Getting
Started--
Using Metaphors -- Experiment
#1 -- Experiment #2 -- Other
Lessons
Getting
Started
Ahhh!!!
Metaphors. My love is like a red, red rose. Frosting on the cake. Spice
in the pie. They just add something exciting to our writing! Let’s
look at one of the book reviews again:
“… It's Bauer's humor that supplies, in Addie's cooking
vernacular, the yeast that makes the story rise above the rest,
reinforcing the substantive issues of honesty, humanity, and the importance
of political activism…”
Great
metaphor! This reviewer asserts that the book author’s humor is
like the book’s setting that is centered on a small-town diner
and Aunt Addie’s cooking. Yeast is the ingredient that makes bread
rise, instead of lie flat; humor is the ingredient that makes Hope
Was Here rise to the occasion of a great read, instead of falling
flat.
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Using
Metaphors
How
do we think of metaphors to use in our writing? Let’s practice.
Try one of the following experiments to get thinking metaphorically.
These experiments will not write the whole review for you, but they
will move you toward your goal.
Experiment #1: New
ideas about Old Characters
Choose one important character from your book. Answer the following
questions about him/her. Keep your answers brief. You do not have to
use all of the questions. When you have completed the experiment, write
a few sentences about the character using these new metaphors. Incorporate
these sentences into your review. *1
1.
Describe _____as an ordinary person.
2. Describe _____as a unique and special person.
3. Imagine______were the opposite sex. Describe the life that _____would
have lived.
4. Describe the life of ______if he/she would have lived a century earlier.
5. Describe the life of ______if he/she would have lived in Nazi Germany.
6. Tell a science fiction story with ______in it.
7. Tell a soap opera plot with _______in it.
8. ________ is an animal. What animal is it?
9. _________is a food. What food?
10. ________’s brains are not in the head, hear not in the chest,
guts not in the belly. Tell where they really are.
11. What does ______most need to cry about? Get angry about?
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Experiment
#2: Word Pairs
1. Get a set of “refrigerator” or magnet poetry.
2. Place about 10 to 20 nouns in a column. Cover this column with a
sheet of paper or other object.
3. Select another 10 to 20 nouns and place them in a column next to
the first column.
4. Remove the paper and look at your word pairs. Pretty odd? Random?
Cool? Some word pairs turn out quite interesting; they’re not
necessarily usable in writing, but they help you think about language
in a creative way.
5. Now look at both columns. Rearrange them to create interesting combinations
that help you see an image in your head.
6. This exercise will probably not help you add material to your review,
but will help you think creatively.
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Other
Lessons
