Metaphor: A Cautionary Tale

                                                        

I was Googling something the other day, and a link for ProWritingAid’s advice on metaphor caught my eye. They do a good job of explaining what metaphor is and the different types here, so I won’t go into it; but this part of the blurb caught my attention: “Metaphors are a great way to add more color to your writing!”

Well, yes and no.

Back in the day, I loved using metaphor. I thought it made me “writerly”, evoking an emotional, whimsical feeling, or added impact to some point or meaning I was trying to convey. Then I started writing book reviews for the New York Journal of Books (whom I love, but had to leave when I became an agent). I don’t remember which book I was reviewing, or what metaphoric genius I’d intended, but the editor, none other than the wonderful Lisa Rojany Buccieri, provided a note breaking me of this habit:

Sorry, the mixed metaphors made my head swim upriver like a salmon lost in her own watery jungle of misunderstood analogies.

Point taken.

While true, metaphor can add color, it can also over power, detract, and annoy. Metaphor should be used sparingly and only if it enhances your words in a productive way, rather than for additional style or dressing; an issue I see a lot in submissions.

For example: “My mom has a heart of gold”. Enough said. The reader knows exactly the type of person my mother is. However, it often goes too far: “My mom has a heart of gold that twinkles in the moonlight light like diamonds glittering on an azure sea” – I just can’t help myself with mixing those metaphors.

Metaphor can also dilute the impact of a line by overselling it. Here’s a line from a submission that started out strong—and then became diluted.  Note: I changed the examples a little as I don’t want to embarrass or offend the writer who may be reading this.

The context is: as a child, the main character, Mary, dropped and shattered something very dear to her mother. Mary’s mother never forgave her, and now Mary doesn’t trust her own hands.

“Nothing about my life felt solid. Even if I could carry my life like a tangible object, I would drop it, breaking it into thousands of pieces, like glittering stars skating through the night sky.

The main line is strong on its own, adding the metaphor diluted it.

You also have to be careful about being so focused on sounding “writerly” that you create what sounds like a metaphor, but doesn’t actually make sense.

This is an opening line where the author is describing the landscape at sunrise "The landscape was illuminated by a radiant sunrise of concrete despair.” What is a sunrise of concrete despair? Is it like a forest of molten laughter? (just kidding.)

Hopefully this will give new and experienced writers something to think about when they’re trying to find a more “colorful” way to say something.  For those who want examples of using metaphor in a good way, check out “How to Write Powerful Metaphors” by Sophie Playle.