How to Write Metaphorical Sentences

Understand what a metaphor is. The word “metaphor” (Greek: metapherein) means “to carry over” or “to transfer.” A metaphor “transfers” the meaning of one concept to another by naming or suggesting that one thing is something else (while similes use “like” or “as” to compare two things). Consider the following famous examples:

• The ending of The Great Gatsby is a famous metaphor: “And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
• Poet Khalil Gibran uses numerous metaphors in his poetry, such as: “All words are just crumbs that fall from the table of thought.”
• William Gibson's postmodern science fiction novel Neuromancer opens with the line: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
• The poem “Cut” by Sylvia Plath uses metaphors to convey pain with an eerie tone of curiosity:
  Oh, no!
  Not an onion, but my finger.
  The top part nearly fell off
  Only a bit of skin remains...
  This must be a celebration.
  From the gap,
  Millions of British soldiers in red uniforms pour out.

Distinguishing rhetorical devices from metaphors. There are many rhetorical devices that evoke connections between two things, including simile, metonymy, and synecdoche. While these devices produce effects similar to metaphors, they differ slightly in nature.

• A simile involves two parts: the thing being described and the thing used for description. In the sentence “the overbaked cake is as bitter as charcoal,” the cake is the subject, and charcoal is the comparison. Unlike metaphors, similes use words like “like” or “as” to signal the comparison, so their effect is generally considered a bit weaker.
• Metonymy replaces the name of an object with the name of something closely associated with it. For example, “the throne” is often used to refer to the king, and in the United States, the government of the president and cabinet is commonly referred to as “the White House.”
• Synecdoche uses a part to refer to the whole, such as “footie” to refer to a soccer player, or “puncher” to refer to a boxer.

Exploring forms of metaphors. While the basic concept of a metaphor is relatively simple, its application spans a range of complexity, from very basic to highly intricate. A metaphor may simply compare two things, such as “He may appear cold, but he’s really a sweet candy inside.” In literature, however, metaphors often extend over several sentences or even entire scenes.

• Extended metaphors are carried across multiple phrases or sentences. This accumulating nature gives the metaphor a powerful and dynamic effect. The narrator in Dean Koontz’s novel Seize the Night uses an extended metaphor to describe his wild imagination:
  “Bobby Halloway often said my imagination was like three hundred circus rings. And now I was at the two hundred ninety-ninth ring, with dancing elephants, acrobatic clowns, and tigers jumping through flaming hoops. It was almost time to step out, leave the circus tent, grab some popcorn and a Coke, relax and unwind.”
• Implied metaphors are subtler than simple ones. While a simple metaphor might call someone a “sweet candy,” an implied metaphor would add more attributes to that person: “At first, I thought he was cold, but then I discovered he was sweet on the inside.”
• Dead metaphors are phrases that have become so commonly used in everyday language that they lose their original impact, such as “stream of life,” “killing time,” “warming the heart,” or “Achilles’ heel.” Clichés are also considered dead metaphors, as they carry deeper meaning through their overuse. The phrase “Achilles’ heel,” for instance, refers to a person’s fatal flaw.

Recognizing mixed metaphors. A “mixed metaphor” blends elements of multiple metaphors into one unit, often leading to awkward or nonsensical results. For instance, “Wake up and smell the coffee on the wall” is a mix of two metaphorical expressions, “wake up and smell the coffee” and “read the news on the wall.”

• Catachresis is the official term for a mixed metaphor. Some writers deliberately use this form to create ambiguity, convey absurdity, or express intense emotions that can’t be articulated directly. In E.E. Cummings’ poem Somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond, catachresis is used to express his inexpressible love for his lover: “The sound of your eyes is deeper than all roses -- / Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands...”
• Catachresis can also describe a confused or contradictory mental state, such as the famous soliloquy “To be or not to be” in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “To be, or not to be—that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them...” (from Hamlet, translated by Đào Anh Kha, Bùi Ý, Bùi Phụng, Văn học Publishing House, 2008). In reality, we cannot fight against the waves of the sea, but the mixed metaphor captures Hamlet’s inner turmoil.

Understanding the power of metaphors. When used skillfully, metaphors can enrich language and elevate the meaning of what you wish to express. They can convey profound messages in just a few words. They also encourage active reading and require the reader to interpret your words in their own unique way.

• Metaphors can express emotions behind actions. For example, the phrase “Julio’s eyes sparkled with fire” is more vivid and intense than simply saying “Julio’s eyes were angry.”
• Metaphors can convey large, complex ideas in just a few words. In a line from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, he tells readers that they themselves are the greatest poem: “Your flesh shall be the best poem, and its rhythm not only lies in words but also in the silence on your lips.”
• Metaphors encourage creativity. It’s easy to describe things in straightforward terms: the body is the body, and the ocean is the ocean. But metaphors let you convey simple ideas in a creative and expressive way, something the Anglo-Saxons particularly appreciated: “body” becomes “house of bones,” and “ocean” becomes “whale road.”
• You can also showcase your intellect with metaphors. Or at least Aristotle thought so (and who could argue with him?) in his work Poetics: “But the greatest thing by far is to master the metaphor. It is something that cannot be learned from others, and is the sign of a genius, because a good metaphor can convey an intuitive understanding of similarities in things that are different.”

Read plenty of examples. There is no better way to understand how to use metaphors and find your own style than by reading works with brilliant metaphorical phrases. Many authors employ this device, so regardless of what literary genre you love, you’ll find great examples.

• If you're not afraid to dive into challenging reads, try exploring the works of John Donne, a 16th-century poet known for his intricate metaphors that few English writers have matched. His poems like “The Flea” and the Holy Sonnets employ complex metaphorical imagery to explore themes of love, faith, and death.
• The speeches of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. are also famous for their metaphorical language and other rhetorical techniques. His “I Have a Dream” speech uses metaphor to evoke vast meanings, such as describing African Americans as living on “a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.”

Use your imagination to think about what you want to describe. What are its qualities? How does it function? How does it make you feel? Does it have a taste or smell? Write down all the descriptions of that idea as they come to you. Avoid getting bogged down in obvious details that everyone can see; metaphors are ideas that go beyond the ordinary.

• For example, if you want to write a metaphor about “time,” try to come up with as many attributes as possible: slow, fast, dark, vast, heavy, flexible, evolving, changing, artificial, suspended, ticking clock, race, fleeting.
• Don’t over-edit at this stage; your goal is to generate as many ideas as possible. You can always discard irrelevant ideas later.

Free association. Jot down things that share those same qualities, and again, don’t settle for the obvious. The more vague your associations, the more intriguing your metaphor will be. If you're writing a metaphor for a concept, challenge your brain by comparing it to an object. For instance, if your subject is justice, ask yourself what kind of animal it could be.

• Avoid using cliché metaphors. As Salvador Dalí once said, “The first person to compare a young woman’s cheeks to rose petals was truly a poet; but the first person to repeat that was a fool.” The purpose of metaphors is to convey your idea with impact and creativity: think of a rich chocolate caramel and sea salt ice cream versus a plain bowl of vanilla yogurt.
• This is a mental exercise, so let your imagination soar! With the example of “time,” unlimited associations could include ideas such as: rubber bands, vastness, 2001, abyss, enemy, ticking clock, heaviness, waiting, loss, adaptation, expansion, returning.

Determine the emotional tone you wish to evoke. Do you want to create or sustain a specific mood? Should your metaphorical imagery align with a larger context? Use these considerations to filter out associations that don’t fit.

• For the example of “time,” if you’re aiming for a “supernatural/divine” feeling, eliminate ideas that clash with this tone, such as: enemy, 2001, heaviness, and ticking clocks, as these are rather “earthly” terms.
• Be mindful of the nuances of the theme you’ve chosen. For instance, if you’re comparing the concept of justice to an animal, a “hunting leopard” would convey a much different meaning than a “sleepy elephant.” However, both would still be more fitting than the metaphor “newborn kitten.”

Develop your ideas. Write a few sentences, a paragraph, or even a page comparing your original theme with the associations you've just brainstormed. At this stage, don’t worry about crafting the perfect metaphor; instead, focus on the ideas themselves to see where they take you.

• For the example of “time,” this phase might produce a sentence like: “Time is a stretched rubber band; it snaps me into uncharted territory before pulling me back to the center.” This sentence takes an idea from Step 2 and starts attaching actions and qualities to it—the beginning of a metaphor.

Read it aloud. Metaphors draw attention to the workings of language, so it’s crucial that the sound of your sentence when read aloud matches its content. A metaphor that describes softness should not be full of harsh consonants; a sentence conveying depth should contain lower vowels (such as ohh and umm); and a sentence about abundance might use repetition (alliteration, for instance).

• In the example sentence from Step 4, the core idea is there, but the language behind it isn’t strong enough. For instance, there’s little repetition in the sentence, a device that could be helpful if you want to convey a sense of recurrence. The idea of “rubber band” also conjures the image of someone or something shooting the rubber band, which detracts from focusing on Time—the main subject of the action.

Transform your comparison into a metaphor. Write a metaphor that compares your original theme to one of the objects or concepts you’ve thought of. Does it make sense? Is it unique? Does it fit the desired mood? Is there another phrasing that sounds better? Don’t settle for the first idea that seems to work; be ready to discard it if something better comes to mind.

• For instance, if you add repetition and action to your metaphor of Time, you might end up with a sentence like: “Time is a roller coaster; it never stops to wait for anyone.” Now the focus is entirely on time, and the repeated t sounds help reinforce the idea of repetition the metaphor seeks to convey.

Expand on your ideas. Metaphors are often used as nouns—“her face was a canvas,” “every word was an arrow”—but they can also be used as other parts of speech, which often leads to surprising and powerful effects.

• Using metaphorical language as verbs can add force to an action (sometimes with a literal meaning!): “The news choked her throat in its iron grip” conveys a much more intense feeling than “She felt suffocated.”
• Metaphorical images used as adjectives and adverbs can vividly describe things, people, and concepts in just a few words: “The teacher’s meat-eating pen devoured the students’ essays, occasionally spitting out a bloodstained comment” describes the teacher’s pen (which, by metonymy, represents the teacher) as it tears apart essays, leaving behind only blood and guts.
• Metaphorical language used as possessive pronouns can express the nature of the action or thought behind it: “Emily scrutinized her sister’s outfit with the eyes of a surgeon” implies that Emily is confident in her fashion expertise, that she views every detail with precision, and that she considers her sister’s outfit a patient in need of surgery—something her sister might not appreciate.
• Using metaphors as appositive nouns (nouns or noun phrases placed next to another noun to explain or define it) or modifiers can make sentences more polished and creative: “Homer Simpson, a yellow pear in pants, stealthily moved forward.”

• Exploring other rhetorical devices can help you gain a deeper understanding of how seemingly unrelated things can be connected.
  • Personification: Attributing human characteristics to inanimate objects. This technique adds depth to the imagery with words typically reserved for describing humans. “The brave explorers ventured into the cavernous mouth of the mountain.” As you can see, human traits are not exclusively human, even though they often are: "The familiar old chair welcomed her back as though she had never left."
  • Analogy: A comparison between two pairs of things, a:b::c:d (for example, hot is to cold as fire is to ice). Analogies can be used for satire, as in the saying, “Honesty is also a cowherd / Loving is also a daughter-in-law and mother-in-law.” More subtly, Spenser’s verse beautifully expresses the transformation: “I become fire before my lover of ice...” (translated by Hoàng Nguyên Chương).
  • Allegory: A narrative that extends beyond its literal meaning, where people, objects, or ideas symbolize something else, giving the story both a literal and a figurative interpretation. In allegory, almost every character or object carries additional meaning. You can read Animal Farm, an allegory of the Soviet Union, where the animals revolt against their farmer and establish their own egalitarian society, only to later create a harsh hierarchy from which they must fight to escape.
  • Fable: A story that conveys a moral or lesson. A good example is the Aesop fable about a mighty lion sparing the life of a tiny mouse, only for the mouse to later save the lion from a human trap—implying that even the weak have their strengths.
• Writing is a skill. The more you practice, the better you’ll become at it.
• Do you remember something called “grammar”? It actually does serve a purpose. Make sure your grammar is correct so that your readers understand your message clearly.
• Even with effort, many metaphors you write may not work. But that’s okay. Just discard them and move on. Who knows, you might find inspiration in the muse and come up with even better ideas somewhere else.
• A great way to enhance your metaphor-writing skills is to start composing poetry. You could even share your poems on your blog!