Stock your metaphor pantry

Great metaphors are a delight—they help readers understand an abstract idea in a new way. But how do we come up with fresh ones? We need fresh ingredients. This month’s exercise is about collecting experiences to stock your metaphor pantry.

The work of the metaphor (or analogy)

A metaphor is one type of analogy—a comparison between two unrelated things that delivers important insight. If you’re writing about a topic that’s unfamiliar to the reader, you might compare it to something they know or understand.

Geeky English major note: When you are explicit about the comparison (this is like that), then it’s a simile. If you simply claim that your lover’s lips are red roses, that’s a metaphor. Both do similar work, although a metaphor often lands at a deeper level.

When we run into the same metaphors over and over again, they become so familiar that we fail to see them. (Witness the many military metaphors that have come into our language: targeting, shooting off at the mouth, killing it, and so on.)

So how do we, as writers, come up with fresh sources for metaphors?

We need to stock our pantry of possibilities, so we can go beyond the overused, familiar comparisons. (And you’ll notice that I’m using “pantry” metaphorically.)

Stock your pantry

This month’s writing experiment asks you to gather ingredients for analogies, even if you don’t know yet how you’ll use them.

Every day this month, think about an experience you’ve had, either recently or in the past. You might make a list of mishaps or challenges that people can relate to:

Tipping the canoe
Stubbing a toe
Trying to entice an active toddler to take a nap (similar to the “herding cats” metaphor)

Or, stock up on positive experiences:

A baby’s smile
A sunset that makes the entire sky glow
The first bite of chocolate cake

You get the idea.

You don’t need to know what these are metaphors for — not yet. You’re simply stocking the pantry. Perhaps you’ll discover something you can use right away. Or, you might revisit the list later for inspiration.

More importantly, you’re practicing the art of noticing and comparing—the fundamental skill of creating metaphors in the first place.

Do this for a while, and you might discover that your imagination starts to supply fresh and interesting analogies when you need them.