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As part of my ongoing blog series on how to show, not tell, I’m posting about a little-known trick to showing: USE A FRIGGIN’ METAPHOR.
Or a simile. I won’t judge.
Note: For easy reading, I will refer to metaphors and similes collectively as “comparisons” in this article.
Using Comparions
Happiness is the china shop. Love is the bull.
– H. L. Mencken
Side note: Be aware that you can have too many comparisons. You’ll rarely want more than one in a single paragraph, and often not more than one on a page.
Setting
For the love of God, do we readers tire of the list. “In the left corner there is a chair and a desk, to the right is the bed, and the walls are painted dull brown.” This is so boring. In order to have a fun setting, drop the list and instead throw in some cool images and fun verbs:
The desk crouched in on corner like a homeless man, shabby and layered with dirt.
The bed was as wide and blue as an ocean; the rippling silk bore the color of sun over water, and I couldn’t wait to drown myself there.
The walls are as neutral as the best friend who thinks your husband is better than hers is. “You’re overreacting,” the walls tell you. “There is perfection here. You’re just too blind to see it.”
People
Nothing is lamer than a character description where someone’s eye color, hair color, height, and (if I’m lucky) skin color are all laid out in the first moments we meet them. “He was tall and burly. There was a gun at his waist. When he spoke, the authority was clear in his voice.”
You can do better. Evoke the character by choosing a comparison that suits them.
Tall and burly: The man was built like a storage locker. Not the ones you find at gyms and amusement parks, but the lockers you keep guns in. Big guns, and lots of them. He was built like one of those.
Gun at his waist: A Glock wriggled against his belt as if it were trying to escape down his pants.
Spoke with authority: When he spoke, I was transported to Congress. Flags rose behind him, and fireworks burst overhead. Every word felt scripted.
Action
Whenever people are doing things, they sometimes get reduced to simple verbs. “Angrily, he said, ‘I don’t think so,’ as he pulled back his arm to punch. The punch put me in a coma.” While this is passable, imagine what a comparison could do for any one of those lines:
He said angrily: “I don’t think so,” he growled, and my mind jumped to the History channel, the roars of leopards as they guarded their territory.
He punched: I could see the tension in his arm as he drew back – a trebuchet without a projectile.
The coma: Waking up felt like a hangover after drinking ten margaritas a day for ten days straight. When I woke up from the coma, I could still taste the salt.
NOTE: This article is a part of the 5/17/17 #AuthorToolbox blog hop. It’s been so fun! Join up if you’d like to increase your blog reach and have a blast networking with other writers.
Fabulous examples – thank you! I love your take on “spoke with authority”. Brilliant!
And well done for writing a post on showing that shows rather than tells 🙂
Thanks! Several of my editing clients have expressed being at a loss about it, so I started the series to try and explain in more detail 🙂
I like all your practical writing examples. Thank you 🙂
My pleasure! I’m all about practical!
I love metaphors! This is great advice. “A trebuchet without a projectile” reminds me of the year it seemed like every NaNo participant worked a trebuchet into their story. That was my introduction to the concept of plot bunny adoption.
OMG, that really happened? Personally I just wanted to use the word. It’s so cool! I once built a mini-trebuchet and that sucker threw its little clay balls hella far. I’ll remember that it *might* just be a little cliche now!
I built a 6ft one once with a group of friends. (One of them was doing it for a project for a history class.) Firing a watermelon out of a trebuchet was awesome. When we ran out of watermelons we started moving through whatever other produce we could find. The onion left peels at each bounce. It was an amazing day.
Sounds like one of those things that you never planned to love, it just happened spontaneously and now it’s a memory you’ll always cherish!
I admit when done right they brighten up the work. 🙂
Anna from elements of emaginette
Agreed! There’s always a chance that you could have too many metaphors or they could be overdone, but beta readers will help you find those weak points, and in the end you’ll have stronger images in your text.
Some awesome examples 🙂 I especially liked the man built like a storage locker. I’ll be sure to add in a few metaphors when I get my first draft finished and start editing!
Awesome! They can do a lot to dress up your text whenever it starts to feel flat.
I’ve been struggling with an aspect of my memoir and people have suggested it may be easier (and more interesting!) to use metaphor to get the message across. This came just in time, thank you!
P.S. Does your new Free Writing Events newsletter include information on this part of the site, too? (Say yes, say yes!)
Hi Lynn! Glad this is reaching you in time to help with your memoir! My newsletter will have image teasers for all of my articles with links to each article written over the past month or so. I’m planning to send the first newsletter Friday so please let me know if you like it or what can be improved!
Great examples. It’s easier to understand the concept when you can read the options.
My thoughts exactly. You can say all day to “show, don’t tell” but without breaking it down a bit, it just feels overwhelming.
These are great examples. People think in metaphors. Adding them to a character’s voice is a nice addition. Tells us just as much about the POV character.
Yep, and the type of POV doesn’t even matter! You can do it with third or first person. Metaphors are versatile and really help get to the meat of a character’s personality 🙂
I love your examples, they’re all so evocative. I need to practice using metaphors more, I always worry mine just sound silly or completely made up. Thanks for the tips!
Trust me, I go through my fair share of silly ones. Your beta readers will catch them! Just try to go for ones that add to the situational feel, or that come from your character’s perspective.
I love that you provided examples of metaphors for setting, characters, and action. I naturally create metaphors for setting and character descriptions but have to work harder to create metaphors for action. Great examples although I am a bit terrified of that wriggling gun.
Yeah, a wriggling gun just looks like it’s ready to go, or makes the man himself look silly. So much connotation! I’m glad the examples helped. Seems like the best way to drive a point home, in my opinion. If you are already using metaphor for your settings and description, you are more than halfway there already! Way to show, not tell!
Some great suggestions there, thank you. I will need to remember those since I do think some of my descriptions can be a little flat.
There’s nothing like a solid metaphor to pump up a description 🙂
Great post! Writing character descriptions is always my downfall. I’ve been trying to make note of effective character descriptions in the books I’ve been reading lately, and I’ll keep all of these in mind.
Thanks for sharing!
My pleasure! The trick is to watch how many items you describe, and if they’re all described in the same way or not. I try to describe people with three items or less when we meet them, and then sprinkle in more descriptors through action and dialogue.
Great post! Telling instead of showing is one of the most common problems I see in manuscripts. Great advice, and thanks for sharing 🙂
My pleasure! Telling vs. showing is tough to parse, and it’s a nonstop learning experience.
I absolutely adore the gun storage locker. This type of metaphor (or simile) always feels like it tends to work best with a first or close third person PoV, and I always forget that there are ways to incorporate it even with a more distant 3rd person. Thanks for the reminder! 😀
Thank you for the compliment! I find that POV doesn’t really limit metaphor much. You’re still filtering it through the main character either way. Unless you’re going third person omniscient… but who’s that intrepid anymore?
I really like how you address an important point and then you show how to make it work. Thank you for the great examples 🙂
You’re too kind! I always find that some solid examples help nail the point home a bit. Easier to remember for later rather than just some vague rule that hovers in one ear and out the other 😉
You definitely have a talent for metaphor, Mica. I hope everyone is signing up for your newsletter. They’d be silly not to. Thanks again for an excellent contribution to the #AuthorToolboxBlogHop. You rock.
Awww, thank you! I have 32 subscribers so far (in one day!) with the first newsletter to go out sometime tomorrow. We’ll see what people think. I’m sort of throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks regarding networking :3
You definitely have a talent for metaphor, Mica. I hope everyone is signing up for your newsletter. They’d be silly not to. Thanks again for an excellent contribution to the #AuthorToolboxBlogHop. You rock.
And it is my absolute pleasure to participate in the hop. We writers gotta stick together! I’m just so glad Louise told me about it. I was never sure what blog hops were but it sure is nice seeing comments on my posts!
Wonderful concept. I’ll keep your examples in mind with my rewrites.
Thank you! Whenever things start to feel a bit flat, see if you can’t throw a comparison in there somewhere 🙂
What great examples! You definitely have some practice with this! Thank you so much for sharing your skill with us! 😀
Thank you! They were just off-the-cuff. When reading growing up it was always the metaphors that got me to stop and say “whoa.” Been working on them ever since. I’m glad to hear I’m helpful!
What a fun read! I loved how unabashedly you argued your case.
And I agree on getting the balance right on the amount of metaphors and similes to use. I wrote a review on my blog a month or so back where the author used these devices on every other sentence throughout the book. Her creativity got so exhausting that I found it lazy to not try any other way to describe things.
Agreed. You can easily have too much of a good thing. So much of writing is just finding the balance between all the different elements and rules. Comparisons are great, but they use brainpower to read and visualize, so if you are making your reader do that every other sentence, they are going to get overloaded!
Excellent advice and fantastic examples. Thanks for sharing.
It’s my absolute pleasure!
Love the examples. There’s nothing worse than reading a laundry list of features. (Okay, life without chocolate is worse, but not by much).
Agreed! It does take time to learn how to write good description; the laundry list is usually a sure sign of a beginner because of that. It can be a tough habit to crack.