Make Your Riches With Metaphor

When I did a little research to be sure I could adequately describe a metaphor, I found out there was quite a bit more to it than I'd thought.

I'm used to phrases like "drowning in money". That's pretty straightforward.

Then I looked deeper and found out how many kinds there really are...


An Embarrassment of Riches

The subhead above is another example of this type of language, meaning much the same thing as the one about drowning in money.

Both equate riches to drowning or embarrassment. Both create a more detailed image in your reader's head than "he had lots of money" does.

Which is the point of any figure of speech .

From compound (implying several connected meanings: "He has the wild stag's foot") to complex ("That throws some light on the question"), active ("You are my sunshine") to implicit ("Shut your trap!"), such descriptive phrases will convey more meaning than plain prose.

But how do you come up with such literary devices if you don't copy from everyone else? (You are supposed to try to be original, after all.)

By thinking about things you're familiar with and seeing connections to things unrelated to it. You're comparing the two, so they should (but don't always) have some bit of similarity, or you won't make your point.

However, as with any fancy language usage, this one can too easily be overused (and the literary police will find you!). Keep your figures of speech in their place, and all will be well.


A Novel Way To Describe Things

People have been using metaphor for ages. Some have gotten so well-used they're considered "dying" (in other words, don't use them or they'll take your book down with them...)

You can be straightforward, using something like "a diamond in the rough", conveying that a gem is hidden amidst a shabbier covering. I recommend straightforward, in most instances so you don't leave your readers scratching their heads wondering what your fancy words had to do with the heroine.

You can be a bit more subtle, as long as your novel, genre, characters and plot are appropriate for the subtlety. Literary fiction is more likely to use this variety of description since part of the point of such fiction is the use of language to convey deeper meaning.

That is the idea, after all, with any metaphor (or simile , analogy , or alliteration); to make your meaning deeper, richer and more vivid.

Do this, and you'll make yourself richer, too, by enthralling your readers so they keep coming back for more!