DO THE RYO RIGHT: That Blasted Purple Prose

Good evenin', kids. Everyone's favorite-by-default blogsquid comes bearing Mystery Guest Snark! Though it's not so much mystery this time.

See, I'm going to have extremely limited time online for the next week. I was wondering how I was going to get anything done and then lo and behold, Itinimac wanted to do a guest post. Considering he's been our most frequent commenter for a while, I said "absolutely!". So with no further ado, I give you "Do the Ryo Right: Chapter 1 And Prologue (That Blasted Purple Prose)" by the always-awesome Itinimac!

  AUTHOR'S NOTES AND WARNINGS: This chapter is not aimed to be funny, snarky or dismissive, but an attempt to make a genuine analysis or Ryo's work (and bad fanfiction in general).

I thank Rinku, Cal and Ebony's post (with Cal's special blog of MSTing in particular, link here: http://calamareyespond.wordpress.com/) for having given me the inspiration necessary for this post

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DO RYO RIGHT: PROLOGUE AND CHAPTER 1 (THAT BLASTED PURPLE PROSE)

Ladies, Gentlemen, Gentlesquids, Your Holyness... Here is itinimac, better known on the internet as Xantospoc, finally deciding to take part of this group.

First of all, I thank you all, Cal, Rinku, Doc and Ebony, for the awesome posts you made, which have inspired to join this failblog and try to somehow contribute to it. Rarely I see something which really brings out my analytical self, but here it is.

I sort of remember when it first started my adventure with the bloated borderline humanoid-shaped eldritch horror with a thousand of name we call Ryo. I was looking for pictures of Gerudo on deviantArt where I found this drawing

Many were my thought, mainly what the heck was Zelda doing dressed like a Gerudo (and a somewhat underdressed one, to boot), but I admit that I was somewhat confused by the avatar of the two people who were the artists, namely Lady-Zelda and her beloved, which used to be two sprites of both of them walking (in a style of sprite made with RPG-maker, apparently) and an heart.

WHAT.

THE.

HECK.

Now, I am against the classical ZeLink shipping which makes up half of the Zelda community, but wasn't Zelda supposed to be with Link? Why were they RPing a famous character like our beloved princess of Hyrule and ... that individual? More of the research brought me to find this second drawing.

At this I was far more stunned, who was that creature? Ganondorf? Link? Their unholy child? Was he an half Gerudo? The newest King of the Tribe (NOTE: the name has 'Gerudo Glamour'). From here I could notice two things. First of all, this Lady Zelda.... knew how to color drawings: I personally saw the original sketches and, let me say, as flawed as they are (can't fully judge as, unfortunately, I am not an expert into drawings, as one day I might show), her coloring gives them a great improvement, most likely due to her bright palette, which fits a lot of the mood of Ocarina of Time.

The second, which is the one we care about is: "Oh my, who is this character? He screams Sue everywhere"

And, surprise, I was right. Although I would like to note that this guy screams sue WITHOUT a backstory, line, action. Nothing. Just his appearence, the creepy hybrid of the Hero of Time and the Great King of Evil, his pose as a body builder in a sloppy calendar, this already gave him a characterization: the one of a big fat Mary Sue, a shadow I was massively irked about.

Curious of this, I finally entered the infamous ZeRyo community. Unlike most of these contributor, my first impact was... almost positive. No, I didn't like his story. No, I didn't like how Zelda was dressed up in her sexier clothes, not the excessive sexism, and the least we talk about the ripped off character designs, the romance and the horrible mix of what seemed the crude pasting of Super Smash Bros and Twilight. Even though I, be surprised or not, like the design of Eye and Rebè (especially in the drawing shown above), there was nothing savageable enough and more and more cliché I expect to see in books written by 14 years old bugged me enough to abandon the place in a mix of disgust and wonder just how in the world he could have many fans, wondering: 'Am I a freak for not liking it?'.

This answer is going to be left up to debate, as I never met anymore neither the images nor the world of Ryo Atrineas... until, around two years later, out of amusement, I posted the following: -Mary Sue The Legend of Zelda-

Yes, ladies and gentelman, believed it or not, this failblog is the first result, namely the exquisite entry by Lady She-Elf, former admin of the blog, about the Mary Sue Litmus test tried on Ryo, which he of course miserably failed, going well over the 'kill it dead' ranting. Cheered up at this, I followed this blog and discovered all what Ryo represented and, I have to say, the fact he had not grown up at all in terms of skills during all the time and the further discoveres about Ryo's bigotry.... appaled me. Heck , it still does now, my fingers are almost trembling as I post this just at the thought and finally, made a few friends.

I was temped to post for a long time, but every time, Cal's superior skills of snark, Rinku's more agressive style of writing and Ebony's hilarious series of entried made me wonder if I could EVER manage to contribute.

Finally I managed to gather, after constant reading of Cal's unique MST blog, an idea which stems from my idealism: "Every story has a potential, it's up to the writer to exploit such".

Therefore, what I am going to do from now on, trying to do something: 'Do the Ryu right'

After all, every fic has the right to exist and be reviewed and, no offense, while people need to know Ryu's name, they also need to know of fics which are legitmately good and show example that it's possible to use some of the mistakes Ryu has made all during his career in something genuinely good.

The problem of Ryu is, shall we admit, the lack of growth. His pieces of fiction, as hinted by the plot related to the pic he posted, pretty much the same every time. Most lampant example is the except of one of his latest drawings

If you read it, yes, we are at the same level of writing. Despite the tons of people who do show Ryu legitimate tips to improve, he does not change direction, far too full of himself to move away and evolve.

But again, Ryu's writing is not the worst i have seen. By the love of God, the plot is terrible but I don't think it's because of his, admittedly weak, premise. It's his style, which remained stale as a pretentious fourteen years old trying to be badass through escapism and that while he states 'nobody understand me', makes an OC which is made to crush the conflicts surrounding him: under the hands of someone who does know what he is doing.... there is a possible evolution.

A possible example? I will take one of Cal's greatest criticism ie. his purple prose. What is purple prose, you might ask. Here is the definition from the most famous real world stand in of the Hitchhiker Guides of the Galaxy:

Purple prose is a term of literary criticism used to describe passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in prose so extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself. Purple prose is sensually evocative beyond the requirements of its context. It also refers to writing that employs certain rhetorical effects such as exaggerated sentiment or pathos in an attempt to manipulate a reader's response. - Wikipedia

Ryo has always used a flowing, excessive and redundant choice of words while structuring his sentences. Why, might you ask? He is not even the only one who has committed this mistake: Cal herself even pointed out in her Twilight Saga MST that this is a common mistakes by most writers of fanfiction of the Legend of Zelda.

The answer is, rather, simple, especially taking the main source of Ryukenden's work: the series of Legend of Zelda. The series conveys a series of epic adventure of an hero going against all the odds and inevitably winning: there is no tension about whether Link will succeed or not in rescuing Zelda 'or defeat Ganon, or whoever is the newest Demon villain, like Onox, Malladus, Gravy Thor, Shaedus or, worst of all, Tingle, because fate itself is tracing his path of the Hero. In the end, Link will succeed in everything he does, defeated God like opponents, wiping out effortlessly armies of monsters and getting most of the girls falling for him in the process.

To further emphatize this, the style of writing in Zelda is usually archaic and ancient, taking most clues from ancient works.

"Once every 100 years, a special child is born unto my people. That child is destined to be the mighty guardian of the Gerudo and the desert. But this child, its heart grew twisted with every passing year. The child became a man who hungered for power at any price." — Gerudo elder (Four Swords Adventures)

"And the other, who holds the Triforce of Wisdom...is the seventh Sage, who is destined to be the leader of them all... It is I, the Princess of Hyrule, Zelda." — Princess Zelda (Ocarina of Time)

"Link... Go now to Hyrule Castle... There, thou will surely meet the Princess of Destiny..." — Great Deku Tree (Ocarina of Time)

As you see, this is not quite the language you expect from a common block down the street, it's a necessary style you use to give the feeling the player is really living a legend of which they are the protagonist.

But Legend of Zelda is a minor example of purple prose used correctly. Other honobale example I can mention are the genius of Cosmic Horror himself, Howard Philip Lovecraft, whose excellent use of overflowing terms proved to be excellent to respesent the unknown, the primordial fear he dwelves into through the use of the alien presence which have turned popular in his writing into one of the most influential style of this century. Or, even more outstanding, Proust and his masterpiece, "À la recherche du temps perdu". What does it make it so amazing? Well, I will make a single example: he manages to describe a bunch for yellow flower for SIX PAGES.

Now you might wonder: as Cal pointed out in her MST of Child of Triforce (chapter 1, part 1), Ryo once took the description of a dress of Zelda's for less than half a page and, my god, was it boring. How can we take a description like this and make it both longer and likeable? Here, Micheal Proust shows his skills by describing the yellow flowers through the sense of sight, but smell, and then using the power of idea of association to have the main character develop several memories, in different about time and places, of the flowers, seamlessly managing through this description to enhance plot, characterization and atmosphere at an elaborate but fell swoop. Lastly, lest we not forget one of the main inspiration of Legend of Zelda (and arguably most fantasy tale of this century), the Lord of the Rings, an incredibly worded masterpiece which really gives the feeling you like in a land of magic and mystery, some of which we will never be able to comprehend, like the Middle Earth.

Overall, purple prose is an excellent way not only to give a more elaborate and complex view of what you see, but conveys in the reader a feeling of Then again, Proust, Tolkien and Lovecraft are outstanding writers. What does happen when a clumsy artist try to emulate them not getting why such style works?

It's no secret I compare Ryo (and now Cal has been doing the same, as I see her MST) to SMeyer: after all, both write a story where the woman is a dumbass in distress who finds the perfect dude who is special in every possible way according to the rules of the setting. Also, their style, with their purple prose-filled first person prosective, ends up not giving out a sense of nostalgia, to remind us either a Shakespearian romance or the good old medieval courtesan love.

Then why do they fail? First of all, they put an excessive stress on the description and for the wrong reason. As I said, a good author uses this overflowing style to give out a sense of old, almost nolstagic, in the atmosphere of the story, they use it mostly as a way to clutter and fill their books with needless padding.

An example of this? The most infamous scene of the first chapter, when Zelda dresses up. The Princess takes (I used word for this) 259 words to describe what she is wearing. And you know what? Nobody could not care less. it's a distracting paragraph, disrupt the pacing (what little there is of it), does not contribute at the story and, more infuriatingly, it's brought up AGAIN in the third chapter, as Ryo takes hold of the narrative, with the added bonus that, as he is going to be Zelda's love interest, he comes across more like a perverted individual than one enchanted by her beauty . And this is nothing but the beginning of other descriptions which are overall needless in their excessive detail. Ryukenden's and Gravitor's are both heavily described in a big block and they are not mentioned again.

This, ladies and gentleman, is not a way to give the reader an image, it's an info dump, a way to give off too much information to the reader so to make them assume they won't do anything more again. Expositions like this, if not coupled with other images and thoughts ends up ruining the pacing and nothing more. Of course, this is not as bad as SMeyer, who just give on the purple prose to the point the main conflict of the first book (the two evil vampires, James and Victoria) arrives only at the last fifth of the book . Overall, of the hunders of pages of the book, it can be condensed in just 200, and that's being generous.

This is all but one of the many problems about Ryu's writing, but this was the first and one which has to be taken the most in consideration. After all, no, people who use an overflowing and vaired choice of words should not be ashamed of this, and there is no real worry about keeping the language of your a a bit higher than formal language. I would also point out that a style dry and terse (the so called 'grey prose') can also be as bad/good as its purple companion.

It's always important to remember purple prose is a mechanic which is needed to just set more the atmosphere, at risk cost of slowing down your pacing, not an end to show off your thesaurus.

Want to get further usage of how to mix an higher register as an advantage? Read the great master of the time and try to emulate them. Secondly, always try different styles for a fic, it does show how much you really understand how to use 'purple prose' in different context and helps giving different moods. You can even use the contrast of different styles for a laugh by having a character use Shakesperian terms and the other being confused, a bit like in this comic I write and I am posting in a shameless attempt at self-publicity

Yes, guys, Ryo is not the only one needing tips when it comes to drawing, as I told you

As you see, the overly prosaic speech of the character is brought up for laughters as a contrast of the atmopshere by showing how ridicolous would sound, to the point that not even the villain (Vaati) is able to take him seriously.

A final tip when you wrie is... read always your sentence twice and wonder yourself: 'what does it sound like'?

This, of course, is not enough to do Ryo right. What else does it need? Ooooh, you'd be amazed....