Via a tweet by Elizabethscraig, and it irked me enough that it qualified as a blog post. What this article speaks to, is the ease with which readers get distracted by literal interpretations of metaphorical comments. A metaphorical comment about eyes flying to an object conjures a cartoon-like image in the reader’s mind of giant eyeballs galumphing from one place to another, peering intently at the scene.
While I agree that in most cases such metaphorical writing should be restricted, or used sparingly, I dislike how the article above portrays this as a ‘writing don’t’. Her heart danced in her chest. His eyes swam with pain. Her eyes were daggers. His hand jumped to his dagger. Her finger hunched on the trigger, defeated. All of these have a lyrical aspect that their literal counterparts lack; in some cases metaphor improves the comments, and in some it detracts:
Her heart danced in her chest. Alternatives to this include: her heart beat rapidly/quickly. Her heart pounded in her chest. Her heart raced. The problem? They don’t convey the same thing to the reader, for one. A dancing heart or a fluttering heart may both be silly, but they describe the feeling one gets upon seeing a beauty enter the room, or that hunky guy. Her hear beat quickly sounds like a horror film by comparison. An alternative might be, ‘her heart quickened,’ but that has the drawback of sounding ludicrously Victorian. (That’s soooo Victorian Era, I’m into contemporary, you’ve probably never heard of it.) And the other metaphorical descriptions; pounding, and raced, have the same potential for forming cartoons in our readers mind. Perhaps a pounding heart conjures an animal-esque Muppet heart pounding on a drum. And our racing heart? What is it racing against, our lungs, liver and pancreas? To restrict language simply because some reader might be in a giggly mood is silly. When that reader comes back to the book after going outside to enjoy the breeze, they’ll return with their serious face on or you’ve made more mistakes than simply metaphorical language in your writing. I would urge, to this point, that this type of language is avoided during the outset of your novel when readers are incapable of guessing what your character is like to feel when he/she encounters a certain situation. Cartoons in our head are much more likely to form when there is no event to immediately link the metaphor to. If her heart is dancing, the very next line (or preferably, the line before) should have introduced that hunky guy which has so gained her admiration, or excited our heroine.
His eyes swam with pain. Alternatives to this include: he was blinded with agony, his vision faded and went dark, his vision swam with pain. In this case there is almost no need to be metaphorical, especially if the comment is lengthened: His vision swam with pain, grey echoes of images haloed everything in his sight and two strangers danced and swirled as one in front of him. The problem this example has is one covered in the article given above: purple prose. If you are a chronic over-describer, then you may want to watch yourself, but especially in the entrance to your novel when actions are so much more important than description. Later, if your characters and your reader have bonded, then more long winded descriptions like the one above may be warranted. In the case that the protagonist has just recovered from a very near-death experience, then the prose is no longer quite as purple.
Her eyes were daggers. She looked angry? She was mad? She looked angry at him? She looked mad? No, none of these will do. The literal will not easily depict a woman scorned. Much better to describe with metaphor: but if you don’t have to mention eyes, why would you? How about: Her gaze washed over him like poison. Or, if it is a horror scene, how about: ‘her eyes were daggers in his spine.’ A strong metaphor such as this leaves no leeway for the reader to conjure a cartoon-ified version. There is a dagger in this man’s spine! That is no laughing matter. And if it is, there has already been a disconnect between the reader and the character, it has little to do with the metaphor.
His hand jumped to his dagger. This is a classic. Alternatives include: his hand moved to his revolver, his hand caught the pommel, his hand darted for a weapon and clasping the dagger at his hip. I would go with the last; it eliminates the pesky metaphors by using the word clasp to identify what he is actually doing. It literalizes the scene. That’ll get you a B+ in my book. To get the A, don’t have the man reach for a weapon at all. If you intend for a character to draw a weapon, have it appear in his hands. Unless there is special significance to the drawing of a weapon, such as the classic samurai or wild-west example where the draw is as much an art-form as the fighting, then skip it. Your reader doesn’t care, and will be quite happy to see his favourite badass with a dagger in his hand.
Her finger hunched on the trigger, defeated. And this, I just came up with, I quite like, though thinking on it, it could be better, but could it be more literal? Sure, and probably should be in most cases: how about, ‘She tensed her finger on the trigger, defeated but not yet lost?’ or a less purple version, and a version more to the point: ‘She pulled the trigger weakly. The gunshot was deafening, and the revolver fell to the ground.’
Experiment, is my vote! Does it sound better as a metaphor? Can you make it a metaphor without ever talking about body parts, which seem to be prone to dancing and jumping and swimming in everyone’s mind? Can you do without the scene? Can you do without the metaphorical aspect of the scene? If the answer is no, then ask yourself, can I do better? And if you can’t do better, then don’t, write it as is, and your readers will have to forgive you, or as I mentioned before, come back to the novel when they are in a less giggly mood.
As a whole, I feel readers are fairly understanding individuals. Follow me on Twitter for special previews of what I'm currently working on!
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