Lightning in a Bottle: Five Tips for Using Metaphors and Similies Effectively

Metaphors and similes have become such common parts of our everyday language that we hardly notice them. The problem student in your class is a "bad apple"; the miscreant in your family, a "black sheep." Trying to find the contact lens you dropped is "like searching for a needle in a haystack." A person in your office may be trying to "butter up" the boss to secure a promotion. The boss may be making him "jump through hoops" to get one. A deceased person has "bought the farm," "kicked the can," or "punched his ticket."

Metaphors and similes are two sides of the same coin. Their common purpose is to make a concept or image more powerful by figuratively comparing it to something else. Just in case you've forgotten the distinction you were forced to memorize in ninth-grade English, here's a refresher: similes involve the use of the words like, as and so to accomplish this goal ("His voice was like a fine wine"), while metaphors make the comparison absolute ("His voice was honey to her insides").

Handled judiciously, metaphors and similes can be powerful tools in the writer's arsenal. Misused, they can serve as distractions. Here are five guidelines for creating metaphors and similes that will help make your story stand out from the rest.

Keep your comparisons short and simple — no need to use a rifle when a pistol will do

Metaphors and similes don't need to be long or elaborate to pack a punch. Consider the way Ann-Marie MacDonald describes a thug in her novel Fall On Your Knees:

Frances looks up at Boutros. Concrete with eyeballs.

Or Mordecai Richler's take on a group of snobby women in On Snooker:

The suits were monitored by a patrol of formidable wives, not so much dressed as upholstered.

Or Alice Munro's portrayal of awkward teenage romance in her story, "Baptizing":

He put a finger against one of my nipples as if he was testing a thorn.

All three cases demonstrate the aim of metaphors and similes: to quickly illuminate a story, like shining a flashlight on the page and then switching if off.

Here are two examples of similes in Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin that describe the narrator's relationship with her mother:

Her love for us was a given — solid and tangible, like a cake. The only question was which of us was going to get the bigger slice.

Even if love was underneath it all, there was a great deal piled on top, and what would you find when you dug down? Not a simple gift, pure gold and shining; instead, something ancient and possibly baneful, like an iron charm rusting among old bones. A talisman of sorts, this love, but a heavy one; a heavy thing for me to carry around with me, slung on its iron chain around my neck.

From both examples — the second combining both metaphor and simile — we get a clear idea about this relationship, but you probably agree that the first one does a better job of it, and in many fewer words. Whereas the longer paragraph presents a flurry of thoughts and images, the shorter one comes off like a quick, hard jab — efficient, unexpected, and impossible to dodge.

Be sure all your metaphors and similes can meet the minimum requirement — they should be able to pass muster

Used deftly, metaphors and similes become glittering, unexpected jewels that readers encounter along the path of your story; used clumsily, they become rocks that readers trip over. But how do you decide whether a comparison is helping or hindering your story?

To make the final cut in a manuscript, a metaphor or simile should be able to fill two criteria: integrity (it makes sense, it can stand on its own, and it doesn't clash with anything around it) and value (it adds something significant that would otherwise be lost).

You can apply the test for integrity by asking whether the metaphor or simile satisfies the three C's: coherence, comfort, and consistency.

First, coherence — will the figurative comparison make sense to a reader? The best way to understand what coherence means is to think about the most obvious example of incoherence: the dreaded mixed metaphor. As Sam Malone put it in an episode of Cheers, "It's not fair to get someone's engine all revved up and then yank the carpet out from under them." Though they make for memorable sitcom lines, incompatible images do not serve stories well. Remember, the goal of metaphors and similes is to lend instant clarity to a certain character, place, idea or object. A coherent metaphor or simile will make a reader nod with recognition.

Second, comfort. Does the metaphor or simile have enough breathing room? It's easy — and dangerous — to fall in love with figurative language. Force yourself to be discriminating. The best authors strike an engaging balance by sprinkling their manuscripts with enough comparisons to enhance the story but not so many that a reader feels inundated. When numerous metaphors and similes are banging around together within close proximity, though each may be strong on its own, the overall effect is often one of dilution. When you look at a jar stuffed with marbles, nothing compels you to remember any specific one. But a single cat's eye will certainly draw your attention. So a metaphor or simile, if it deserves to be there in the first place, also deserves room to be noticed.

Finally, consistency — the tone of your metaphors and similes should be congruent with the type of piece you are writing. Think of your story as a piece of music. Metaphors and similes represent the harmony; they subtly enhance the theme without disturbing it. In a light romance, for instance, the language should be soft and graceful. "She wore a necklace whose pearls were like hailstones" is an example of a simile that doesn't fit. Comparing the pearls to something gentler will keep your reader in the environment you've established instead of suddenly introducing a new one.

Consistency is especially important in historical pieces. In a Civil War story, for example, the effect of the simile, "He wore his love like a neon sign," would be to temporarily jolt a reader out of the setting — and once readers have been bumped out, it's not always easy to lure them back in.

Here's a metaphor for an adulterous relationship from Herman Wouk's War and Remembrance:

Forbidden fruit has its brown spots, but these are not seen in the dusky glow of appetite; one has to bite and taste the unpleasant mush.

Wouk's sober, literate tone reflects the voice that permeates the rest of his World War II epic — serious, meditative, atmospheric. Compare Wouk's metaphor to the following simile, again from Fall On Your Knees, in which a Lebanese character reflects on hearing her native Arabic:

What a relief from the chill of English, which is exactly like immersing your tongue in ice-water.

The characters in Fall On Your Knees are driven by unbending ideas about the world, and the language used to tell their story is appropriately terse and direct, mirroring the characters' rigid perspectives. As you edit your manuscripts, watch for metaphors or similes that suddenly inject a different voice and try to adapt them. If a certain comparison resists being tailored, it belongs in another manuscript.

Be sure all your metaphors and similes have a reason for being there — each one should bring something to the table

Once a metaphor or simile has demonstrated integrity, it must be scrutinized again — for value. Here you must ask yourself whether the manuscript loses something if the comparison is removed. This can be established with another simple test. Read the sentence or passage containing the metaphor or simile. Then read it again, this time leaving out the comparison. If the same amount of information is conveyed in both versions, the metaphor or simile is probably redundant. But if the stripped-down version suddenly seems to be lacking substance, your metaphor or simile deserves its rightful place.

Let's go back to the example of the pearl necklace. Is a comparison for the size of the pearls truly necessary? If you're trying to develop the character as an ostentatious socialite, perhaps. But if you've already established this character and done it well, a reader should be able to envision the type of pearls automatically.

Here's a simile used by Tennessee Williams in his story, "Portrait of a Girl in Glass":

The door came timidly open and there she stood in a dress from Mother's wardrobe, a black chiffon ankle-length and high-heeled slippers on which she balanced uncertainly like a tipsy crane of melancholy plumage.

In Williams' masterful hands, we come to know this girl — a piteous mix of vulnerability and insecurity — through just a few words. Let's see how the same sentence reads with the simile removed:

The door came timidly open and there she stood in a dress from Mother's wardrobe, a black chiffon ankle-length and high-heeled slippers.

The writing is still lovely, but something in the description of this character has clearly been lost. The metaphor therefore has value.

Once a metaphor or simile has passed the dual test of integrity and value, allow yourself to trust that it will do its job. In other words, resist the urge to pile on more figurative description out of concern that your reader still may not get it. Let's look again at Ann-Marie MacDonald's description of the thug named Boutros as "concrete with eyeballs." Suppose she had written the following instead:

Frances looks at Boutros. Concrete with eyeballs. A man built like a linebacker and twice as mean. He looked to be the kind of man who broke people's arms for sport, like a child absently snapping twigs.

Does the added description help us understand Boutros any better? No. Those three words tell us all we need to know. Like concrete, he's thick, opaque and immovable. And like an entity inhabited entirely by eyeballs, he's frightening.

As you review your manuscript, subject each metaphor and simile to the integrity-value test. If you feel that doesn't work, simply keep in mind the cardinal rule: every word should serve to advance the story. Is a specific comparison there because it elucidates some person or object, or because you liked the way it sounded and couldn't bring yourself to take it out? Answer honestly and you'll see the result: a tight, nimble manuscript clipping along with powerful momentum.

Don't let yourself get away with easy metaphors and similes — they're a dime a dozen

When you catch yourself writing something like, "He was her knight in shining armor," "His heart was racing like a thoroughbred's" or "They were two peas in a pod," take a step back. Demand something new of yourself, even if it means placing a temporary flag in the spot to return to later. Readers will appreciate the effort you've made to come up with something they haven't pictured before, and your story will receive a spark in exactly the spot you want.

Certain objects or images will demand more of your creativity because they've been so often used as metaphoric fodder. It may seem, for example, that there just isn't any new way to describe the experience of love. But take heart (pardon the pun). Consider the following figurative comparisons, in which different writers address various aspects of love — from the realization of it —

Knowing it was like running into a wall of heat, his head and hands pushing right through it.

— Carol Shields, Larry's Party

— to its loss —

Their relationship had run out like a phonograph record; their chitchat was the last scratching of the needle.

— Herman Wouk, War and Remembrance

— from the love of something abstract (the desert) —

He had an affection for it that grew out of awe at our stark order…like a joyous undergraduate who respects silent behavior in a library.

— Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

— to something more tangible —

As she spoke she changed in some provocative way, seemed suddenly drenched in eroticism as a diver rising out of a pool gleams like chrome with a sheet of unbroken water for a fractional moment.

— E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

— and from shared, crackling sexuality —

It was tense as electricity, the force fed on resistance, rushing through wires of metal stretched tight; it was tense as water made into power by the restraining violence of a dam.

— Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

— to reflections on the physical act itself —

In bed, only an hour and a half before, we had been unconvincing somehow, as though there lay between our mucous membranes a fine dust or grit, or its mental equivalent, but as tangible as beach sand.

— Ian McEwan, Enduring Love

Out of one concept, love, comes a wonderful diversity of ideas and images. The lesson? You can always come up with something new.

Practice constantly — keep your nose to the grindstone

Metaphors and similes are coy animals, and sometimes they need to be coaxed out of hiding. Are you struggling for an image to liven up your story in a particular spot? Have you searched high and low without success? Use the world around you to practice. Take a stroll, pausing to describe the things you see — a tree, a car, a group of squirrels nibbling at chestnuts — by expressing them as things other than themselves. Do this out loud so you can hear how the comparisons sound. Remember, the point of this exercise is to get into the habit of creating. Don't worry if what comes out of your mouth sounds ridiculous. Often, it will take nine mediocre attempts to find the metaphor or simile that makes you say, "Nailed it."

We all know that writing stories is hard. Finding interesting ways to describe things can be even harder. Creating metaphors and similes is a specific skill, like using proper grammar, developing characters, or building a narrative arc, and it demands both patience and determination. Keep at it, practicing as often as possible, and soon metaphors and similes will begin to flow from your pen like...hm...let's see. I can't seem to think of anything that would work well here.

Can you?

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