Content

• Steps
• Part 1 of 2: Understanding Metaphors
• Part 2 of 2: Write Your Metaphors
• Tips

Metaphors are a knife sticking in your side, these are bumps that prevent you from gaining a good writing speed, this is a cunning monster hiding in a closet from ... from ... To hell! Metaphors are no doubt difficult, but if you follow these instructions, they can become the very salt and spice in your creative writing kitchen!

Steps

Part 1 of 2: Understanding Metaphors

1. 1 Understand the meaning of the word "metaphor". The word "metaphor" comes from the ancient Greek metaphereinwhich meant "transfer" or "transfer". The metaphor connects two concepts, saying that one of them and there is the other (while the comparison simply says that one is like the other). To know what should turn out in the end, it is worth looking at the famous examples.
   • The last line The great gatsby contains the famous metaphor: "We are trying to sail forward, fighting the current, and it blows everything and carries our boats back to the past."
   • The poet Khalil Gibran often used metaphors in his poems: "All our words are just crumbs that fall during the feast of our mind."
   • Cyberpunk novel Neuromancer author William Gibson begins with the words: "The sky above the port was the color of a TV set on an empty channel."
   • Metaphors are especially useful in poetry, as they allow you to convey many meanings with just a few words. Read these lines from Sylvia Plath's poem "Cut":
     What a delight -
     Thumb instead of the head of the bow.
     The top was almost blown away
     Except a piece
     skin ....
     This is a holiday. I rushed to the breakthrough
     A million soldier
     In red uniforms all as one
2. 2 Learn to discern a metaphor. There are many other figurative expressions that help find associations between two concepts - these include comparison, metonym and synecdoche... However, despite the fact that they have similarities with the metaphor, they differ from each other.
   • The comparison consists of two parts: "content" (the described item) and "shell" (the item / s used to describe it). In comparison, “the chocolate cake was so overcooked it tasted like charcoal,” the chocolate cake is the content, and the charcoal is the shell. Unlike metaphors, comparisons use “like” or “like” to compare, and therefore give the expression a weaker effect.
   • A metonym replaces the name of one object with another object that has a close relationship to it. For example, in many countries the royal power headed by the monarch is called simply the "crown", and in the United States the administration and the presidential apparatus in general are often called simply the "White House."
   • Synecdoche denotes a broad concept, using only part of it, as when using the phrase "hired hands" instead of "laborer", or when someone calls their car "my wheels."
3. 3 Check out the types of metaphors. While the main purpose of metaphors is quite simple, metaphors can be used in a variety of situations, from the simplest to the most complex. Using simple metaphors, you can directly compare two things, as in the example "He may seem rude, but he really is cute." But in literature, metaphors are often stretched over entire sentences or even scenes.
   • Sustainable or advanced / complex metaphors are composed of several phrases or sentences. Their accumulative nature makes them very strong and vibrant. Narrator in the novel by Dean Koontz Bound in the night uses an enduring metaphor to describe her wild imagination:
     “Bobby Halloway calls my imagination a circus with three hundred arenas. Now I am standing in the 299th arena with dancing elephants and clowns making tigers jump over rings of fire. It's time to get distracted, get out of the tent, buy popcorn and Coke, get high and cool down. "
   • Indirect metaphors are more subtle than simple ones. Whereas with the help of a simple metaphor we can say that a person seems rude, but in fact he is “cute”, an indirect metaphor will attribute to him exactly these properties: “He may seem rude until you get to know him better, but then you will see that it's soft and fluffy. "
   • Dead metaphors are metaphors that have become so widespread in our everyday speech that they have lost their former power, as they have become too familiar to us: "rain like a bucket", "stone heart", "clean up the tails", "red ribbon". Nowadays, clichés like these - boilerplate phrases - are often used to convey a certain meaning. For example, in the case of the "red ribbon," in the past, legal documents were tied with a red ribbon (or braid) before being sent on a trip to various offices, and the red ribbon became associated with bureaucracy and paperwork.
4. 4 Distinguish between mixed metaphors. "Mixed" metaphors contain elements of several metaphors at once, which often leads to awkward or funny situations.For example, "Wake up and smell the coffee on the wall" - two famous metaphorical expressions that have a similar meaning are mixed here - call for some action: "Wake up and smell the coffee" and "Read the writing on the wall."
   • Katahreza is the official name for mixed metaphors, and some writers deliberately use them to confuse the reader, and the writing seemed absurd, or they want to express strong or indescribable emotions. In his poem somewhere I have never traveled, I would love to go E.E. Cummings uses katahreza to express his inability to describe his love in words that make sense: "The voice of your eyes is deeper than any roses - / No one, not even rain, has such tiny hands ..."
   • Catachreza can also be used to show the confusion or conflicting thoughts of a character, as in Shakespeare's famous monologue Hamlet "To be or not to be": Hamlet asks "What is nobler for the soul: should I endure / The arrows of a hostile fortune, / Or rebel against the sea of ​​disasters / And end them?" Naturally, you will not be able to rebel against the sea, but a mixed metaphor helps us to feel how hard it is for Hamlet.
5. 5 Learn how to use metaphors. Metaphors, used wisely, can enrich your language and add meaning. They can convey deep meaning in just a few words (as can the phrase “deep meaning” just used). They also facilitate reading and make the reader interpret their thoughts in a different way.
   • With the help of metaphors, you can convey emotions that have not yet turned into action. For example, the phrase "Julio's eyes sparkled" is much brighter and more expressive than if you said "There was anger in Julio's eyes."
   • Metaphors can express huge, complex concepts in just a few words. In one of the books of his large collection of poems Grass leaves Walt Whitman tells his readers that they are actually the greatest poets themselves: "Your flesh is a beautiful verse, and you are famous not only for your quick speech, but also for the silence of your lips and faces."
   • Metaphors can make a piece of work unique. It is easy to use everyday language to express your thoughts: the body is the body, the ocean is the ocean. But metaphors will add creativity and expressiveness to the usual concept - the ancient Germanic tribes, also known as the Anglo-Saxons, were very proud of this: the "body" became a "house of bones", and the "ocean" became a "whale road."
   • Metaphors show your genius. At least that's what Aristotle says (and who are we to argue with him?) In his Poetics: “But it is generally accepted that the best thing is to be a master of metaphors. It cannot be learned from others; it is a sign of genius, since a good metaphor means an intuitive perception of similarities and differences. "
6. 6 Read as many examples as possible. There is no better way to understand how metaphors work and determine which metaphors are right for you than by reading works that use metaphors. Many authors use metaphors, so no matter what your literary preferences are, chances are you can find a couple of great examples.
   • If you enjoy reading complex works, then it should be noted that few English authors have used metaphors as well as the 16th century poet John Donne did: in poems like The Flea and his Sacred Sonnets, he used complex metaphors to describe feelings such as love, religious faith and death.
   • Martin Luther King's speeches are also renowned for the skillful use of metaphors and other rhetorical methods. In his “I Have a Dream” speech, King used metaphors extensively, for example, when he spoke of African Americans living on "a lonely island of poverty in the middle of a vast ocean of material prosperity."

Part 2 of 2: Write Your Metaphors

1. 1 Using your imagination, think about what you are going to describe. What qualities does it have? What does it do? What feelings does it evoke in you? Does it smell or taste? Brainstorm and write down all the characteristics and properties that come to your mind. Do not focus too much on the obvious details, good metaphors are born only from outside the box.
   • For example, if you want to write a metaphor about "time", try to write as many qualities as possible: slow, fast, invisible, space, relativity, heaviness, elasticity, progress, variability, artificial, evolution, break, timer, race, running.
   • Don't get carried away with editing at this stage; your purpose is to collect information for future use. You can always discard unnecessary ideas later.
2. 2 Use the free association method. Write down all other objects and phenomena that have some similar characteristics to the described object or concept. But then again, try not to be overly straightforward, because the less obvious your association, the more interesting the metaphor will be. If you are writing about a concept, then try, for example, to compare it with any subject. For example, if your topic is justice, ask yourself what kind of animal it could be.
   • Avoid clichés. As Salvador Dali once said: "The first who compared the cheeks of a young girl to roses was clearly a poet, and the second was more of an idiot." The purpose of the metaphor is to express meaning in a concise and original way: as if one piece of salted caramel chocolate gelatin replaced a whole cup of soft vanilla yogurt.
   • This is a brainstorming session, so let your imagination run wild! For example, with time, you can associate a rubber band, space, 2001, an abyss, an enemy, a ticking clock, scales, waiting, loss, adaptation, change, lengthening and return.
3. 3 Decide what kind of mood you would like to create. Is there a particular tone that you would like to set or keep? Should your metaphor be included in a broader context, whatever you write? Use these considerations to remove unnecessary associations from your list.
   • For example, "time" is combined with an "unearthly / sublime" mood. Discard ideas that do not match your mood: for example, from “time” you can exclude the enemy, 2001, the scales and the ticking clock, as these are rather “earthly” ideas.
   • Try to memorize the shades of your chosen theme in your mind. For example, if you are comparing justice to an animal, the "prowling leopard" expresses a completely different meaning from the "tired elephant." But both of these metaphors still fit better than the "newborn kitten."
4. 4 Work on creating a metaphor. Write a few sentences, a paragraph, or an entire page, comparing your original subject or concept to the associations you wrote. Don't worry about formulating the metaphor itself yet, focus on the ideas themselves and your thoughts, and see where they take you.
   • For example, in the case of "time", the sentence may look something like this: "This is a rubber band, throwing me into the depths of the unknown, and then returning to the center." To construct the sentence, the ideas described in paragraph 2 were used - that is, we began to attribute certain actions and properties to the object - the first step towards composing a metaphor.
5. 5 Read it out loud. Since the metaphor draws attention to the structure, the "mechanics" of the language, it is especially important that your metaphor literally sounded correct and beautiful. A metaphor that conveys softness should not contain many rough consonants, a metaphor describing depth can have deep vowels (O or at), and a metaphor describing excess or overkill may contain alliteration (that is, repetitive vowel sounds), and so on.
   • In the sentence under paragraph 4, the main idea is that words do not have a double meaning. For example, there is almost no alliteration, which can be useful if you want to use repetition. By "rubber band" it is meant that someone pulls her, and this helps to focus attention on time, implying action.
6. 6 Transform your comparisons into metaphors. Write a metaphorical sentence that draws a parallel between your original object or concept and one of your associative objects or concepts. Does the resulting sentence make sense? Is it original? Does the sound fit the feel? Perhaps a different metaphor would sound better? Don't dwell on the first metaphor that you find successful. Be prepared to cross it out if a better idea comes up.
   • For example, when using alliteration and adding an action to time, which is an independent phenomenon, one might get the following sentence: “Time is an endless roller coaster ride; and no one can stop them. " Here, the main emphasis is on time, and the sound is repeated in alliteration. Rthat creates the feeling of repetition that we wanted.
7. 7 Diversify your ideas. Metaphors are often used like nouns - "her face was like a picture", "there is power in every word" - but they can also be used like other parts of speech, often with surprisingly powerful effect.
   • Using verbal metaphors can give action more power (sometimes literally!): "The news grabbed her throat like an iron hand," expressing stronger feelings than if you said, "She thought she couldn't breathe."
   • Using adjectives and adverbs as metaphors can vividly characterize objects, people and concepts in just a few words: "The teacher's carnivorous pen devoured student writings and belched up occasional bloody comments." The implication is that the teacher's pen (a metonym for the teacher) tears the essays apart and eats them, leaving only a bloody mess and entrails.
   • Using metaphors as prepositional phrases, you can describe the actions themselves, as well as the thoughts that accompany them: "Emily appreciated her sister's outfit with a surgical look." Emily is presumed to consider herself a seasoned fashion expert who carefully evaluates every detail, and she views her sister's clothing as a potential malignant tumor that should be removed if necessary (perhaps her sister is not happy about it).
   • Attachment metaphors (nouns or noun phrases that are used to denote a close noun) or modifiers can make your work more literary and creative: "Homer Simpson sneaked like a bulging yellow pear in trousers."

Tips

• Understanding other figures of speech, perhaps, will help you more subtly feel how you can combine seemingly completely different things.
  • personification: association of an inanimate object with a person or some of its characteristics. This is a great way to create a deeper description of an object, based on bringing all the lyrical baggage that we usually associate with a person into the description of an inanimate object. "Undaunted cavers entered the open mouth of the mountain." As you can see from the above example, human qualities do not have to be only human, but very often they relate to exactly to people. "The good old chair took her into his arms, as if she hadn't gone anywhere."
  • analogy: comparison two pairs things - a: b: c: d (for example, hot and cold as fire with ice).The analogy can be used to create a satirical effect, for example: "My brother says he is reliable, but knowing his track record, he is reliable, as Machiavelli was strong in the humanities." Although not too straightforward, Spencer's analogy back in the 16th century was subtle and sublime: "My love is like ice, and I am fire ..."
  • allegory: a longer story in which things, ideas, or people represent other things, ideas, or people, giving the story a double meaning, one literal and the other symbolic. In allegory, almost every figure or object has a meaning. Remember Farm, an allegory to the Soviet Union, where farm animals revolt against their masters, create their own egalitarian society and, over time, recreate the same hierarchy that they originally fought against.
  • parabola: A story that demonstrates the opinion or lesson the writer wants to teach readers. Famous examples are Aesop's fables (for example: a mighty lion spared a little mouse, which then frees him from the hunter's trap - that is, even the weak have their strengths).
• Writing fiction is also a skill. The more you train, the better you will get.
• Remember this thing called "grammar"? As a result, it turns out that she is need... Make sure you write correctly so that your readers can understand you clearly.
• No matter how hard you try, some metaphors just don't work. If this happened, it's okay. Just cross it out and move on. Perhaps your muse will give you inspiration elsewhere.