Using Metaphors to Paint Pictures…Like a 2-Year Old with a Crayon

Ever since I came across the Mark Twain article I referred to in this post, I’ve thought quite a bit about the concept of using stronger nouns to paint descriptive images in my writing. I’ve also been particularly attuned to this aspect of writing in recent days as I’ve read the work of others, so I was quite amused to receive an e-mail from my Dad with the following metaphors and analogies that were actually used in essays written by high school students. I think it’s safe to say that this would not be the best way to integrate more visual imagery into your writing! May it bring a smile to your face like when the photographer uses a squeaky stuffed animal to make little babies laugh… 😉

Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a thigh master.

He spoke with wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

She had a deep throaty genuine laugh like that sound a dog makes just before he throws up.

Her vocabulary was as bad, as, like, whatever.

He was as tall as a 6-foot 3-inch tree.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7 pm instead of 7:30.

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across a grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. traveling 35 mph.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil, but unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a landmine or something.

He was deeply in love, and when she spoke he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.

She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

Her voice had that tense grating quality, like a generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightening.