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello, protects like a stack of telephone books...
So let's break down what he did right.
1. HE KEEPS IT MOVING.
Every sentence gave us more description without feeling as though he's repeating himself.
When we look at your passage, you first start with mood: A haunted look marred Sabrina’s face perpetually... Then you mention her hair in the second sentence: A blow of cool, spring breeze tickled her ears, and whooshed aside a stray curl covering her left cheek... You then move back to mood: Instead of feeling revitalised, a surge of irritation rippled within her... But then you go back and mention her hair for the next three long sentences.
The TAKEAWAY:
Once you've moved on, you cannot go back. You'll only be beating a dead horse.
Reconstruct your sentences so that even if you're describing the same thing, it feels like the story is moving along. In your case, adding Instead of feeling revitalised, a surge of irritation rippled within her, which manifested itself in her sudden moans of annoyance and shuffling uneasily in the rickshaw seat... broke up your description which felt as though you were done talking about her hair, so we were also ready to move on.
So if you rewrote this, it would read:
A blow of cool, spring breeze tickled Sabrina's ears, and whooshed aside a stray curl covering her left cheek. She had spent the better half of that morning painstakingly ensuring that that curl stayed fastened to its rightful place. Apparently, the clip had slid down her watery waves of decidedly unimpressive plain, crow-black hair. Cursing the silkiness of her slick, stick-straight hair, she moved onto focusing on the wide roads of concrete they whirled past...
Now I'm ready to know what happens down that concrete road.
2. SELECTIVE WORD CHOICE
We've established purple prose is all about excessive use of adjectives, adverbs and metaphors and Stephens first paragraph has it's fair share, BUT every word pulls it's weight and every word feels appropriate for what he's describing. They're used to describe the character's appearance without exaggeration.
His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air...
Filtering is a fitting visual description for describing the air's behavior.
A bullet will bounce off its arachno-fiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door,
...but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze
When we look at your passage, some of your adjectives and metaphors call attention to themselves because they're either inappropriate for the description or don't add any value.
For example:
A haunted look marred Sabrina’s face perpetually.
Marred seems like an odd choice to describe her haunted face.
It sounds like you're saying the Haunted Look is an actual object that ruined her face forever. Its exaggerated and calls too much attention to itself when I should be focused on Sabrina's mood.
Perpetually also feels out of place and doesn't add any value to the sentence.
Additionally, the entire sentence could use a little more purple. You've told me she looks haunted, but you didn't SHOW me.
For example, what does a "haunted look" look like?
Give me more description here, and maybe not so much in others.
Example:
She looked haunted, her eyes vacant and still as she focused on the wide roads ... It took all of what she had to restrain from even so much as stealing a glance...
Let's look at this sentence as well:
Instead of feeling revitalised, a surge of irritation rippled within her, which manifested itself in her sudden moans of annoyance and shuffling uneasily in the rickshaw seat.
Again, revitalised is too flashy. Tone it down, simplify.
A surge of irritation rippled within her... Over-exaggeration, too much for the mood...
...which manifested itself in her sudden moans of annoyance and shuffling uneasily in the rickshaw seat. All of this is a little too much for misplaced hair wouldn't you say?
Let's try this maybe:
A short burst of the cool (insert season) air breezed passed her hair, whipping out a rogue strand of curls she had painstakingly tamed into submission that morning. She moaned, cursing the silkiness of her bone-straight mane...
You'll notice in the last few examples, I rearranged your sentences and omitted lots of words. This allows for the words that are there like, burst, cool, whipping, rogue, painstakingly, submission, moaned, cursing, silkiness, slick-straight...to stand out. No unnecessary words to distract us from understanding her mood.
TAKEAWAY:
Be super selective with your word choice and show, don't tell.
3. MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN
In Stephenson's opening paragraph, by the third sentence, you're told something is about to go DOWN!
Right now he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night.
In contrast, we don't see any action until your last sentence, where we realize, she is driving.
In one of the examples above, I moved that action up to read to like this:
Example:
She looked haunted, her eyes vacant and still as she focused on the wide roads of concrete ... It took all of what she had to restrain from even so much as stealing a glance...
Right away, I get a sense of movement which creates the illusion of action.
THE TAKEAWAY:
Action is why people want to keep reading...they want to know what is happening and what is going to happen, so when you feel a purple prose coming on, make sure you paint in some kind of action early on, even something as mundane as driving.
My examples are in no way perfect (they too need work) they're just suggestions. I particularly like it when I can see examples of how it's done so hopefully you found it constructive.
I found this particular article very helpful. It doesn't necessarily tell you how to write, but definitely highlights those things that gives purple prose a bad name. Simply avoiding them could improve your descriptive writing dramatically. https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/purple-prose/
Happy purpling!
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