Why Using Metaphors is Both Awesome and Terrible by Jodi Lea Stewart

One dreadful  inspiring morning at a writing seminar long ago, I emerged from a face-to-face editor session feeling as if I were stepping from inside that room onto a parade float. For a few minutes, I could have sworn I was wearing stilettos, a flowered crown, and a ribbon sash proclaiming I was Miss Metaphor, and not in a good way.

Said editor had reviewed the first pages of my first novel and had practically stamped the lofty title of *Miss Metaphor* on my chest. I remember walking back into the area with a weak little Miss America wave at the other terrified aspiring writers waiting their turns at the chopping block.

That experience caused me to:

• Greatly revise my first manuscript, and
• Consider why metaphors are both awesome and terrible

With a little research, I found a true Metaphor Devotee – Italian semiotician, literary critic, and novelist, the late Umberto Eco who said, “ . . . metaphor gives birth to pleasure. . .”

He claimed that knowing how to conceive brilliant metaphors is an art.

I agree.

Metaphors, and their cousins – simile, hyperbole, allegory – add punch to pallid writing. They enlighten and freshen dull manuscripts.

Too Many Metaphors

Some writers (Jodi Lea Stewart in the past, for example) are addicted to figurative language. Consider the following paragraph, and yes, I wrote it for this blog, and furthermore, it was easy because I could almost live inside a metaphor, but that’s another story, n'est-ce pas?

The female fire hazard blazed her way into the board meeting, bull-nostrils flaring, poblano-pepper eyes glowing and roared at the Sovereign Power himself, “Give me back my job or I’ll torch your underwear from the inside out!”

Thirty-nine words, twenty-one of which indicate some kind of metaphor.

That’s overkill.

Writers who use metaphors to that extent might want to hook up with a 12-step Metaphors Anonymous program sooner versus later. Over metaphorizing *I made that word up to add interest* dulls out the reader almost as much as the writer who doesn't understand how to use figurative language in his or her writing.

Too Few Metaphors

If The Elements of Style by Strunk & White makes you salivate,

If you love stringent grammar rules and feel it is a crime to alter them,

If you use symbolic language ultra-sparingly, or not at all,

If you wallow in strict English correctness,

Stop reading this blog.

Grab your Elements of Style and repertoire of grammar books and take a nap with them because you’re boring all of us to death with your writing. 

Sleep. Just sleep.

However, if you are boring even yourself, and you are often told by readers, agents, or editors that your writing lacks color, excitement, or imagination, then I have a suggestion for you.

Run, don’t walk, to buy Arthur Plotnik’s Spunk & Bite. Read it under the covers with a flashlight if you must, but read it without delay. 

Plotnik, a self-defined, writing-rule-rebel said, “Both Strunk and White knew well that bending the rules . . . can give writing its distinction, its edge, its very style. Bending the rules can spring writers from ruts – get them out of themselves, out of the ordinary, and into prose that comes alive, gets noticed, and gets published.”

Strike the Balance

A sassy blend of metaphor mixed with essential writing rules will let you stand proud on that Miss (or Mr.) Metaphor float, or anywhere else. Just as a superb pageant contestant is attractive, well-rounded, and interesting, so is the kind of writing that stands out from the crowd.

Another quote from that metaphor-loving genius, Umberto Eco: “Metaphor is the supreme figure of all . . . connecting notions and finding similitude in things dissimilar.”

That’s kind of a gorgeous way to put it, wouldn’t you agree?

What about you? Have you been guilty of too much flowery writing? Did anybody ever tell you to stop? Maybe you abhor metaphors, simile, hyperbole and the like. Tell us about it. 
As usual, I love to hear from you!

Blackberry Road is published by Sundown Press and is available on Amazon.

Trouble sneaks in one hot Oklahoma afternoon in 1934 like an oily twister. A beloved neighbor is murdered, and a single piece of evidence sends the sheriff to arrest a Black man that Biddy *a sharecropper’s daughter* knows is innocent. Hauntingly terrifying sounds seeping from the woods lead Biddy into even deeper mysteries and despair, and finally into the shocking truths of that fateful summer.

 The Accidental Road, Sundown Press, debuts September 2019.

A teen and her mom escaping an abusive husband tumble into the epicenter of crime peddlers invading Arizona and Nevada in the 1950s. Stranded hundreds of miles from their planned destination of Las Vegas, they land in a dusty town full of ghosts and tales, treachery and corruption. Avoiding disaster is tricky, especially as it leads Kat into a fevered quest for things as simple as home and trust. Danger lurks everywhere, leading her to wonder if she and her mother really did take The Accidental Road of life, or if it’s the exact right road to all they ever hoped for.

   

Jodi Lea Stewart was born in Texas to an "Okie" mom and a Texan dad. Her younger years were spent in Texas and Oklahoma; hence, she knows all about biscuits and gravy, blackberry picking, chiggers, and snipe hunting. At the age of eight, she moved to a vast cattle ranch in the White Mountains of Arizona. As a teen, she left her studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson to move to San Francisco, where she learned about peace, love, and exactly what she DIDN'T want to do with her life. Since then, Jodi graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Business Management, raised three children, worked as an electro-mechanical drafter, penned humor columns for a college periodical, wrote regional western articles, and served as managing editor of a Fortune 500 corporate newsletter. 

She is the author of a contemporary trilogy set in the Navajo Nation and featuring a Navajo protagonist, as well as two historical novels. Her current novel, Blackberry Road, is available on Amazon. Her next historical novel, The Accidental Road, debuts in September 2019. She currently resides in Arizona with her husband, her delightful 90+-year-old mother, a crazy Standard poodle named Jazz, one rescue cat, and numerous gigantic, bossy houseplants.