metaphorical resonance

No, we're not talking about Augustus Waters from John Green's The Fault in Our Stars. Well, maybe we are, albeit in a roundabout sort of way. We're talking about writing with style. How metaphors are constructed and what makes them tick--what makes a metaphor genuinely effective or, conversely, what makes one a flop like a wet noodle?

See? In a minute, you'll understand why that particular metaphor sucked.

Just for the sake of clarity, we'll step back into Writing 101 for a moment. For us writer types, a metaphor (n.) is a comparison between two unlike things (yes, thing does convey that authorial sense of elocution and specificity, doesn't it?) which, theoretically, should elucidate and reveal an image or idea.

Example: "I fell in love like you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once." (Yes, I did pull this particular quote out of a possibly aforementioned John Green novel.)

So the comparison drawn here is between falling in love and falling sleep. Two things that are unlike for some pretty obvious reasons, not the least of which is that if I fell in love every time I fell asleep, I'd have quite the harem. Or my heart would be held together by nothing more than Scotch tape and sheer desperation. One or the other.

But allow me to put my love life--which is doing fine, thanks for asking--aside. Let's take a look at what makes metaphors, both Mr. Green's and otherwise, effective. This shall be accomplished via my most despised of mediums: a list.

The Hated, Abhorrent, and Reviled List of Things That Will Make Your Metaphors Not Suck:
(THARLTTWMYMNS for short.)

1. Clarity. Metaphors substitute in for or enhance adjectival descriptions on the page. (Huh. Adjectival just seems redundant somehow, the adjective form of the word adjective. Anyway, back to the matters at hand.) The two are both supposed to convey the same basic thing, but in different formats--and ideally, the metaphor should be more effective at conveying the desired image. Metaphors are prime real estate on the page. They don't reel in quite as much attention as italics do, but they still stand out, so their existence must be worthwhile. A failed adjectival description might make the reader go meh, but a failed metaphor will just leave them puzzling over whether or not they're missing something.

2. Context. Like I said before, metaphors stand out. If you fill the page from head to toe with figurative language, the figurative language becomes weaker. It's oversaturation. Metaphors are the icing on the cake, not the cake itself. For the most part, metaphors should enhance the imagery, not wholly constitute it.

Part of what this boils down to is overdescription. Burying the narrative in explaining life since the beginning of the universe everything. Writing isn't like statistics, where you have to account for every minor detail.You want to give the reader a clear picture, but you also don't want to give them a liturgy or an elegantly phrased stock list.

3. Avoid cliches. The whole point of a metaphor is, as we've said, to reveal an image. Cliches don't really do that: they're so trite and overused that they cease to really give the kind of imagery you want. They're unconverted currency, empty calories.

Now, I don't think I need to rail on about this. Pretty much everyone understands that having the rough-and-tough character archetype swagger over and show off his bullet wound whilst announcing, "That one sucked like a cheap whore!" is probably a little overboard, so...

Here's the long and short of it: Try to say things in new and creative ways. They stick better that way. I'm not saying you should never ever ever say "bite the bullet" or "turned a blind eye", especially in dialogue where people speak in colloquialisms, but if you're trying to be prosaic... well, it'll always fall short of something like this, an example from Lauren Oliver's Delirium, where the protagonist is venturing through the woods at night when suddenly some bats are like, "Sup, girl?"

"... a black scythe of bats cutting suddenly across the sky."

A black scythe of bats. It's specific, it creates a vivid image, and it's a new way to say it. A+.

4. Create a disconnect. I know it sounds weird, but the best metaphors aren't the ones you expect, because if you expect the metaphor then it has inherently failed to deliver an image or idea in a unique way. And hey, uniqueness can snag people's attention more than conformity... just look at your hipster friends.

An (approximate) example, from (again) Delirium: "The air outside is thick and moist as a tongue."

Well, you may haughtily inject, adjusting your beret and tugging at your pencil 'stache, air is nothing like a tongue--one can be used to sample such exquisite articles as French baguettes, while the other is being expelled hot and wasted from my lungs!

You're not actually saying that, of course. (At least I hope not.) But that moment after you read it where the metaphor jars you (the disconnect) preceding the next moment (the... reconnect?) where you realize how fitting it is... well, that's part of what makes it so great. These sorts of metaphors capture things so accurately that they actually give you pause while your mind connects the dots. If the author had chosen to say, "It is as humid as a humidifier outside," well, the novel probably wouldn't have gotten published for starters.

Now, obviously not all metaphors should generate a disconnect. If a reader pauses at every instance of figurative language in your work, it will probably get tiring after a while. But that momentary disruption of conventional language and logic can go a long way.


Now, probably I didn't communicate my ramblings the best. Probably you disagree with me on some basic tenet of my ramblings (which are by no means comprehensive, by the way). But regardless, I hope you were able to take something away from this, either knowing something that works or something that doesn't.

Oh, and take this list of metaphors with you. They're like Lord Voldemort: terrible, but great.

http://writingenglish.wordpress.com/2006/09/12/the-25-funniest-analogies-collected-by-high-school-english-teachers/

Off and out.

Taylor Webb