Metaphor and Simile

[dr_mabeuse]

I've been doing a lot of reviewing lately, and one of the things I've noticed is a real lack of imagery in stories, especially when it comes to metaphor and simile.

[Briefly, both metaphor and simile are when something is described in terms of an image, like "his cock stood like a proud tower". Simile uses a connector word ("like", "as though", &c) and metaphor doesn't ("love is a storm in my soul")]

Imagery is the poet's stock in trade, and it's always been one of a writer's greatest tools for describing things and for creating powerful pictures in a reader's mind. One good image can just about make or break a short story, and yet there aren't many authors here who seem willing to go out on a limb with an original simile or metaphor. Anyone know why?

---dr.M.

 

[raphy]

Can't help ya there, Dr. M. I like to use original metaphors and similies in my work. Imagery is very important to me.

edit:

Figured I should back my words up and provide some examples. Dunno if these would count as 'original', but I liked the imagery in them.. Hell, I hope they even count as metaphors or similies....... (don't look at me, I just write, I don't know what I'm writing)

She was young when he met her, and as dark and as beautiful as a storm on the plains, a kind of terrible seductive beauty that drew him in.

At least she could see the stars, tiny lights against the blackness of night, like dust motes on sackcloth. Sackcloth and ashes.

His jaw, as flawless and hard as the marble statue next to him

They probably don't count at all, but there they are anyway. And hey, the last one's from my first lit-submitted story!

 

[A7inchPhildo]

That is just a normal pattern of writeing for me. Descriptions are easier to give if you can inject a thought/object that is common to most people. "Greek Mythology" is a study that examples many. To translate Latin you are forced to understand and become common with the approach.

Metaphors and Similies do they even teach this in public schools, and if so how many actually understood the form?

The view of her lips wiggled as a bucket of worms) bad one!
The nipples pertruded and felt like gum-drops between my lips)good

 

[Guest]

Mab., I think the simple answer is that the majority of Lit. authors aren't literary, no need to be for the majority of Lit. readers.

Clarification: when I speak of the majority of Lit. authors I do not speak of those on the AH (erm, for the most part).

Perdita

 

[wildsweetone]

I've been doing a lot of reviewing lately, and one of the things I've noticed is a real lack of imagery in stories, especially when it comes to metaphor and simile.

[Briefly, both metaphor and simile are when something is described in terms of an image, like "his cock stood like a proud tower". Simile uses a connector word ("like", "as though", &c) and metaphor doesn't ("love is a storm in my soul")]

Imagery is the poet's stock in trade, and it's always been one of a writer's greatest tools for describing things and for creating powerful pictures in a reader's mind. One good image can just about make or break a short story, and yet there aren't many authors here who seem willing to go out on a limb with an original simile or metaphor. Anyone know why?

---dr.M.

I've read a few Nora Roberts books over the last couple of months. Man the things she does with metaphors are awesome. Just lightly sprinkled through her writing. Maybe one every couple of chapters. Just enough to make me blink twice. Perfect.

Raphy, those are neat.

She was young when he met her, and as dark and as beautiful as a storm on the plains, a kind of terrible seductive beauty that drew him in.similie

At least she could see the stars, tiny lights against the blackness of night, like dust motes on sackcloth. Sackcloth and ashes.similie, though I think the 'tiny lights' is metaphoric

His jaw, as flawless and hard as the marble statue next to him.similie

I think I've got those right.

Dr M, perhaps authors of prose often believe that metaphoric language is best used by poets...?

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Doc,

I'm a non-imagery writer. Part of that may be due to my background being in non-fiction and newspaper work. Add to that the fact I don't have the soul of a poet and I'm definitely imagery-challenged.

Due to all of that, and no doubt as a subconscious way to rationale this shortcoming, I'm not a big fan of the little literary suckers. Right now I'm plowing through "God of Small Things" which many people bought and is a darling of literary folks. I say I'm plowing through it because I keep getting distracted from the storytelling by all the damn metaphors and similes.

I've got a hunch that the only items required to produce a "literary" novel is a socially conscious subject, a main character who's not well-adjusted and middle-class, an ending that's more a stoppage than a climax, and a double handful of metaphors and similes.

The other part of my problem is the way they're used often produces little more than romanticized, unrealistic crap. A rose is "like" a rose no matter how many metaphors and similies might be heaped upon the poor flower. However, writers keep insisting on projecting all sorts of imagery on the rose when they should be delving into their own state of mind.

Again, I realize I'm the odd man out on the subject and I'm not arguing against ever using imagery. But with the possible exceptions of sci-fi/fantasy and kids books, I don't expect a deer to be Bambi or a rose to be anything other than a rose.

Having vented the storm in my soul, I now step down from my soapbox like a proud Roman Senator of old stepping down from the Forum into a pile of crap.

Rumple

 

[Icingsugar]

I think Perdita nailed it for the morepart of the authors on this site. And for the rest of us , well, we just have to follow. One must always make sure that the metaphors are understood by the morepart of ones readers. To go out on too many limbs might only confuse some of the poor, illiterate bastards out there.

But there are also more advanced works by educated authors that deliberately omit metaphors, similies and anything flowery because it gets in the way of the story that is trying to be told. Extesive use of metaphors is an aquired taste, and one that doesn't work well with all kinds of writing.

 

[Guest]

For the old senator's sake especially, I'd like to back off a bit. I did not mean to say that imagery or poetry = literary. I think immediately of one of my favorite unarguably great authors of modern English literature, Samuel Beckett. He has whole novels and plays with out metaphor or simile, oftimes without verbs or articles, definite or indefinite (one play allows only the mouth of the actress to be seen, and then nearly unintelligibly heard).

But still, I think on Lit. it's something remarkable if we can detect an author's better efforts beyond basic grammar, correct spelling and plot. Good wit after all requires brevity, or so I've heard.

Perdita

 

[Seattle Zack]

Interesting question; I'm not sure that erotica lends itself well to metaphors. It seems difficult to pull off without coming across as comical. I tend to side with the 'Skin on this one, I think writing is more vigorous when it's concise and you allow the nouns and predicates to do the heavy lifting.

When done well, metaphors and similies can be a delight; when done poorly, they can ruin the flow of the whole story. I've edited metaphors out of some of my stories because I found them a bit strained -- it takes a deft touch (that, pehaps, I don't possess).

--Zack

 

[A7inchPhildo]

Sometimes I just feel like a nut!

Drowning in my own laughter.

My cheeks are red like roses.

Apologetic, I just learned how to post colors like an amateur, I was dying to try it out.

 

[Icingsugar]

For the old senator's sake especially, I'd like to back off a bit. I did not mean to say that imagery or poetry = literary.

Never said you did. And you are absolutely right, using metaphors is not literary in itself. Using it well however, is. Also knowing when not to.

It does take a certain amount of skill to sprinkle metaphors and similies into the mix and still stay on the right side of tasteful and comprehensible.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I think the real answer is in your question Doc. Plenty of authors use metaphor and similie. Between describing a woman's sex like a flower and her breasts like the appropriate variety of fruit you might get the idea that a degree in hortiulture was neccessary to make love. The heart of your question is the word original.

The sex act can only be preformed so many ways, so in a very real sense nothing any of us writes is totally original. Somewhere, somehow, by someone, it's all be done before. On the other side of the coin we all make our works original by adding characters, settings, and other details that are uniquely our own. Many of the authors on this site ignore most of the tools of writing, working quickly to the sex scene and trusting that it will be hot enough to carry the story. to a great many minds it's only porn after all, not Paradice Lost.

In many cases the stories sound like jazed up versions of something the author has done or a fantasy they have. Stock characters, stock settings, stock themes and cliched sex predominate. The women are all perfect, horny and love giving head. The guys are all hung like mules, with six pack abs and manly muscles bulging everywhere. The setting is on that perfect beach, in his sports car, on the big desk in his office or in some poorly defined room in their perfect home. The preponderance of theses authors don't have mush original at all in their works and expecting them to waste time and brain power in coming up with original anything is opptimistic.

Similie and metaphor are reliable and important tools in the poet's tool box. For a prose author they are less substantial tools, depending on your style of writing. I know when I was coming up these and other literary devices were being taught less and less often. I saw more of them in college lit classes than I did in my composition classes. Consiering the overall decline in basic english skills in the school system I have to wonder if they are taught at all now in highschool. As for originality, I know for a fact that isn't taught anymore.

-Colly

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Hemingway is said to be that last really dominant American author. After him--during him, really--paperbacks appeared and opened the field to so many authors that no one could be said to dominate the field anymore (much like what's happening with the music business these days. With musicians circumventing the established business and putting out cheap product the days of the musical superstar are probably over.)

The big change Hemingway brought to writing was very lean, spare, image-free prose. Like Rumple, Hemingway came from a newspaper background, so maybe this was a factor. More likely though it was reaction against the swollen, over-inflated prose that had been popular since Dickens. Almost anyone who writes these days is writing under Papa Hemingway's shadow, whether they know it or not, so I think that's one part of the reason why we don't see that kind of rich imagery anymore.

On the other hand, there are some writers who can just floor you with their powers of imagery. I haven't read Nora Roberts, but I know Tom Robbins can just knock you out with some of the things he says, and of course, the hard-boiled detective genre is notorious for its wild and overblown smilies ("The city at night was like a broad who's had a few too many and is starting to let her slip show...") That stuff can be great fun.

But I think you're right. The average Literoteer (Literotician?) is just looking to get their fantasy up on the screen and not very much concerned with the writing. But I still remember the image of the woman whose clothes came off like melting ice cream, and I'm sure that somewhere there must be a good metaphor to describe the sensual curves of a woman's legs.

---dr.M.

 

[OldnotDead]

In my case, I think it is a deficient ability to use a tool well. Much like some carpenters' inabilities to turn out the careful scroll work required of trim carpenters, my use of such instruments is too often hackneyed and not at all pleasing to the eye or the mind.

I had not thought about the Hemingway influence, Dr. M. I think your point is well taken. I was always impresssed by his ability to let me visualize a rich scene with an economy of words. You are going to make me go back and read some of Twain's work to see if that newspaperman wrote similarly.

 

[gauchecritic]

I'm not fond of the word 'like', so I tend to use metaphors more than similies when I use them at all. I even go so far as to edit other people's similies into metaphors. Not good editing technique I know, but alabaster skin is so much more readable than skin like an alabaster statue.

Whilst writing an exercise for another thread, just before I got the end of the piece, I thought of a good recurring metaphor to use, but that would have meant re-writing the whole thing and also changing the feel somewhat. So I bottled it. Lazy get that I am.

Gauche

 

[Guest]

Along with Gauche I also resist similes (though they come easily I reserve them for non-serious writing). Ever since my rhetoric studies began (way way back) I somehow thought of similes as poor relations to metaphors. In studying 'classical' poetry I found the proof of my gut-level intellect; metaphors can achieve sophistication and exquisite heights unattainable to similes, at least that is my experience from a long long life of reading.

Perdita

 

[Guest]

 

[Angeline]

Hi There Doc

I agree with Perdita--not many writers here are literary types, but then the number of those who are is probably proportionate to that anywhere else.

We're not--at least in the USA, nor elsewhere I suspect--trained to write this way. There's much more emphasis in American schools on informative and persuasive writing (not that many are learning that either, but I digress) than on narrative. With little practice most don't get a chance to build those writing muscles, though I think it can be done if one aims to write that way.

The other thing is that unless you're very good at combining prose and poetry--say like Virginia Woolf--your writing sounds sorta dumb. You end up with Mickey Spillane-like constructions (e.g., "her hair hung from her head like a waterfall"), which I guess is good if you like Spillane or are writing satire, but it just makes me giggle.

Prose poetry is interesting to study for examples of how image-laden writing is done effectively. The Prose Poem is a very good digital journal with great examples from Baudelaire to Robert Bly and more modern purveyors of the medium.

Ange

 

[Seattle Zack]

Crime fiction -- especially the hard-boiled detective novels -- are rich in metaphor. Raymond Chandler was undoubtedly the master at it; by using metaphors and similies, Chandler aptly describes the things Marlow notices, and it gives a unique insight into Marlow's character. A few of my favorites:

*My excuse was thinner than the gold on a weekend wedding ring.

*The green stone in his stick pin was not quite as large as an apple.

*I belonged in Idle Valley like a pearl onion on a banana split.

*She smiled and made a mouth, then handed [the gun] back with a secret naughty air, as if she was giving me a key to her room.

And this is one of Chandler's most famous passages:

[The door] opened into a sort of vestibule that was about as warm as a slow oven. He came in after me, shut the outer door, opened an inner door and we went through that. Then it was really hot. The air was thick, wet, steamy and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom. The glass walls and roof were heavily misted and big drops of moisture splashed down on the plants. The light had an unusual greenish color, like the light filtered through an aquarium tank. The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men. They smelled as overpowering as boiling alcohol under a blanket.

 

[champagne1982]

[...] but I know Tom Robbins can just knock you out with some of the things he says[...]
---dr.M.

My favourite part of Tom Robbins' writing comes during Still Life With Woodpecker when Princess Leigh Cheri has been dining on wedding cake and sipping champagne while trapped in a modern pyramid. She feels the need and as she voids she giggles tipsily --

[...]I'm peeing stars![...]

 

[Angeline]

Agreed Zack--some is really good and works in the medium. Some seems too campy to me, but maybe that's the author's intent. But I guess it's all taste. I think the following passage from Virginia Woolf's Orlando is very beautiful, but I know people who would say it's really overblown--

He sighed profoundly and flung himself--there was a passion in his movements which deserves the word--on the earth at the foot of the oak tree. He loved, beneath all this summer transiency, to feel the earth's spine beneath him; for such he took the hard root of the oak tree to be; or, for image followed image, it was the back of a great horse that he was riding; or the deck of a tumbling ship--it was anything indeed, so long as it was hard, for he felt the need of something he could attach his floating heart to; the heart that tugged at his side; the heart that seemed filled with spiced and amorous gales every evening about this time when he walked out. To the oak tree he tied it and as he lay there, gradually the flutter in and about him stilled itself; the little leaves hung; the deer stopped; the pale summer clouds stayed; his limbs grew heavy on the ground; and he lay so still that by the degrees the deer stepped nearer and the rooks wheeled round him and the swallows dipped and circled and the dragon-flies shot past, as if all the fertility and amorous activity of a summer's evening were woven web-like about his body.

 

[A7inchPhildo]

The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men.

What can one dispute that is an awesome picture painted. I can almost feel the thickness and texture in my mind. These stalks and thick leaves maintain an immage I can relate to from my own experiences. I do not need to have more said or shown.

The picture is worth a thousand words and some stories use all onethousand to paint a single detail and it still is bland. Just 8 lit pages of bland.

 

[Pure]

Hi dr. m and others,

I think I agree with the gist of Colleen, that metaphor and simile are always there; originality is the issue. Indeed the larger phenomena of imagery and figurative language are not absent in ordinary writing.

Since Rumple, a very good writer, says he writes 'non imagery', let's look at a passage--840 wds-- from his (subtitle) "Nurse nailed"-- that being my first example. I omit mention of several interesting figurative word choices, but get the following rough list, * to indicate the word, where it might not be clear:


I remember shouting something about, "No fucking way!" then scrambling into the back seat and landing right between those beautiful, wide-open legs. After briefly grinding my mouth

second example.


against hers, I slid down and got a double lip-lock on one of her hard, little, pink nipples. All this time I’m struggling to get my uniform off. Once that was done, I moved back up until old Roscoe *nosed into the juncture

third instance,

of those smooth, perfect thighs.

Like I’ve said, it’s important for a dude to maintain his cool, so I kept kissing her until I couldn’t wait any longer. Breaking* the kiss,

fourth


I raised up slightly, and slapped* on my best smile.

fifth


I wanted to watch her reaction when my big, black Johnson sliced

sixth

fast and deep into that blonde-haired pussy.

To make sure I had a clear shot, I gently lifted and spread her legs. She didn’t object, just scooted around a little to get comfortable. We stayed in that position for a minute, body-on-body, hip-to-hip, motionless and expectant. I could see the lust in her eyes, smell the aroma of need

seventh


mixed with her perfume, and feel her warm, pale skin shivering with excitement. This chick wanted it bad.

But so did I. And being a real gent, I didn’t want to keep her waiting. The moment old Roscoe plunged

eighth


into her body I saw her face scrunch up and heard her gasp. When he *hit

ninth

the inner most recesses of her pussy, she shuddered, her head jerked back, her lips formed a small "O" and she moaned, “Oh, yes.” I’d been right about her body. There might not be much of it, but what she did have was *prime

tenth (like roast)

and able to handle every inch I could give.

I paused while her pussy clutched around the entire length of my hard, dark meat.

eleventh


There was no rush

twelfth


and I wanted to savor it all: The sensation of her tight pussy squeezing my Johnson, The feel of her warm, agile little body under me, and maybe most of all, the sounds of her soft moans and quick breaths as she waited for me to start pounding

thirteenth


into that smooth, creamy flesh.

But it was impossible to stay still so I didn’t keep her waiting for long. I began pumping

fourteenth

old Roscoe in and out of that juicy, blonde snatch, listening as she let out a cries that sounded like pure passion. Wrapping her arms and legs around my body, she began matching my downward plunges with equally urgent, upward thrusts of her own. Within seconds, I could tell she was having a mind blowing

fifteenth


orgasm.

I didn't slow down to let her savor the afterglow

sixteenth

, just kept pounding my hammer

seventeenth

into her. Before I knew what was happening, she started coming again. The feel of that dynamite

eighteenth


little bod twisting and shaking under me was fucking fantastic. I never wanted to stop, just keep nailing her hard and fast until she either begged for mercy or I died* in the saddle*

nineteenth, twentieth

with a big grin on my face.

By now I could tell she’d lost track of everything but the feel of old Roscoe making like a jackhammer

twenty first

in and out of her silky snatch. I lifted my upper body off her and watched in amazement as she began having one quick orgasm after another. I’d never known any chick, black or white, who did that.

During one climax, she was moaning and tossing

twenty second


her head from side to side while her fingers dug

twenty third

at my back. The moment after that one peaked, she gasped and her body jerked hard. I couldn’t believe it. This chick was having another one. This time her pussy squeezed so hard, it nearly forced me out of that slippery little hole.

The feeling was so great it started me building toward my own orgasm. But this was such an incredible fuck, I wanted the enjoy it a little longer. So I changed my position, then began using long, slow strokes.

Maybe it was the new position, maybe the new pace, but suddenly her arms were wrapped around my neck and she was hugging me close, moaning, “Oh, yes. Oh, Leroy-yes!” while thrusting her hips up to met my every stroke.

Hearing her say my name like that was too much. It triggered

twenty fourth

a humongous surge of passion that made a joke out of my trying to keep from coming. For the first time ever, I could appreciate the old line about, "cracking your nuts." Mine seemed to *explode and I felt my *load surging down my shaft, then *erupt deep inside her marvelous, clutching cunt.

twenty fifth, sixtth, and seventh



Meanwhile, she must have been having her own mother

twenty eighth

of an orgasm. The pressure inside her pussy became unbelievable. When she shouted, “Oh, yes!” it sounded *like she’d just won the lottery.

twenty ninth


Her hips sprang off the car seat as her body became a stiff bow.

thirtieth

I grabbed her hips and with one final lunge, drilled

thirty first


old Roscoe in deep and hard as the last of my cum poured into her hot, *churning pussy.

thirty second.
===

That's our non imagistic writer, on an average day, with a good and typical story.

J.

 

[champagne1982]

sustained? metaphor

A symphony of desire builds as his tongue traces a delicate filigree over the muscled surface of my flat tummy. Lower he wanders, his fingers digging into my hips, at last lifting me. Held up to his questing mouth, shoulders pinned to the bed under my own weight as he drinks. My legs spread and hanging in space unsupported. My arms splayed to either side as he begins to devour me. My cunt a feast. He pauses and I hear his desire, "Cum for me." Reduced to an ember of wanton lust I burst out for him to suck my clit. How I need him!
Like a virtuouso he draws the music of passion from me. I feel incapable of nothing less than complete surrender to his composing. His tongue manipulates each fold of me. The blood singing through my vessels as he thrusts into me and slowly twirls it around my hard nub. He licks. That tongue of his dragging along the crack of my ass, pressing tauntingly across the nerves of my asshole, lewdly hinting of how wonderful it would feel to have it within. My fingers tear at the sheets. My nails leaving imprints in my palms. His lick proceeds, the sensitive separator pulsing as he laps hungrily at sweet, flowing pussy juices. The rasping surface delves shallowly into my musky hole and at last drags wetly over my swollen clit. Again and again.
The crescendo crashes around me as he orchestrates each section. Encouraging the performance. I weep. The beauty of feeling intensely painful. He sees. He cries out in agony at my grief, wanting to bring me the marvel of sensation once again. He raises me to cradle my shaking form in his gentle arms. I whisper, "Now?"

 

[Pure]

champagne,

nice, and it should be noted you higlighted only the figurative words that were of musical import.

several others are found in the passage, including

ember
devour

taunting
hinting [metaphors relating to speaking]

cradle

and so on.

J.