There’s a strange thing I’ve discovered
in the last couple of years about myself as a writer:
I can’t do similes or metaphors.
I mean that I can’t come up with new ones. Something in my brain can’t make those kind of out-of-the box connections between the characteristics of two completely separate things.
THE MOON SHONE LIKE SOMETHING…um…SHINY?
…GLITTER GLUE?
…A ROUND, SILVER THING?
…A HUBCAP? Gee, that’s romantic.
Of course, one of the big no-nos of writing is ‘avoid clichés like the plague’, and if I try to think of one, every 19th-century poet I’ve ever read comes flooding back to me like something that floods things: ‘eyes like pools’, ‘black as night’, ‘rivers of blood’, ‘white as a sheet’, ‘rosebud lips’, ‘sharp as a tack’, ‘dumb as a post’, ‘he sped out of there like a bullet’, ‘he sat up like he’d been shot’, ‘he came charging in like a freight train’. A significant chunk of my editing time is spent deleting the poor, tired things that flew in under my radar on the first pass.
I don’t know why I’m this way (apparently I can’t read myself like a book), but I’ve come to accept the fact that my writing will have to be metaphor- and simile-free for the most part. Hopefully that doesn’t make it as dull as ditchwater.
I did once hear of an author who wrote a whole book without a metaphor or a simile, but I’m blowed if I can remember who it was. If you know the name, please remind me.
I think one of my favourite similes is ‘sweating like Pavarotti on a treadmill’. What’s your (clever or funny) favourite? Tell me in the comments.
I mean that I can’t come up with new ones. Something in my brain can’t make those kind of out-of-the box connections between the characteristics of two completely separate things.
THE MOON SHONE LIKE SOMETHING…um…SHINY?
…GLITTER GLUE?
…A ROUND, SILVER THING?
…A HUBCAP? Gee, that’s romantic.
Of course, one of the big no-nos of writing is ‘avoid clichés like the plague’, and if I try to think of one, every 19th-century poet I’ve ever read comes flooding back to me like something that floods things: ‘eyes like pools’, ‘black as night’, ‘rivers of blood’, ‘white as a sheet’, ‘rosebud lips’, ‘sharp as a tack’, ‘dumb as a post’, ‘he sped out of there like a bullet’, ‘he sat up like he’d been shot’, ‘he came charging in like a freight train’. A significant chunk of my editing time is spent deleting the poor, tired things that flew in under my radar on the first pass.
I don’t know why I’m this way (apparently I can’t read myself like a book), but I’ve come to accept the fact that my writing will have to be metaphor- and simile-free for the most part. Hopefully that doesn’t make it as dull as ditchwater.
I did once hear of an author who wrote a whole book without a metaphor or a simile, but I’m blowed if I can remember who it was. If you know the name, please remind me.
I think one of my favourite similes is ‘sweating like Pavarotti on a treadmill’. What’s your (clever or funny) favourite? Tell me in the comments.
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