The grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli and he was room temperature Canadian beef. Joy filled her heart like a silent but deadly fart fills a room with no windows. The sun was below the watery horizon, like a diabetic grandma easing into a warm salt bath. Their love burned with the fiery intensity of a urinary tract infection. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes before it throw up.
The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. Upon completing kindergarten, Lance felt the same sense of accomplishment the Unabomber feels every time he successfully blows up another college professor. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up. Her eyes were shining like two marbles that someone dropped in mucus and then held up to catch the light.
Her lips were red and full, like tubes of blood drawn by an inattentive phlebotomist. She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open.
From the attic came an unearthly howl. Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw. The sunset displayed rich, spectacular hues like a. We get emails with laugh-out-loud examples from student essays, such as: He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up. Like this: Like Loading Tags: metaphor , timed writes , writing exercises.
From: Craft , Writing Exercises. Five steps to move your story forward. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:. Email required Address never made public. Name required. Follow onewildword. Quotable "I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. A no-nonsense writer. There would be no similes or metaphors in good Hemmingway pastiche. No unnecessary descriptive words.
The ice in his fogcutter clinked. He took a drink and watched the sun set. Oh wow, I love the chalky bones metaphor! Not sure if that falls into any of the above categories. Our skins, hers cloud-pale and mine the same shade as wild strawflowers, almost touch. She stands in the doorway, the silhouette of an upward-pointing knife, and smiles back at me. Imagining flies in a pig pen is not helping the tension here.
Falling into the Uncanny Valley Words come with subtle but important associations. Seeing Bianca depressed makes me feel soft inside, like my bones are chalk. Their horses, decked out in flowing black caparisons, flew over the barricades like spectres. Adding Nothing Every part of the narration should add meaning, including metaphors.
She was beautiful, for a human—long hair nearly the precise color of black ink. My eyelashes turn solid, like needles, and my lips freeze. Creating Melodrama Storytellers are always looking for quick ways to make their scenes pack more emotional punch. He groaned in frustration; his echo amplified through the air, like the haunted moan of death.
Repackaging a groan of frustration into a moan of death is making a mountain out of a molehill. This makes a strong impression without melodrama. Become Our Patron. October 23, October 21, Episode Narrative Premise October 3, October 2, September 10, September 9, September 3, September 3, What Do Writers Need to Describe? August 20, August 19, In reply to El Suscriptor Justiciero. That one was mine, from a book I started a few years back and never finished.
But I always liked it. Barbara Kingsolver gets my vote for the best figurative language- this one is from The Poisonwood Bible. My fourth and last child just turned one last week, so I really felt this one:. If you put her down in the crib, she might wake up changed and fly away. So instead you rock by the window, drinking the light from her skin, breathing her exhaled dreams. Your heart bays to the double crescent moons of closed lashes on her cheeks. Those are all lovely examples above.
Thank you for contributing everyone! Language is sooo delicious! And excellent points about the right context for the right metaphor. The instruction is simple and clear with perfect examples to illustrate the concepts. Metaphors can be amazing. One of my all time favorites is… Three butterflies, aerial geishas, danced out of the sunshine, into the porch shadows. Their silken kimonos flaring and folding in graceful swirls of color, as bashful as faces hidden behind the pleats of hand-painted fans.
Velocity by Dean Koonz. However later in the manuscript I felt like continuing the use of the names of the characters was too much. How do you know the right point at which referring to the metaphor should be discontinued?
With all things in life, humans feel comfortable with rhythm and pattern when reading. If you started using the metaphor at the beginning of a random chapter and referred to it periodically, it is cleanest to continue using the metaphor through the chapter. Introducing the metaphor as part of your hook and then taking a twist on it in your kicker ending of the chapter is especially powerful. This ties the chapter together neatly and will help your chapter have a clear beginning and end.
If you started using the metaphor in the middle of the chapter, it might feel more contrived. There may not be a signal to the reader that the metaphor would be so important beginnings on their own are signals. Have a few people read the chapter to gauge whether it is too much. If your metaphor continues beyond a chapter, it again depends.
If it crops up in one other chapter, it may be odd and feel misplaced. But, if it crops up several times, interspersedly, they may recognize the importance of this metaphor in your overall story. There are some metaphors that rather than impact, gain even more strength the more we flesh them out and continue pulling them through as a comparison to the narrative. I agree with Ms. Battrick that an extended metaphor can help simplify complex ideas and make them more relevant—especially with something as multifaceted and unique to an individual as abuse.
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