Your writing can soar with a bit of figurative language. Or it can sink your story quicker than an iceberg hitting a luxury liner. Learn all about the uses and abuses of figurative language in this writing craft blog.

Words and Their Sounds

Words are a wonderful playthings. If you look one up in the dictionary, you can see the list of its literal definitions. That is the denotation. But many have other meanings as well, their connotations. Connotations are meanings that the words inspire in the audience. It might be a commonly accepted cultural reference or something about the sounds the author puts together in a story or poem that opens up a whole new level of inference for that word. 

Figurative language is an array of devices for bending, twisting, and otherwise subverting words into unique meaning conveyances. Several different figurative devices are used in written and oral communications: metaphor and simile are two common types. 

Metaphor

Metaphor describes the object (or person, place, situation, etc) in question by equating it with an apparently dissimilar thing to show a startling similarity. “Love is a battlefield.” 

To be a metaphor, the two objects are, literally-speaking, different. The metaphor is in the connotations of the words. “Love is tender feelings toward another” is not a metaphor; it is a definition.

Simile 

Simile describes the object (or person, place, situation, etc) in question by comparing it to an apparently dissimilar things using  the words “as” or “like” to show how they are actually alike. Robert Burns likens his loved one to pleasant, joyful things: “O my Luve is like a red, red rose/That’s newly sprung in June; O my Luve is like the melody/That’s sweetly played in tune.” 

As discussed with metaphor, the comparison is one of connotations, not denotations. 

Issues & Dangers

Figurative language is fun. Really, really fun. So much fun that writers can easily get into trouble and make the story worse than if they used no figurative language. What are figurative language’s pitfalls?

Consistency With Voice

As a writer polishes a story, they must consider if the language coming out of each characters’ mouth rings true. Is the bit of figurative language consistent with the character as you know them? It might be the sort of thing you, the author would write or even say in conversation—you’re an English teacher, poetry fan, or songwriter, for example. But what about your character, the high-school drop-out mob enforcer? Their figurative language choices are likely different from your own. Or, if the wise guy does say something poetic, have you grounded that characteristic in their backstory and personality? 

In my novella, The Resurrectionist, the opening scenes establish a few facts about the protagonist, Sean Joye. He’s young and streetwise. Acutely uncomfortable and aware of his environment, he tells the reader he’s been a prisoner of war and is an assassin fled from a heinous civil war in 1920s Ireland. Yet he’s shown a softer side, singing an old folk ballad as he drives. So when he says, “The penitentiary’s stone walls radiated ill will as if hate had been quarried from the rive bluffs along with the limestone blocks to build the fortress,” it builds up the characterization rather than pull us out of the narrative.  

Figurative Language’s Affect on Pacing

            Figurative language often takes more words that a simple declarative sentence. That can be a good or bad thing. Lots of embellishment can slow down action, draw undue attention to itself, or confuse/bore the reader. Generally, they are reading the book for the story. Embroidery that highlights and telegraphs important character, setting, and plot aspects is wonderful. But excessive use of figurative language can get in the way. The writer must make purposeful, deliberate choices.

Overworked, Strained, or Trite Images

Ideally, figurate language will draw a startling comparison that is perfectly true—the dazzle is in the insight. But there is danger is slightly missing the mark, leaving the reader confused or unintentionally amused.

Some figurative language has been used so often through the years that it has become a common turn of phrase. Use of these aphorisms can work for your character—my protagonist Sean is found of weird old expressions— but it can also make your writing sound trite and tired.

Mixed Metaphors

A special sort of unintentionally amusing language is the mixed metaphor; starting with one image and then jumping to something incongruently different within the same thought. This often happens with figurative expressions that are so ingrained in everyday speech that they’ve lost their figurative “punch.” For example, “step up to the plate,” “look to the bottom line,” “smell a rat,” or “when the fat lady sings.” Keep your eyes peeled for these juicy tidbits on your writing journey.  (See? That’s terrible. Or terribly funny.)

Well-done figurative writing is a joy for writers and readers. Have fun with it!

The Big Cinch from Montag Press, is an award-winning supernatural noir adventure by Kathy L. Brown. Sean Joye, a fae-touched young veteran of 1922’s Irish Civil War, aims to atone for his assassin past and make a clean, new life in America. Until he asks the wrong questions.. 

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