Beige Prose: Difference between revisions

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[[Self Demonstrating Article|Brief descriptions.]] [[Added Alliterative Appeal|Simple sentence structure.]] Plain words. Few figures of speech. [[Tropes Are Tools|Sometimes intentional.]]

[[Self-Demonstrating Article|Brief descriptions.]] [[Added Alliterative Appeal|Simple sentence structure.]] Plain words. Few figures of speech. [[Tropes Are Tools|Sometimes intentional.]]

Witty when effective. Otherwise, dull. Use carefully.

Compare [[Minimalism]], [[Fun With Acronyms]], [[Brevity Is Wit]], [[Laconic ~~Wiki~~]].

Compare [[Minimalism]], [[Fun With Acronyms]], [[Brevity Is Wit]], [[Laconic]].

Contrast [[Wall of Text]], [[Purple Prose]].

A [[Terse Talker]] speaks in this.<ref>Brevity doesn't on its own make prose beige. The defining characteristic is that it's unadorned and to the point.</ref>

== Advertising ==

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** According to ''Guinness Book of World Records,'' the shortest correspondence ever.

** "Such brevity is all the more remarkable when one considers that ''[[Les Misérables (Literature)|Les Misérables]]'' contains one of the longest sentences in the French language -- 823 words without a period." Felton and Fowler's ''Best, Worst, and Most Unusual'', p. 26

* ''[[Nineteen Eighty Four|1984]]'': In-story; "[[Newspeak]]".

* ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four|1984]]'': In-story; "[[Newspeak]]".

* Charles Bukowski tells you only what you need to know. Very rarely uses multisyllabic words. The times when he breaks those rules are powerful.

* ''[[Candide]]'', by Voltaire. 1,000 page epic, shrunk into 75 pages. Very few details. Quickly advancing.

* [[James Ellroy]]. Early works aren't too bad, but ''White Jazz'' and ''Blood's A Rover'' and after? Every. Sentence. Is. Like. This. Brevity is one thing, but what about bookisms? When told ''White Jazz'' overran its intended length, he took out everything that wasn't [[Beige Prose]]. Made it short enough but hard to read.

* Shortest Science Fiction Story: "Time stopped. ''[[Mind Screw|Yesterday]]'']" by David Gerrold. Shortest short story ever?

* ''[[The Road]]'' by [[~~Cormac McCarthy|~~Cormac McCarthy]]. A post-apocalyptic wasteland isn't much to describe.

* ''[[The Road]]'' by [[Cormac McCarthy]]. A post-apocalyptic wasteland isn't much to describe.

* "Knock" by [[Fredric Brown]] is an expansion of a 17-word horror story: "The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door." An alternate version ends with: "There was a lock on the door."

* ''Tao Te Ching'', the text of taoism. One hundred pages in book form. Even shorter in the original Chinese. Spoken, modern speakers don't grasp it : the homophones.

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* [[Twitter]] posts [http://twitter.com/search?q=%23tvtropes #tvtropes]

* Simple English Wikipedia. [[Xkcd (Webcomic)|Xkcd]] [http://xkcd.com/547/ demonstrates].

* [[Laconic ~~Wiki~~]], especially Laconic entry on Beige Prose. [[Wiki Word|Wiki Words]]. Also, [[CamelCase]].

* [[Laconic]], especially Laconic entry on Beige Prose. [[Wiki Word|Wiki Words]]. Also, [[CamelCase]].

* SEO copy.

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* The Spartans, whose simplicity of speech gave rise to the word "laconic," after their dialect of Greek.

** When Philip II of Macedon threatened them with the message: "If we enter Sparta, we will [[Rape Pillage and Burn|raze all your buildings and ravage all your women]]," Sparta sent back the answer, "If." Philip, as well as his son [[Alexander the Great]], left Sparta alone.

** When Philip II of Macedon threatened them with the message: "If we enter Sparta, we will [[Rape, Pillage and Burn|raze all your buildings and ravage all your women]]," Sparta sent back the answer, "If." Philip, as well as his son [[Alexander the Great]], left Sparta alone.

* [[Calvin Coolidge]], a.k.a. "Silent Cal." Possibly apocryphal example:

{{quote| '''Party Guest:''' Mister Vice-President, I bet my friends over there I could get you to say three words tonight.<br />

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[[Category:Fanfic Tropes]]

[[Category:Beige Prose]]

[[Category:Trope]]

[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]