Metaphor & Simile
by Kimn Swenson Gollnick
I keep a notebook where I collect pieces of prose enjoyed during my reading time . . . and now, you can enjoy excerpts from my current college readings. Here I share interesting
metaphors and similes, including some used in characterization. This is "show," not "tell." PLEASE NOTE: I don't necessarily endorse
all of these books, but found these excerpts strong in what they teach me about the technical
aspects of writing about characters. See why you think they are effective, starting
with a quote describing metaphors by Anne Lamott.
"Metaphors are a great language tool, because they explain the unknown in terms of the known.
But they only work if they resonate in the heart of the writer."
--
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott (c.1994, Pantheon Books), p. 77
"...a writer, like an acrobat, must occasionally try a stunt that is too much for him."
-- "The Ring of Time" by E.B. White, In Depth: Essays for Our Time (c.1993, Thomson Heinle, 2nd edition.), p.713.
"At evening there are great flights of birds over the sea, where the light lingers; the gulls, the pelicans, the terns, the herons stay aloft for half an hour after land birds have gone to roost. They hold their ancient formations, wheel and fish over the Pass, enjoying the last of day like children playing outdoors after suppertime."
-- "The Ring of Time" by E.B. White, In Depth: Essays for Our Time (c.1993, Thomson Heinle, 2nd edition.), p.714.
"The woman spoke out at her from inside the bag, spoke in raven song, a throttled squawk that Karen tried to understand. ...It was a different language completely, unwritable and interior, the rag-speak of shopping carts and plastic bags, the language of soot, and Karen had to listen carefully to the way the woman dragged a line of words out of her throat like hankies tied together...."
-- Mao II by Don Delillo (c.1991, Viking Penguin), p. 180.
"The younger children were rushed from the room, the shades drawn, and the flame of the lamp turned so low that it sputtered on the wick like the old man's breathing."
-- "Battle Royal" by Ralph Ellison, published in The Story and Its Writer edited by Ann Charters (c.2003, Bedford/St. Martin's), p.464.
"The novel, in order to exist at all, accrues, accretes, and accumulates itself in small increments, like a coral reef...."
-- "Author's Note" by Russell Banks, published in The Story and Its Writer edited by Ann Charters (c.2003, Bedford/St. Martin's), p.1464.
"And I started to play. It was so beautiful. I was so caught up in how lovely I looked that at first I didn't worry how I would sound. So it was a surprise to me when I hit the first wrong note and I realized something didn't sound quite right. And then I hit another and another followed that. A chill started at the top of my head and began to trickle down. Yet I couldn't stop playing, as though my hands were bewitched. I kept thinking my fingers would adjust themselves back, like a train switching to the right track."
-- "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, published in The Story and Its Writer edited by Ann Charters (c.2003, Bedford/St. Martin's), p.1283.
"The trail leveled out on a narrow ridge that was steep on both sides like an animal spine."
-- "Yellow Woman" by Leslie Marmon Silko, published in The Story and Its Writer edited by Ann Charters (c.2003, Bedford/St. Martin's), p.1246.
"It was not that symphonies, as such, meant anything in particular to Paul, but the first sight of the instruments seemed to free some hilarious spirit within him;
something that struggled there like the genie in the bottle found by the Arab fisherman."
-- "Paul's Case" by Willa Cather, eFictions (c.2004, Heinle & Heinle Publishing Co.), p. 81.
"Canton-flannel gulls flew near and far. Sometimes they sat down on the sea, near patches of brown seaweed that rolled over the waves with a movement like carpets on a line in a gale."
-- "The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane, eFictions (c.2004, Heinle & Heinle Publishing Co.), p.202.
"At the edge of the ribbed level of sidings squat a low cottage, three steps down from the cinder track. A large bony vine clutched at the house, as if to claw down the tiled roof. Round the bricked yard grew a few wintery primroses. Beyond, the long garden sloped down to a bush-covered brook course. There were some twiggy apple trees, winter-crack trees, and ragged cabbages. Beside the path hung dishevelled pink chrysanthemums, like pink cloths hung on bushes."
-- "The Odour of Chyrsanthemums" by D.H. Lawrence, eFictions (c.2004, Heinle & Heinle Publishing Co.), p.300.
"Mrs. Bates sat in her rocking-chair making a 'singlet' of thick cream-coloured flannel, which gave a dull wounded sound as she tore off the grey edge. She worked at her sewing with energy, listening to the children, and her anger wearied itself, lay down to rest, opening its eyes from time to time and steadily watching, its ears raised to listen."
-- "The Odour of Chrysanthemums" by D.H. Lawrence, eFictions (c.2004, Heinle & Heinle Publishing Co.), p.304.
"The high grey-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world. On every side it sat like a lid on the mountains and made of the great valley a closed pot. On the broad, level land floor the gang plows bit deep and left the black earth shining like metal where the shares had cut. ...The thick willow scrub along the river flamed with sharp and positive yellow leaves."
-- "The Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck, eFictions (c.2004, Heinle & Heinle Publishing Co.), p.372.
"[Elisa] brushed a cloud of hair out of her eyes with the back of her glove, and left a smudge of earth on her check in doing it. ...She took off a glove and put her strong fingers down into the forest of new green chrysanthemum sprouts that were growing around the old roots. She spread the leaves and looked down among the close-growing stems. No aphids were there, no sowbugs or snails or cutworms. Her terrier fingers destroyed such pests before they could get started."
-- "The Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck, eFictions (c.2004, Heinle & Heinle Publishing Co.), p.372.
"The horse and the donkey drooped like unwatered flowers."
-- "The Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck, eFictions (c.2004, Heinle & Heinle Publishing Co.), p.374.
"All this while, the customers had been showing up with their carts but, you know, sheep, seeing a scene, they had all bunched up on Stokesie, who shook open a paper bag as gently as peeling a peach, not wanting to miss a word."
-- "A & P" by John Updike, eFictions (c.2004, Heinle & Heinle Publishing Co.), p.385.
[The narrator just quit his job:] "I pull the bow at the back of my apron and start shrugging it off my shoulders. A couple customers that had been heading for my slot began to knock against each other, like scared pigs in a chute."
-- "A & P" by John Updike, eFictions (c.2004, Heinle & Heinle Publishing Co.), p.385.
[A husband and wife prepare to tell their grown children that they are separating. The father experiences strange, bittersweet emotions:] ". . . waking each day at dawn to a sliding sensation as if the bed were being tipped."
-- "Separating" by John Updike, eFictions (c.2004, Heinle & Heinle Publishing Co.), p.388.
[The husband, Richard, prepares for the separation by fixing things around the house for what feels like the final time:] "So haunted, he had become obsessed with battening down the house agsainst his absence, replacing screens and sash cords, hinges and latches--a Houdini making things snug before his escape."
-- "Separating" by John Updike, eFictions (c.2004, Heinle & Heinle Publishing Co.), p.389.
"The sky was a dying violet and the houses stood out darkly against it, bulbous liver-colored monstrosities of a uniform ugliness though no two were alike."
-- "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor, eFictions (c.2004, Heinle & Heinle Publishing Co.), p.336.
"Each house had a narrow collar of dirt around it in which sat, usually, a grubby child."
-- "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor, eFictions (c.2004, Heinle & Heinle Publishing Co.), p.336.
"[Julian] groaned to see that [his mother] was off on that topic. She rolled onto it every few days like a train on an open track. He knew every stop, every junction, every swamp along the way, and knew the exact point at which her conclusion would roll majestically into the station."
-- "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor, eFictions (c.2004, Heinle & Heinle Publishing Co.), p.337.
"The black sky lit up every few seconds, as if the sun were flickering on and off."
--The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom (c.2003, Hyperion), p. 89.
"Tonight everything was clear to me, and what I so clearly saw lurking there behind her look was a tidal wave of compassion poised to strike the shoreline just where I stood. I couldn't tolerate that."
-- Once Upon a Gulf Coast Summer, Susan Oliver (c.2004, Broadman & Holman), p. 134.
"About nine, they forded a stream...As the horses were going up the bank, one of them stumbled.... There was a creaking and backing, shouting and a tipping. One sack of flour began falling slowly, and then another and another. Eight sacks of flour, pushing against each other, slipped slowly into the water like fat, clumsy old men, reluctant to wet their feet."
--A Lantern in Her Hand, Bess Streeter Aldrich (a native Iowan!) (c.1928, Scholastic Book Services; reprinted 1997 by Puffin Books), p. 19.
"Toward evening another long fringe of trees penciled itself against the dipping sun."
--A Lantern in Her Hand, Bess Streeter Aldrich (a native Iowan!) (c.1928, Scholastic Book Services; reprinted 1997 by Puffin Books), p. 74.
"[In 1871,] the rains held off. Day after day the clouds, as white and dry and puffy as milkweed seeds, scudded high with the winds."
--A Lantern in Her Hand, Bess Streeter Aldrich (a native Iowan!) (c.1928, Scholastic Book Services; reprinted 1997 by Puffin Books), p. 97.
"...Eddie sat for the last time, in an old aluminum beach chair. His short, muscled arms folded like a seal's flippers across his chest."
--The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom (c.2003, Hyperion), p. 8.
"The evening crept by like a slug making its way across a pin-cushion."
--Blink, Ted Dekker (c.2002, W Publishing Group), p. 68.
"A small idea came to Seth. A very small one, like the light seeping past the hinges of a locked door."
--Blink, Ted Dekker (c.2002, W Publishing Group), p. 130.
"Red Pollard was sinking downward through his life with the pendulous motion of a leaf falling through still air."
--Seabiscuit: An American Legend, Laura Hillenbrand (c.2001, Random House), p. 59.
"Seattle fog curled into the city's streets like a kitten twined around a beloved owner's legs."
--
Seattle, Colleen L. Reece (c.1998, Barbour Books), p. 7
"Henry the Lesser was the shortest of the squires. He was as skinny as a rake handle, with long brown hair and big ears
that stuck out like clamshells."
--
Timebenders: Doorway to Doom, Jim Denney (c.2002, Tommy Nelson), p. 79.
"The planet Mars sparkled like a blood-red ruby against the blue star-frost of space."
--
Timebenders: Lost in Cedonia, Jim Denney (c.2002, Tommy Nelson), p.1
"In the roads, after a sudden shower, the puddles shone like pools of melted lead."
--
The Bronze Bow, Elizabeth George Speare (Newbery Award Book, c.1961 and 1998, Houghton Mifflin Company), p. 212.
"A gas lamp flickered, blossomed into light. Then another. Shapes, though faint, grew visible in the dark. Bookcases. Side tables. A huge oaken desk."
--
A Midnight Carol: A Novel of How Charles Dickens Saved Christmas, Patricia K. Davis (c.1999, St. Martin's Press), p. 73
"Eyes closed, [Jack] slipped back into the dream where he soared within the cavernous Grand Canyon, past fern-decked alcoves and springs that burst from the rock like fountains
of gems. Beneath him the Colorado River unfurled in a ribbon of silver, winding between walls of orange-red rock...."
--Over the Edge, Gloria Skurzynski and Alane Ferguson (c.2002, National Geographic Society), p.3
"'Nevertheless, [a negative character] trait lives and matures inside [some people] as insidiously as an eel inside a cave, waiting, even anticipating, the times
when it can strike anything or anyone that threatens."
--Envy, Sandra Brown (c.2001, Warner Books), p.363
"Don't blush. Do not blush! The heat ignored her wishes, sneaking up her neck like a wave of warmth from an open oven."
--
Bookends, Liz Curtis Higgs (c.2000, Multnomah), p.183
"Jonas punched the chilly air, frustration flowing through his veins like hot water through a radiator."
--
Bookends, Liz Curtis Higgs (c.2000, Multnomah), p.69
"'I'm not your old buddy, got that?' The voice on the other end of the phone had grown cold and sharp, poised to kill like a sheet of ice hanging from a shingled roof."
--
Bookends, Liz Curtis Higgs (c.2000, Multnomah), p.245
"Ron went purple in the face; he looked like a radish with a bad sunburn."
--Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling (c.1997, Scholastic Press), p.305
Anne Lamott, speaking of a favorite teacher: "Her hair fell to her chair like a puppet-show curtain." --
Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott (c.1999, Pantheon Books), p.18
"I couldn't believe my eyes or ears. They were shooting real guns at the blond guy! The
good news was they seemed to miss every shot. The bad news was they turned the wall behind him into a pile of splinters. ...It was
just like the movies. Well, except for the part of nearly getting killed. My heart was pounding like a jackhammer on top of a pogo stick in the
middle of an earthquake." --
My Life as a Screaming Skydiver, Bill Myers (c.1998, Thomas Nelson, Inc.), p.5
"[Riding his bike, Albert had] just begun adjusting to the cars [whizzing by] when he
heard the roar of a powerful engine behind him. An empty logging truck blew past, its horn blasting. From six feet away he watched the blur of
black tires and chrome wheels. The air deadened for an instant and then exploded, swirling around Albert like a small tornado, sucking up dust
and leaves and twigs and tossing them twenty feet in the air." --
The Last Man's Reward, David Patneaude (c.1996, Albert Whitman & Co.), p.24
"Mrs. Strickland...had a way of picking up odd scraps of information, the way birds pick up bright bits of cord or
yarn." --
The Mystery Book Mystery, Wylly Folk St.John (c.1976, Viking Press), p.125
"[Elaine Westover had a] slow, smooth voice. It was a voice like raw silk, smooth but with now and then a small
irregularity, like a heavier thread or slub in the silk, to catch the attention." --
The Mystery Book Mystery, Wylly Folk St.John (c.1976, Viking Press), p.192
"I was already so scared that it's hard to believe I could get a whole lot more frightened, but I did. I felt as
though electric ice water poured through every part of my body, clear down to my fingernails." --
Trapped in Slick Rock Canyon, Gloria Skurzynski (c.1984, reissued 1994, William Morrow & Co. Inc.), p.44
"The village of Mitford was set snugly into what would be called, in the west, a hanging
valley. That is, the mountains rose steeply on either side, and then sloped into a hollow between the ridges, rather like a cake that falls in the
middle from too much opening of the oven door." --
At Home in Mitford, Jan Karon (New York Times Bestseller, c.1994, reprint ed. 1996, Penguin Books), p.16
"We turned on a short side street in front of the funny old house where my grandmother lives. The porch sagged in the middle
like a cantalope rind." --
Lost in Devil's Desert, Gloria Skurzynski (c.1982, William Morrow & Co. Inc.), p.11-12
"The mountains were all different shapes. Some of them had tops like upside-down ice-cream cones; others were round and
flattened as though a big hand had squashed them. The peaks of the high mountains in the distance looked like the chipped edges of Indian arrowheads--
they [rose out of each other] like ocean waves."
--
Lost in Devil's Desert, Gloria Skurzynski (c.1982, William Morrow & Co. Inc.), p.33
"Dirty gray clouds piled up one on top of the other in the sky right over my head, and more streaks of lightning
slashed through the sky. The bottom edges of the gray clouds hung down like torn curtains."
--
Lost in Devil's Desert, Gloria Skurzynski (c.1982, William Morrow & Co. Inc.), p.61
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