Metaphors and Similes

Two types of imagery will enhance your novels: similes and metaphors. They are comparisons of a literal term with something else. That something else is usually visual, but can relate to sound, smell, taste, and touch, as well as emotions, ideas, and beliefs.

Similes compare one thing to another through similarity; typically preceded by the words "like" or "as." Robert Burns is using a simile when he says, "My love is like a red, red, rose."

In metaphors the comparison is expressed when a figurative term is substituted for a literal term. Shakespeare is using a metaphor here: "All the world's a stage."

Most writing techniques, such as plotting, characterization, dialogue, etc. can be learned by reading books on writing. As for similes and metaphors, I thought you required a lot of imagination for that and I had misgivings about my own ability in this field. Then I discovered a method for cranking out similes and metaphors which, while still requiring good old imagination, made the process almost mechanical. The literal term is also called the tenor, and the figurative term is the vehicle, which must be dissimilar. A good simile or metaphor does not compare an apple to an orange, but an apple to something wholly unlike the apple, like a person one loves.

Figure 1.

Here's my technique for creating similes. Draw a table with three columns as in Figure 1 above. In the first column write the literal terms (brain, something in her face), in the second write "like", or an action plus "like", and in the third column write the figurative terms which, of course, should be unlike the literal terms, (brightly lit factory, light). For the two examples above, you can create the following:

"His brain was like a brightly lit factory, full of flying wheels and precision." Edith Wharton.

"Something in her face spilled over me like light through a swinging door." Sue Grafton.

Figure 2. More examples.

Sound: "Silently as a dream." William Cowper.

Smell: "The air smelled like a damp flannel." Jonathan Kellerman.

Taste: "My mouth tasted like an old penny." Robert B. Parker.

Touch/Temperature: "Colder than a banker's heart." William Diehl.

Touch/Sensation: "Shame came over me like a blanket of steam." Mary Gordon.

Figure 3.

To create a metaphor use the same method as a simile, but don't use "like" or "as." To create an extended metaphor, in the third column write the three or four figurative terms you want to compare to the literal term. Thus in the example in Figure 3, you can create an extended metaphor like so:

The trick, however, is to remember that hope is a perilous thing, that it's not a steel and concrete bridge across the void between this moment and a brighter future. Hope is no stronger than tremulous beads of dew strung on a filament of spiderweb, and it alone can't long support the terrible weight of an anguished mind and a tortured heart... . (Dean Koontz.)

Points to Ponder.

• Writing fiction is the fine art of creating pictures, of taking the reader into a visual and sensory world peopled by characters with conflicts.
• An effective image evokes emotion, atmosphere, or mood. It adds to characterization and style, and can also be a way to slow pace.
• If your image is successful, then the time lag between reading it and matching it up to the story is almost imperceptible. Not only that, the story deepens by what meaning the image evokes.
• It is said there are three stories in any novel: the one intended by the author, the one written on the page, and the one readers interpret from their lives.
• In fiction, clichés used in dialogue add to characterization. However, in narration, aim for originality.
• For a writer, metaphor is an art of attention-seeking, of asking you to perceive some thing afresh.
• Creative writing is the art of defamiliarization: an act of stripping familiarity from the world about us, allowing us to see what custom has blinded us to. It is no less an act of revification.
• As Shelley wrote of poetry, it "lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as they were not familiar."
• Scientific, philosophical, and artistic breakthroughs often go through four stages of cognitive and creative process: attention to detail (of a problem,) --> translation to metaphor, --> defamiliarization, --> receiving something at a different angle; in effect, perceiving it anew, as a child does.
• Dickens uses metaphorical language energized by anger. When he introduces the depredations of the aristocracy, he portrays "Monseigneur," who requires numberless servants merely to serve him his chocolate. "Monseigneur" represents, by synecdoche, the corrupt luxury of the ruling class.

Bibliography:

• David Holmes, Understanding the Art of Poetry: An Introduction to Literary Techniques and Devices;
• Nancy Lamb, The Art and Craft of Storytelling;
• Meg Leder, Jack Heffron, Editors of Writers Digest, The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing;
• Elizabeth Lyon, Manuscript Makeover;
• David Moreley, The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing;
• Jane Smiley, 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel.