I struggle with choosing between simple prose and the more decorated kind.

While I know, as almost everyone does, that there is a sweet spot between the two, I hate, with a burning passion, the insufferable binary that is constructed in the popular culture.

This binary comprises of two categories of person. The first is that distinguished ‘scholar’ who is so obsessed with ornate prose that she thinks simple prose is hot garbage for the literate illiterate. Simple prose, to her, performs the same function as those colourfully illustrated alphabet charts that children learn from, where ‘banana’ is next to a banana, and ‘monkey’ is next to a monkey, and so on. 

The second category of person, to me, is just as obnoxious as the first. So insistent is she on simple prose that communicates ‘efficiently’ to ‘the average reader’, that she will label anyone who so much as attempts a semi-colon a try-hard old fart. To her, writers who employ ‘purple’ prose are only trying to dominate their readers with unearned flashiness, or are compensating for their sad, failing sex lives. Combined with very shallow understandings of social justice, these styles can easily be derided as elitist, male, white, fascist, or whatever other adjective this type of person requires to keep up the excuse of never ever opening a book.

Each member on either side of this binary is required by the universal law of stupidity to come to a strict, manifesto-like conclusion for their preferences, operating with carefully cultivated, surgically precise exclusion. Brick-by-brick, they each construct and strengthen their identities while locked in their respective echo-chambers, derisively mocking poor, clichéd writing that is supposedly representative of the ugly other.

And where am I on this battlefield of morons? I both agree and disagree with both sides, and so find this binary utterly useless. Complicated, meaningless, borderline AI-generated, “postcolonial” prose is the norm in most writing competitions I apply for, and I’m sick of it. But I’m also sick of barebones, unimaginative prose that operates in tiny dramatic sentences. I’m. So. So. So. Sick. Of. It.

Obviously, I also love both styles, provided they are executed well. I love forbiddingly simple, clear prose that cuts through an idea like a knife, and I absolutely adore creamy, decadent prose that dances around a cluster of ideas like an annoyingly immaterial, beautiful mist.

And here’s the kicker. Being online, I almost forgot about my love for both, and for reading altogether — so obsessed was I with binary trains of social media hate! I’m very grateful to be off of social media, where the loudest morons reign.

As a writer, I now get to sanely self-reflect, and see where my priorities lie. Finding fault is easy. It’s as easy as breathing. But I don’t want to cultivate my style only through resentment — although resentment has definitely helped me identify paths I do NOT want to take. The next step after inevitable resentment, that everyone seems to skip, involves love, and respect for myself and my craft. How am I going to get the very best out of my style? How do I communicate my ideas, while also retaining my personality, and the dreamy whimsy that my young brain deems necessary to it? 

Now off of social media, I get the peace and calm required to think these things through! So here is what I think now.

While I think writing simple prose can be quite hard, it takes much, much more practice to be able to go complex. The sheer lack of practice in everyday life that contributes towards being able to execute complex prose is a lack I feel sorely. Every conversation, and every other piece of media does not operate at this level. Dips in literacy across the world do not help either, as language is being dumbed down to previously unseen levels. 

Keeping this in mind, I’d like to live simple, but I’d like to shoot for complex. I want to be readable. But I am also suspicious of simple language, and its ability to be commandeered and appropriated for horrific purposes. I don’t want every reader to have a single experience of my writing. I want it to be able to spark ideas along different chains. Room for interpretation is of utmost importance to me. This is a literary quality that I adore.

So this is how I will plan my journey. I will plod through the valley on my simple, reliable mule wherever I can, for the most part. But wherever I encounter an exciting ravine, instead of taking the simpler path down, I’d like to try to fly across it on a zany 1900s-type aerial machine, cellotaped together with pretentious imagery and grotesque sentences. I’d like to count this engineering as practice towards learning how to fly. Sure, most times, I will probably crash and burn in a massive, embarrassing inferno fuelled by my own farts, but it will be practice nonetheless.

I’m quite happy with this setup.