1) Tacit and Explicit Chronology of Action (from Editing Fiction at Sentence Level by Louise Harnby (p.86-91):
Instead of using 'before', 'after', 'first', 'then', 'next'—explicit chronology—use the order the action appears in as the guide to their sequence—tacit chronology.
Tacit chronology:
- embraces the logic of standard structure
- allows readers to be in the now of the novel
-shows us the story as it unfolds
- trims the fat
Explicit chronology:
- assumes readers do not understand word order
- pushes readers into an external time and space
- tells us the timeline of movement
-clutters the prose
2) Purple Prose (Wikipedia):
Purple prose is text that is so extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw excessive attention to itself. Purple prose is characterized by the excessive use of adjectives, adverbs, and . When it is limited to certain passages, they may be termed purple patches or purple passages, standing out from the rest of the work.
Purple prose is criticized for desaturating the meaning in an author's text by overusing melodramatic and fanciful descriptions. As there is no precise rule or absolute definition of what constitutes purple prose, deciding if a text, passage, or complete work has fallen victim is a somewhat subjective decision.
"It takes a certain amount of sass to speak up for prose that's rich, succulent and full of novelty. Purple is immoral, undemocratic and insincere; at best artsy, at worst the exterminating angel of depravity."
YOU ARE READING
Editing Journey
Non-FictionOne ! per 50,000 words. This was the first editing/writing advice I scribbled in the notebook I had started as a dumping ground for my ideas and observations. I checked the ten chapters I had completed by that point to discover they had over 100 exc...
