I get into these instances when I'm like, "the sun hung low on the afternoon sky like a..." and then I'm like oh crap. "The storm clouds on the horizon were thick and dark, like..." umm... Eventually, I come up with something clever, but it's hard conjuring stuff up. Any advice? (not for these random examples, but in general).
I'm not good at it either, but I suppose you could try free-association. You know, where you write down any word that shoots through your consciousness in a stream of consciousness, and then see if one of them fits or can be made to fit. Good question by the way!
Not sure if this'll help but when sensing a quick root through brain won't turn up an apt simile, I throw in a place holder with a note to self [something not as naff as a squat pumpkin for setting sun dear writer]. Breaking off to ponder can really have one lose the pace/flow [and quilted pewter's a stretch for storm clouds Seth]. The notes to self later become tasks for witching hour insomnia.
I don't always use similes or metaphors. I think when I do it's because that's what occurred to me automatically when I was thinking of a description. Otherwise I'll just use regular description. But often later I will embellish descriptions a bit or rework them, as @SethLoki said.
I sometimes think that simile is overused, even good ones can disrupt the flow. There are occasions when the Sun just rises, looking like the sun rising. Don't labour on it, I would suggest, and something might occur on the rewrite/edit.
Uh...they just kinda happen. It helps that I once had a coworker who was the master of puns, and I was forced to up my pun game in his presence. Puns in a way are pretty much the same thing as analogies, if you think about it hard enough. Hm, maybe the best way is to just think of whatever happens to look like whatever you're trying to describe and run with it. Like, "The clouds were thick and dark like a ratty blanket" or "the sun hung in the air like an all-powerful orange."
Skip the analogy. Try a short, declarative sentence: "The sun hung low on the afternoon sky." Full stop. Cormac McCarthy does this all the time. Granted, he'll then punch you in the face with a whiz-bang analogy (my favorite is, "The sun circled the Earth like a grieving mother with a lamp."), but he'll set you up with a bunch of seemingly mundane beats first. Hemingway did this too to a certain extent. Kind of lull you to sleep before pulling out the big guns.
Yes that. That's most often enough. The rule of moderation, I'd say is key. There's a writer I admire who cringes at his early work for his overuse of simile and metaphor. So much so that his newer stuff has a rule, a rate per so many thousand words. He still writes freely and chucks them in, if they occur to him, in the draft. But out they come in the edit if the rule's broken.
I don't use that many of them, but you do have to sprinkle a few in. On the one hand, you don't want it to be like Enter Night, by Michael Rowe, where it's one after another like he's showing off, but you don't want to produce an artless wad of paper either.
For me, an analogy is like oxygen or a best friend, they're there without having to ask. (See what I did?)
I am brand new to this writing game. Are metaphors, analogies, and similes important factors in writing or are they more decoration to spruce it up?
I'd day it's a sliding scale. Depending on how they're used and a writer's style they can feel frivolous and silly or they can carry a lot of meaning and depth.
I'd they're vital to the essence of language and communication, but like Xoic said, there's definitely a scale to their application. Like anything else, execution is key. And like any tool, they will become less effective with overusage.
Yeah, to a large extent, they seem to be the way we think and express ideas. It would be a nice experiment to try to do completely without them for a week or two. See how frustrating things get when you're trying to explain something unfamiliar.
I have never thought of them being vital to communication but the more I think about it I realize I do use them more than I thought. Thank you for your response.
I think that is a very good experiment. I think I will give it a try. I appreciate your input. I have started a 1st draft (only a few pages) of the idea that brought me here. Without realizing I hade placed some in the pages. It is interesting how we can do so many things, inherently know commom things without ever realizing the impact they place on us.
I think analogies work best when they capture something subtle and annoying to explain. Especially in writing. Analogies work well for more expressive, emotive descriptions often in something that isn't particularly emotive inherently (e.g storm clouds being angry). It's the vibes, you know. I think good analogies provoke your imagination, they're often quite sensory (taste, touch, smell, sound etc.) . So think less an analogy that describes the subject perfectly, but rather captures the feeling of it.
I really like that outlook. I must say this forum (and I know I just joined) has some really intuitive people here. Im really glad I joined.
I agree that they're not vital, but they give depth to a story and help turn it into a piece of art, which I think is important to making it fun to read.
Agree. It's kinda hard to avoid them in any large work anyway. You'll probably end up writing one at some point or another naturally. They're a staple tool in the tool kit.
I generally use analogies, simile, metaphor etc when describing something with which the reader is not going to be familiar... like say the sound of a leopard breathing, or a missile taking off, a car being hit by a hail of bullets... I stay with the declarative sentences when I'm dealing with something people have already experienced "The sun rose, rain pelted from the sky and so on The exception being where they might be used comedically for emphasis... 'my mouth felt like a badger had crapped in it' rather than 'my mouth tasted foul' when describing a hangover ... or the classic blackadder line 'you twist and turn like a twisty turny thing' A point of note is to make sure your simile, metaphor, analogy etc is appropriate to the universe in which you're writing... don't write "the dragon roared like a badly tuned Ferrari" in a swords and sorcery fantasy, unless Ferraris are actually a thing in that world
I find trying to be creative with similes etc takes me out of the writing flow (that 'ummmmm' point mentioned in the OP), so in the first draft I tend to just highlight the parts where I know I need better similes and move on with the writing. Then later when I'm in the right mindset I'll come back and just do similes for a bit. I find I get better results that way, not to mention it's significantly less frustrating.
I've seen recommended exercises where you collect metaphors that work for you, and then you use them to build variations on a theme. For instance: Alimony is like buying oats for a dead horse. And so then you look at the basic comparison and change its actors, or even its basic actions. Alimony is like sprinkling flakes over your dead goldfish. Alimony is like shoving money into a broken vending machine. Paying my kid his allowance is like feeding twenties into a blast furnace. You keep going until you're far from the original. All those distant cousins become original ideas. Even my last one, where I shifted away from alimony, counts as pretty original. It has the same structural idea as the original because its seed wasn't my doing. Anyway, it's good practice and makes you think laterally. This makes me think of convergent/divergent/lateral thinking and how that relates to creative expression. Convergent is always to the point. It's the simple description. Divergent thought explodes in surprising directions. It's the perfect metaphor that no one ever considered. It's possible to brainstorm it. Lateral thinking realizes that there is a simple solution, but deliberately avoids it. I would say that that's what you're doing when you purposely drop in a simile/metaphor instead of an obvious description. You know what can be easily said, but you're avoiding it. Hopefully you're doing that for a good reason. Metaphors describe by comparison, so they can say strange things that are useful. Timing in the key. Convergent: The sky above her was blue. Divergent: The sky above her was a flaxen billow of bedsheets on the laundry line. I approached the second line laterally. I knew that I wanted blue. I knew that flax was blue. I linked that to flax sheets drying on the line. I realize not all flax sheets are blue, but I kept the term as a link even so. It's why I didn't say "satin sheets." Everyone already knows the sky is blue, so I leave the implication of blue while shifting to texture. Out of curiosity I looked up "flaxen billow," just to see if I'd coined a new one. Proust used it already! That's what I get, shooting for high metaphor. It's almost impossible to be wholly original. And then what everyone else is warning about . . . metaphors can be annoying. Sometimes it's better to just say what you mean (convergently). I wouldn't dare disagree with that. Getting right to the point should always be the default. It's why nouns and verbs are more powerful than adjectives and adverbs, but doing that every time becomes monotonous. On the other hand, overusing metaphors becomes flamboyant and circumlocutious, and that drags the story down with a different anchor. If I used a high metaphor, I would then switch to simple ideas and sentence mechanics. Metaphors are outside of the moment. They describe by comparison, so I would move into the moment. Sara planted the last of the bee balm. She dropped her trowel and cupped her hand over her eyes. The sky above was a flaxen billow of bedsheets on the laundry line. A plane was somewhere up there, overhead, a jet out of [city name], she imagined, and she wondered if Jonah was on it. The jet was roaring, invisible, like an angry god. She searched until her eyes began to water and then gathered her tools. My lines go: [simple][simple][high metaphor][simple][low metaphor][simple]. And I should probably build up the simple ideas a bit more by adding more short, simple lines, but I have to move on. (no time for second drafts, though I do see a problem with those halting commas . . .) When I say "simple," I'm just talking about ideas and imagery, not compound/complex sentences. Like everyone is saying, you can't just drop a metaphor anywhere. Really, any stylistic device carries that danger. You have to build a setting for it. The paragraph is a ring holding a jewel. You want the setting to be simple and strong. I could rattle on about lateral thinking, but I think I overdid it again. Sorry. You can tell I like to write.
IDK, but then again I thought it said 'analogues', so I may not be the best at analogies. I like metaphors, those are fun. Analogies are more of a Star Trekian thing, which I am not really all that good at doing, and it can feel repetitive in the Trek sense. Though I do enjoy them in other peoples writings.
I thought analogies was just a broader class that included similes and metaphors. When I wrote my answer above, i was speaking of similes and metaphors. did not realize an analogy was such a specific thing!
