How To Improve Your Writing With Analogies

The secret key to clarity in your writing

I love analogies. They’re a great way to make your writing stand out from the crowd with some flair and originality.

When you’re competing with millions of other writers, it’s very hard to write about a unique topic or give an original opinion on something that you haven’t heard before.

Sometimes sharing your writing can feel like you’re in a crowded room shouting to get your voice heard with hundreds of other people drowning your noise out.

Using analogies can push you that extra step to make your writing a breath of fresh air for readers who are sick of the same cliché topics, phrases, and writing tropes.

What exactly is an analogy? An analogy is when you compare what you’re talking about to something, often in the form of a metaphor or simile, to make your point more clear or interesting. Here are some useful ways you can spice up your writing by incorporating analogies:

1. To clarify

Are you writing about something that may be difficult for readers to understand? An analogy is a perfect way to make things clear to a reader!

There’s no wonder why philosophers like using analogies so much, as they’re a great way to illustrate a nuanced point very simply. Here’s an example of a post where I used an analogy to improve my writing:

“The way in which Kanye intends the Stem Player to solve the problems of streaming is comparable to ethical clothing brands. While it’s fantastic that they offer a clean and guilt-free way to buy clothes free from exploitation, as long as people can’t justify spending £30 on a t-shirt, they continue to purchase fast-fashion.

In the same vein, while purchasing a stem player would provide users with a way to listen to music in a way that supports artists, so long as it is more expensive and more inconvenient than Spotify, artists will still get exploited.”

I got feedback from friends that said this analogy was very helpful, as it allowed them to understand a niche issue within the streaming industry through comparing it to fast fashion, a topic which readers are much more likely to be knowledgeable about.

As you can see, analogies can be a great way to introduce readers to arguments and topics they may not have been previously aware of.

2. To add flare

Sometimes, what you’re writing about can come off as very boring. You may have thought a topic would translate well in your head, but when you came to writing it, you were yawning yourself to sleep.

Analogies can help add flair to those points that are usually so dreary.

I recently wrote a post about people who were unwilling to share music and found what I was writing about was becoming quite tiresome. So, I added an analogy to give the article some flavour:

“If you’re in a honeymoon phase with a song you’ve grown attached to, I have some bad news for you. You’re in a toxic relationship!

Those songs aren’t just for you; they’re getting around the block into everybody’s ears, and you’re just going to have to deal with it! What claim did you think you had over that song? Did that song tell you ‘I’m all yours! Nobody else is allowed to listen to me!’. Did that song even take you out for a nice dinner? Buy you a pretty bouquet of flowers?

No! I’m afraid that song isn’t yours to hoarder. It doesn’t set you aside from your peers, and it doesn’t want you to keep it a secret.”

By comparing a relationship with songs to a toxic relationship, I found my writing became a lot more fun to write and to read.

This is the great thing about analogies: so long as they fit with whatever you’re talking about you can take them anywhere. I was able to include some humour through this analogy which would have been devoid from the post had I not utilised it.

One important thing to note when using analogies is that you should take care to make sure they aren’t asymmetrical! An asymmetrical analogy is one that doesn’t aptly reflect the point you were trying to make and can often confuse readers or make them question your point.

In a recent article, I used a potentially asymmetrical analogy to describe how composers make music. I attempted to argue that an artist composing music was like an archaeologist digging for treasure, and my fellow wordsmith, If Ever You’re Listening, noted that the analogy didn’t exactly land. He commented that:

“Creating a musical piece like Debussy did is more like sculpting a statue out of stone. The artist is creating something new out of elements that exist. So, they are in fact creating a new thing that didn’t exist before.”

Even though my analogy didn’t land in this instance, it still acted as a great springboard for a wider discussion on the topic I was talking about! This goes to show that analogies are also a great way to prompt discussions in your comments and increase engagement.

Next time you’re writing an article, try out an analogy to make your writing more fun! Let me know how the results go!