Simile

An Element of Fiction

Simile, as you know, is like the flip side of metaphor; or perhaps better put, is its first cousin.

A metaphor always makes a direct comparison: “The curtain of night” and such, whereas the simile always includes the word (or concept) like: “The night falls like a curtain” and such.

E.B. White has this to say about similes, “The simile is a common device and a useful one, but similes coming in rapid fire, one right on top of another, are more distracting than illuminating. Readers need time to catch their breath; they can’t be expected to compare everything with something else, and no relief in sight.”

Hemingway agrees, “No matter how good a phrase or a simile he may have if he puts it in where it is not absolutely necessary and irreplaceable, he is spoiling his work for egotism.”

Stephen King, in his great book On Writing shares this, “The use of simile and other figurative language is one of the chief delights of fiction — reading it and writing it, as well. When it’s on target, a simile delights us in much the same way meeting an old friend in a crowd of strangers does. By comparing two seemingly unrelated objects — a restaurant bar and a cave, a mirror and a mirage — we are sometimes able to see an old thing in a new and vivid way. Even if the result is mere clarity instead of beauty, I think writer and reader are participating together in a kind of miracle. Maybe that’s drawing it a little strong, but yeah — it’s what I believe.”

Let me add that all rules and advice regarding metaphor applies equally to similes, for similes, like James Geary so appropriately quips are: “Just metaphors with the scaffolding still up.”

I think this does it. Enjoy your similes (and metaphors) but don’t overdo them seems to be the take-away here.

© Wolfstuff