# Overdoing It



## luckyscars (Jul 12, 2013)

Anybody else sometimes worry about overdoing a metaphor to the point of ruining it?

Writing in a graphic way is one of my favourite aspects to the process. I love stumbling on a particular image and using it to convey something emotive. But, with many 'fun' things, I feel there is a very real temptation to overdo it. For example, here's a short excerpt from my novel's draft where I'm describing finding a dead body of an old man:



> The cold wind blew across his eyes, freezing against the heat of the tears as the lids opened, their soft fragility like two baby birds chipping at the hatching-egg. He looked down sullenly. In the dead feathers of steam the body of Hennigan lay face down, silver hair like the remains of a torn nest.



I liked the idea of combining the innocent symbol of birds with a gruesome image. But in this instance I used three references to it in the space of two sentences (admittedly quite long sentences, but still).

Is this too much? How do you know when to rein it in?


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## Jeko (Jul 12, 2013)

I try to avoid metaphor when writing. It has a habit of making my work sound like I wrote it. If I can explain something without resorting to metaphor, I don't use metaphor.

The example you gave is _way _too much for me. It feels detached from the character in question, like the narrator is judging the moment and trying to find the most arty way to talk about it. I prefer artistry when it is buried in simplicity. Then it is far more honest.


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## Sandy (Jul 12, 2013)

Very colorful use of metaphor and carefully constructed, but I agree with Cadence on detachment.  At first I thought "He looked down sullenly" disturbed the rhythm and might not even be needed at all.  But then I realized I didn't feel any emotion, identity with the character, or sense the reaction of the discovery of the body.  So as you sensed, it might be just a bit overdone.  It's a neat concept, though.  Maybe you can salvage it?


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## Myers (Jul 12, 2013)

The tears/birds and hair/nest are simile. The dead feathers of steam is metaphor. The nest thing works fine. (Maybe abandoned nest?) But I don't really get any sensory connection with the tears and baby birds, so that's not working for me at all. Steam moves, it's translucent, so I don't see a connection to dead feathers, and "dead" seems off too. So yes, there is too much simile and metaphor for two sentences, plus they don't work particularly well, in my opinion.

I love clever and accurate simile and metaphor. Something that immediately conjures up an image, sound, smell or sensation. I don't force either, but I like it when they spontaneously occur to me. Those seem to be the ones that work best, hopefully because readers will make the same quick connections and not have to stop and mull over them too much.


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## Sintalion (Jul 12, 2013)

I can appreciate the image and I do enjoy lines such as the one above, but I'd agree with Cadence on this one. It's a little too long for me, which in turns makes it (for me) lose some of the brutality. The death is disproportional to the prettiness of the image. 

"their soft fragility like two baby birds chipping at the hatching-egg"
or 
"In the dead feathers of steam" makes it a little too much. Personally I'm not quite sure what a dead feather of steam looks like. A feather of steam I have an idea, but the dead bit throws me off. 

Either way, I'd always suggest making references short or spacing them throughout a scene. I particularly love when writers carry it on here and there- makes the whole story feel more tied together because I think back on where it was last mentioned, etc. Obviously that can't work for everything, in which case just a brief single line or couple of words works just fine. 

But that's just me. I enjoy a good metaphor, as long as it isn't too much too soon. I feel the same way about kissing.


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## Kyle R (Jul 12, 2013)

I like to "let loose" during the first draft phase, too. I explore random imagery and analogies, often dipping heavily into the purple or the verbose.

The revision stage is where I take out my editorial machete and hack away at all my sentences. Oh, the horror!

Had I written that passage of yours, I'd revise it as such:
_
The cold wind blew across his eyes, [strike]freezing against the heat of[/strike] __[chilling]__ [strike]the[/strike] __[his]__ tears [strike]as the lids opened, their soft fragility like two baby birds chipping at the hatching-egg.[/strike] He looked down sullenly. In the [strike]dead[/strike] feathers of steam the body of Hennigan lay face down, __[his]__ silver hair __[scattered across his skull]__ like [strike]the remains of[/strike] a torn nest._

That's just how I would revise it, though. Your own discretion is the best compass, in the end!



			
				luckyscars said:
			
		

> Is this too much? How do you know when to rein it in?



Sometimes it's hard to see past our own admiration for our "darling" passages, so it helps to receive reader feedback. The Workshop is a great place for that.

Generally, I try to ask myself if my prose is aiding the story, or if it's just fluff. Sometimes it's hard to cut away fluff, especially when I feel I've written it really well. In those cases, I'll look for a way to make the metaphor or simile relevant to the story, or character development, in some way. In this instance, if you're absolutely attached to the bird metaphor, I'd consider putting in a scene where the protagonist, or Hennigan, observes a dead or dying bird, or something along those lines. That way, when the reader encounters this scene, the bird metaphor will surpass mere clever prose, moving the analogy toward something more meaningful and thematic.

:encouragement:


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## Kehawin (Jul 12, 2013)

I catch myself thinking like this too, and wondering how I can incorporate it.  Often what I find works best is to save the image for later.  What I mean by that is, depending on your story, perhaps you can have your MC see some baby birds hatching - then subsequently attacked and killed by a cat or different bird - either earlier or later in the story, and have the narrative gently show that it reminds him of the body.  Just my own way of doing things, but I do agree that the simile/metaphor uses in the excerpt seemed out of place and forced.

EDIT:  sorry, didn't read the post directly above me, seems I said essentially the same thing.


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## Kevin (Jul 12, 2013)

Considering the recent drubbing that a Nobel-prize winning author took here on the forums, getting too artsy is always risky. Self-indulgence, or artistic expression: Where do I draw the line? 

 Isn't writing fun?


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## Jeko (Jul 12, 2013)

> Self-indulgence, or artistic expression: Where do I draw the line?



Far away, in a place called 'clear communication'. The rest are friends that come over to visit.


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## Vitaly Ana (Jul 12, 2013)

_The cold wind blew across his eyes, freezing against the heat of the tears as the lids opened, their soft fragility like two baby birds chipping at the hatching-egg. He looked down sullenly. In the dead feathers of steam the body of Hennigan lay face down, silver hair like the remains of a torn nest.
_
Gotta say I like it luckyscars - very much. Is it heavy? Yes, but if its surrounded by lighter language, it can be a heavy two sentences in just the right place...if that makes sense 

Great, great work


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## Gamer_2k4 (Jul 12, 2013)

I only use a really extended metaphor once in my novel, and I've always kind of liked it.  At the risk of hijacking your thread, may I ask what the others here think of it? Is it too much, or just right?



> Julie's motionless body made up the center of a page whose margin was Markus, his face buried in one arm with the other hanging limply down. The story told was one of complete and utter despair, and Evert couldn't bear to keep reading.



Those of you who have read C. S. Lewis's _Perelandra_ may notice a similarity between this metaphor and (a much better) one he uses in the book:



> The milk-warm wind blowing over the golden sea, the blues and silvers and greens of the floating garden, the sky itself - all these had become, in one instant, merely the illuminated margin of a book whose text was the struggling little horror at his feet, and he himself, in that same instant, had passed into a state of emotion which he could neither control nor understand.



A lot of my writing style is inspired by Lewis, but this is one of the few situations where I actually borrowed directly from him.  Thoughts?


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## luckyscars (Jul 13, 2013)

Myers said:


> The tears/birds and hair/nest are simile. The dead feathers of steam is metaphor. The nest thing works fine. (Maybe abandoned nest?) But I don't really get any sensory connection with the tears and baby birds, so that's not working for me at all. Steam moves, it's translucent, so I don't see a connection to dead feathers, and "dead" seems off too. So yes, there is too much simile and metaphor for two sentences, plus they don't work particularly well, in my opinion.



I hate to tell you this, but actually, a simile is a type of metaphor. They are not two different things. A metaphor is a generic term for several different forms of comparison, one of which is a simile. So, essentially, all similies are metaphors but not all metaphors are similies -  ''That's not a car, it's a Honda Accord.''

Oh, and very light colored feathers are also translucent. And feathers, like steam, do move in wind.



> "their soft fragility like two baby birds chipping at the hatching-egg"
> or
> "In the dead feathers of steam" makes it a little too much. Personally I'm not quite sure what a dead feather of steam looks like. A feather of steam I have an idea, but the dead bit throws me off.




Seems to be a little confusion about the meaning here. Which, of course, is partly my fault. The baby birds chipping is because I see a certain similarity between the action of opening one's eyes knowing that something frightening is there (this may be clearer in context) and the action of baby birds opening an egg. Both are, to an extent, involuntary.

A dead feather is simply a feather that has been shed. Sort of a tautology, admittedly, since feathers are dead anyway. I might take out that word.

The main purpose of this thread was less to get feedback on the imagery itself (which is always a subjective area anyway), although I do enjoy the critique on that of course. It was more about spacing, which I have gotten good feedback on from some (thank you for that).  I enjoy a poetic style but also like to be simplistic with it. I know its not necessarily something that can be learned but I do worry about, as the title says, 'overdoing it', or in other words detracting from the power of one image by burying it in others. I am curious as to how others avoid this issue.


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## luckyscars (Jul 13, 2013)

Gamer_2k4 said:


> I only use a really extended metaphor once in my novel, and I've always kind of liked it.  At the risk of hijacking your thread, may I ask what the others here think of it? Is it too much, or just right?



I thought the metaphor was decent, gamer. Depending on the characters, who I am not familiar with, it may even be better than decent - if Markus was a frustrated writer-turned-murderer the use of a book metaphor would be very apt.

Context is everything.


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## Jeko (Jul 13, 2013)

If I'm going to do a serious metaphor, it's usually spaced out anywhere between a paragraph or a page. But I never do for novels.

I agree with KyleColorado's edit of the metaphor. With a gentler touch, the metaphor becomes emotive and quite memorable.


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## Sandy (Jul 13, 2013)

luckyscars said:


> I enjoy a poetic style but also like to be simplistic with it. I know its not necessarily something that can be learned but I do worry about, as the title says, 'overdoing it', or in other words detracting from the power of one image by burying it in others. I am curious as to how others avoid this issue.



A dear friend and mentor keeps prodding me to make a sentence worth reading by thinking poetically, so when an image comes to mind as a metaphor it's so easy to "pour it on like too much syrup on a pancake; then you learn to spread it out on several pancakes, and now all the flavors work together."

I get so excited when I come up with a nice, juicy metaphor and just want to get it all down on paper first while I still have it fresh.  In revision, I kind of look for ways to stretch it out into the scene and build from the hint of the image to a sort of little rhetorical climax that hopefully makes the point.


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## Myers (Jul 13, 2013)

luckyscars said:


> I hate to tell you this, but actually, a simile is a type of metaphor. They are not two different things. A metaphor is a generic term for several different forms of comparison, one of which is a simile. So, essentially, all similies are metaphors but not all metaphors are similies -  ''That's not a car, it's a Honda Accord.''
> 
> Oh, and very light colored feathers are also translucent. And feathers, like steam, do move in wind.



Why do you “hate to tell me?” I’d always thought they were different, not that simile was a subset or kind of metaphor. Now I know better.  I don’t get miffed over an opportunity to learn something new. Besides, I have a feeling you probably enjoyed telling me. 

And feathers may move in the wind, but you wrote that they were “dead.” That suggests something still, so that’s not the image I saw.


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## Gargh (Jul 13, 2013)

luckyscars said:


> _I__n the dead feathers of steam_



That's the only one that jars. If we take the use of a metaphor in creative writing to be a shortcut for the reader then this one brings up nothing for me. Well, very little - and it certainly doesn't correlate to steam. I had to stop and try and figure out what you meant which interrupted, rather than aided, the image being constructed.

The rest, as you've said, are a matter of writing style but as metaphors they work fine.

I think this is best avoided by only using metaphors that have some universally, or even culturally, recognised meaning beyond yourself. And, if you're ever unsure on this point then do what you're doing now and get a second opinion.


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## luckyscars (Jul 13, 2013)

Gargh said:


> That's the only one that jars. If we take the use of a metaphor in creative writing to be a shortcut for the reader then this one brings up nothing for me. Well, very little - and it certainly doesn't correlate to steam. I had to stop and try and figure out what you meant which interrupted, rather than aided, the image being constructed.
> 
> The rest, as you've said, are a matter of writing style but as metaphors they work fine.



Duly noted. I think I probably will take out the 'dead' part. It isn't particularly necessary. On the other hand I see a lot of connection between the image of 'steam' (steam in this case being a white, cloudy type thing) and a flurry of white feathers. But granted it is not an easy or obvious connection.



> I think this is best avoided by only using metaphors that have some universally, or even culturally, recognised meaning beyond yourself. And, if you're ever unsure on this point then do what you're doing now and get a second opinion.



I have to say I am a little perplexed by this response. When I think of metaphors that are 'universally recognized' I tend to think of things that are either dull or plain cliched - 'the world's a stage', 'broken heart', etc. I have to say that while I do like simplicity and ease of interpretation, that is a million miles away from only using metaphors that have a universal meaning. A meaning can be clear without it being universal, can it not?


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## Gargh (Jul 14, 2013)

luckyscars said:


> I have to say I am a little perplexed by this response. When I think of metaphors that are 'universally recognized' I tend to think of things that are either dull or plain cliched - 'the world's a stage', 'broken heart', etc. I have to say that while I do like simplicity and ease of interpretation, that is a million miles away from only using metaphors that have a universal meaning. A meaning can be clear without it being universal, can it not?



I was thinking as much of similes here, and of universal characteristics, not clichés. A cat, for instance, will walk, stretch, pounce, purr and clean itself in the same way wherever you are and most people have seen a cat by the time they pick up a book. So, there is a universal idea of a domestic cat that we all hold in our minds and can refer to as a shortcut to a characteristic like, e.g. the way a character stretches. 

There is a fantastic example in a collection of short stories by Katherine Mansfield. She describes a lady's Pekingese dog as sitting there like a lump of melted toffee (or similar... can't find the quote). Instantly I could see that dog - it's colours, shape, even it's daft expression. That was pretty obscure but it worked because I already knew what a lump of melted toffee looked like. Toffee's not quite as widely understood as cats, granted, but still has an accepted visual form that rarely alters.

The difficulty comes, as you're finding, when someone thinks something should be a generally held perception but it is really just them and maybe a few people where they live. In those cases more description is needed to draw the comparison they wish to achieve. Or a new metaphor if it's not important to the story


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## Staff Deployment (Jul 14, 2013)

Gargh said:


> I think this is best avoided by only using metaphors that have some universally, or even culturally, recognised meaning beyond yourself.



I prefer metaphors that are really confusing, sort of like how monkeys prefer the squishy bananas.


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## Dictarium (Jul 14, 2013)

I felt like I was being literatured at. It's usually not good if I feel like I'm being literatured at; makes me feel like I'm reading early 20th century writing. By literatured, I mean that it feels as if I'm being bombarded by a writer's full arsenal of metaphors, similes, and everything in between in such an unrelenting attack that I end up feeling tired by the end of it. If that's your style, that's your style, and if there's people who will read it, far be it from me -- some punk teen who don't know nothin' 'bout nothin' -- to tell you that you can't write like that, it's just not my favorite.

Writer's Note: I'm well aware that I used a simile; irony noted.


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## mlcampbell (Jul 14, 2013)

I don't think birds and innocence are tightly linked.  It can be ironic if you're associating the birds with tranquility - such as the dove - flocking around the dead and wounded after a gruesome battle.  It could be metaphorical if (again with the dove) it was used to represent resolve.  At last, after a long battle where many died, there is peace among the nations.  I don't know what your story is about, so I just jumped to battles (I'm reading Songs of Ice and Fire).

A description of the body like what you have would be appropriate, though, if the character who sees it is fascinated by birds and studies them often.  Perhaps s/he has a link to them somehow, or is simply awestruck by their grace and beauty.


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## LolitaFromSpace (Jul 14, 2013)

loll responding to just your original post that was dramatic! it's almost comically metaphoric like it would be in a skit on snl but i think its good for comedy at least


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