Write Vivid Narration

1. Vivid Narration Introduction: Hi, my name is Barbara dance and welcome to this page all about my vivid narration workshop. I'm so excited you're here because it means that you are very likely in the middle of a story and you are looking at how to bring it to life through descriptive language. Now I'm going to go ahead and admit that this part of storytelling is my favorite. It's a lot of fun to design characters and plots. But really getting in there and using words to create wonderful images is just about my favorite piece of writing. So you're in for a treat as far as I'm concerned. This workshop is all about how you take an idea and you develop really novel new ways of looking at it that are very beautiful and poetic. This means getting into a lot of the different kinds of similes and metaphors that you can use in your writing. Now you may be thinking Barb, I know all about similes and metaphors. The Rose was like a red balloon. The sun was a golden orb. There you go. But actually there's a whole lot more to it than you probably learned in school or even in some of the reading you have done. Similes and metaphors are critical to writing because they are what allow you to develop very nuanced themes throughout your stories. And they allow the reader to create very unique pictures in their heads. They are far more complicated than most people realize. So this workshop is designed to show you all of the different kinds of ways that you can really utilize vivid imagery and vivid narration, especially by simile and metaphor is this means that we are going to really look at very distinctly what is a simile and metaphor in the context of a story because it's very easy to say similarly, uses like or hours and metaphor is just a direct association. But it's actually much more than that, especially when you get into a story. So we want to make sure we know what's the difference between a simile and metaphor. We are then going to get into the various kinds. This includes extended metaphors that it might go for your whole book or four sections of your book, to very short metaphors, metaphors that allow your character to take on a certain role. You know, you might want a character to always be associated with, say, a bird or something like that. How do you do that with your language in your stories? We will also look at power in similes and metaphors because as you'll see in the workshop, there are ways to elevate the, the power of a, an association and description and ways to lessen it. And when might you want to do each and how do you navigate that powerful writing is key. It's wonderful to have a great character and a great plot. But if you don't bring it to life, well, it can still fall flat. Remember that editors, agents, readers have to fall in love with your voice and your language, as well as your story and your characters. If they don't like the way that you write, they're never going to get to a place where they loved the characters and the plot. So this is critical. And so we're going to look at how we create that power were to look at how we create a motion. We use all of the senses to create variety. Will also look at the importance of variety as a whole. When you write with imagery in your story, really wanted to make sure you have variety with your similes and metaphors. Whether that's in the census that you use, the types of metaphors that you use, the actual grammatical structures of the sentences. All of these things are going to come into play to make sure that you have really unique writing that doesn't feel plotting. It starts to feel plotting when you're too repetitive with your structures and the things that you use to write. We're also going to look at how you use similes and metaphors to actually help develop themes in your stories. Themes are very important to stories. They are what give it a lot of depth and give readers something to grip onto and to talk about with their friends. But bringing, bringing themes to live through similes and metaphors and beautiful descriptive language actually helps them pack more of a patch. So we will look at how you do that. We will also look at choosing, how do we brainstorm what we want those metaphors and similes to be? How do we make them very unique and not something that's been said before, but also how do we use them and write them in a way that is geared to the audience we think we're writing too, because some metaphors and similes make people work harder than others. So you want to think about how you want that to be in your story. There's just a few of the things we talk about in this workshop. I love this workshop. If you love poetry, if you love beautiful writing, you will love this workshop. It comes with a workbook. It comes with something you can follow along all of the notes through it. And it comes with steps and things that you can take to immediately put these things into practice. I'm so excited about it. I'm so excited you're here. I'm so excited that you are working on a story. So I hope you will join me in this workshop and I hope you're having a wonderful day. Thank you so much for watching. Bye. 2. Simile vs. Metaphor: The Differences: Let's begin with similes. A simile is a comparison of two things using words such as like or as, as if, something like that. So we are going to take two things that we see have a similarity, even if that similarity is not immediately obvious to somebody else. I might say that my day was like an apple. And you might be thinking to yourself, how is a day like an apple? It might not be obvious to you, the reader, but to me, the writer, I see a similarity between a day and an apple. And so I can say my day was like an apple, which I would then probably want to go on and tell you a bit more about why I think that. But similarly is using those lives are ads. I'm not saying my day was an apple. I'm saying my day was like an apple because I'm not making that assertion that my day was an apple. A simile is therefore a softer kind of comparison. Another example would be to say something like It was as if his heart was walking in the rain without an umbrella. What are we examining here? We are examining his heart and we're going to say that it was like his heart was walking in the rain without an umbrella. So we have to look as a reader at that phrase, in the rain without an umbrella and say, Well, what's it like to walk in the rain without an umbrella? This is where the idea of contextualization comes into play, which we will get into later in the course. But if all you gave me was that sentence, then as a reader, I might love to walk in the rain without an umbrella. Or I might think walking in the rain without an umbrella is drippy and it's wet and it's cold and it's damp and it's not a good thing at all. But the point of what's happening is that that image of walking in the rain without an umbrella is so tremendously vivid. So let's pretend for the sake of the story that we know this young man is very depressed. And so we know that saying, walking in the rain without an umbrella is actually a bad thing. But rather than saying his heart was broken, rather than saying he was very sad or anything like that. We've given the reader this beautiful picture of walking in the rain without an umbrella. When you think about walking in the rain, what do you think if it's starting to rain and you're walking, the more the water saturates your clothing, the heavier you feel. There's a way in which using the sentence is saying that not only was his hard heavy, just getting heavier, it wasn't getting better. It was getting worse, it was getting wetter and damper and more ways you to have to carry around. So think about these things when you think about your word pictures. What about metaphor? Well, metaphor is using that same kind of comparison without likes or the, as it's asserted. Rather than saying it was like his heart was walking in the rain without an umbrella. You're saying his heart was walking in the rain without an umbrella. Now notice something here. Of course, his heart was literally walking in the rain without an umbrella. But we're saying that his heart was doing that. And that kind of assertiveness doesn't give you much wiggle room with the comparison. When we say it was like that, That's my way of saying, well, it was kind of like that, maybe not exactly like that, but it was kind of like that. But when we say no, he was walking in the rain without an umbrella. You're saying that's how it was. If you eat something hot and your mouth is just burning up. You might say it was like my mouth was on fire. But probably what you're going to say to your friend and my mouth is on fire. You know how your mouth feels, your mouth is on fire. So it's this kind of assertiveness that doesn't have the wiggle room. It packs a sincere punch to its writing and really presses that figurative language into the face of the reader. This in turn, makes metaphor the more symbolic of the two types of figurative language. Because it is so direct when we think of a symbol, we think of something that Dan's in that represents something else. And it's not saying I'm representing this. It's saying I'm representing this. Whether we say that the rose in the picture represented love or something like that, we're not going to say, well, the rose in the picture represented something like love. Now we're saying rose represented love. So there's a symbolism that happens. So when you're looking at your narratives and you're thinking about symbolism, you, metaphor is more than likely what's going to come to mind. Let's look at one more comparison. She gripped him as though welded to his arm, and they walked through the door. So here we have a situation in which this woman is clinging very tightly to a man's arm, and then they're going to go somewhere. We don't know whether they're going in or whether they're going out, but we know that she has got a locked arm grip on him. This isn't even just a tight grip. We're saying she gripped him as the welded to his arm. This is like can't remove this woman. She is, they're welded, fused to this man's R, which really tells you how tightly and now I'm not going anywhere, she is stuck to him. Let's look at that same sentence as a metaphor. So whereas with a similarly, what we were saying was she gripped him as the welded to his arm and they walked through the door. Metaphor we might say, they maneuvered toward the door, welded at the arm. So here again, they're not literally welded at the arm, but we're taking that verb and then we're just saying they were welded at the arm. We know they're not. But do you see how one, the second one is actually just tighter, fewer words, more succinct and it's just very assertive. That doesn't mean metaphors better than similarly. It just means that as you're thinking about your writing, think about the power you want behind the statement and how much you want to tell the reader know, it's like this as opposed to in the invitation of the reader to sort of say, well, it's kind of like this, but you think about it and interpret it for yourself. In the next video, we're going to look at specifically why would you even use figurative language in your writing? 3. How Figurative Language Enhances the Story: There are three really great reasons why figurative language is an excellent tool for writing, in particular for narratives. The first being that it challenges your reader. It gives new life to your sentences. You're giving new meaning to a phrase and you're asking the readers to consider that new meaning. So it's a very creative way to require some mental leverage from your readers. This is actually a very important point to make because one of the decisions you have as a writer is to ask yourself, how much do I really want to press the reader to invest himself, invest herself to put forward some mental energy. I don't mean this in any sort of silly way. It's actually a very legitimate statement. Some forms of art, some forms of writing, some books we write, some novels we do are more either accessible or easier to read or actually more challenging to read and others. This happens for a number of reasons, whether it's the complexity of the plot or the level of the technical aspects of it. If you've ever read a novel in which there are a lot of technical things you have to kinda keep track of. Or the geographies and locations you have to keep track of. Another like that. It's going to require more energy. Novels with very complex sentence structures and larger words require more energy from the for the reader. And this would also be true in the term of similes and metaphors. Even to the extent of how obvious you're similes and metaphors are. When you use this kind of figurative language, it's an opportunity not only to create a really create a word picture and say to your readers, Let's take a pause and let you shift your seat and think about something in a new way. But it's also saying, Well, think about it. If you're going to tell you a reader, I want you to think about this in a new way. I want you to think about what it's like for your heart to be walking in the rain. A reader has to stop and a reader who's active has to put a pause on things and say, well, what's it like to walk in the rain and think about that? And does that mean that at every simile and metaphor and you're writing, the reader is gonna be like, Let me think about that. No, they're not, they're not. But they will at certain places here or there. And some readers, we'll do it more than others. It's a layer of depth of complexity that you are, you're putting into your writing. If you do it properly, then you're writing is such that you have these various layers to it. And different readers at different levels can appreciate different depths of it. By that, I mean, I might read an article or a novel that has a lot of science in it. And they're referencing a lot of scientific things. And the author has done a lot of scientific research behind it. So that someone who is in the sciences could read that and think this is an amazing science fiction novel. Because while it's science fiction, it's actually based on all these really interesting things that are totally legitimate and science and they're going to be very impressed because of that. I, who am not great at science, might read that novel and say, this is a great plot. This is a great science fiction strike. I'm having such a lovely time and I appreciate it. But I don't if you know what I mean, because I don't actually know all the science behind it. So the author built in these levels and said, Well, someone who appreciates science is going to appreciate it down here. Someone who doesn't, isn't, maybe the scientists person isn't going to necessarily grab and appreciate the levels of the figurative language. But I who have read a lot of literature and worked with people, I'm gonna go, Oh wow, the figurative language it so you build in layers of depth. And what those layers do is they let a large audience come to your story and find, find the layers that fit for them. And then even as they go back, they may be reread it a second time. They go deeper into the layers. Figurative languages is a layer you're building in that lets readers be challenged to be creative, be involved in your story. The second great thing about figurative language is that it actually lets you very uniquely describe something using far fewer words. So let's go back to the example of your heart walking in the rain. If I say it's like his heart was walking in the rain. And what I don't have to say is he had a very heavy, hard and with every step that he took, it felt as though his heart god heavier still. I mean, we could go on and on and on about all the ways that walking in the rain could be like that, but even that, it was so much wordier. But when you just say it was like his heart was walking in the rain, what have you done? You've used far fewer words, a beautiful picture to convey this much meaning, rather than this many words to convey this much meaning. If you've watched my other videos, then you've heard me perhaps CB4. Think of the comparison of a lady's high-heeled shoe. If I'm standing in heels, they're four-inch high heels, but they've got a very broad heal itself. Then if I step on your toe with that, it might hurt a little bit. But if I stand in my four-inch heels with a very tiny little heel, you're taking the same amount of my weight and rather than distributing it over this much surface area, were distributed over this much surface area, which means all of that weight is packing a very hard little punch. This is what happens when we think about word choice or something like this. Taking all this meeting, but you're packing it into a tiny beautiful word picture punch rather than a lot of excessive words. So simile and metaphor, if you're careful, can give your writing great power. The third thing that is really can be great about similes and metaphors and figurative language in general, is that you let your reader bring his or her own experiences to something to give back to the walking in the rain. I might have different associations with walking in the rain, but I might actually have experiences with that because I might not have had my heartbroken like this young man. But I might very well have walked in the rain. And so it's this way of really bringing something that's quite physical and sensory in my own life to the work itself, which allows me to connect with the work in a way that I might not otherwise. So when we use figurative language, we're not only providing great power to our writing, but we are inviting the reader into a deeper relationship with our story than we otherwise could. In the next video, I want us to look at how we go about actually brainstorming what sorts of things we could make into similes and metaphors. What are these comparisons that we could have? How do we find them? How do we come up with good ones? 4. Brainstorming Figurative Images: A few pieces of advice when it comes to brainstorming similes and metaphors. As I referenced in the introduction to the course, this is a muscle. So if you feel like this is not your strong suit, Do not fear. It takes practice and you will need to practice. But you can absolutely become somebody who just starts to see associations in life and in things. My first recommendation is that as you start to think about similes and metaphors, if one comes to your head that you love, go ahead and write it down, but don't be married to it. Sometimes a writer gets very in love with a simile or metaphor or something like that. And they just have to work it into the writing. Because they think it's such a wonderful word picture. And it might very well be, but it might not be the best one for the writing that you're doing. So you don't want to do is take figurative language picture no matter how much you love it, no matter how good it is and force it into your writing because it won't make it more powerful and it will weaken everything else. So always be ready to let something go and recognize, even though it's a good picture, it might not be best suited for the project you're working on. My second piece of advice is, as you think about figurative language pictures, necessarily go with your first idea. Most writers, when they're writing, are not necessarily going to sit down and go, okay, here it is. Time for a similarly, let me brainstorm assembly. It's not going to happen. It's going to start to come out in your writing. But what will get you to a place where as you write these word pictures are just kind of coming out, is actively taking time to practice brainstorming them. And even as you're riding, a simile or metaphor might roll itself out. But there's also a decent chance that whatever does come out isn't the best simile or metaphor. It just felt like a good comparison at the time. And the truth is that a lot of the figurative language pictures that we initially come up with aren't terribly original. So we will have original thing sometimes, but very often, they're things that have been used before or they're very similar to things that have been used before. So if you find yourself thinking about a simile or metaphor, or if you're reviewing your writing or editing it or something like that. And you find a figurative language picture. Take a moment to think about other pictures, other figurative language comparisons you might make. Because those first ones generally, they might have been used before. But the more you dig in, the more you force yourself to come up with new ones, something different, the more you'll find something truly, truly. It's a great exercise to just say something like, how is, how is the assignment like an apple tree? And think about the many ways that it could be or to do an exercise where you say the sun was like Your first things might be the sun was like an orange or the suns like a bright orange beach ball or something like that. But the more you practice, make yourself this 50. After a while, you're going to have to sit there and you're gonna be like, Well, I don't know what else does the sunlight is Eigen orange. It's like a beach ball. You might find suddenly that you're not making comparisons to the sun in circular things anymore. Now you're making comparisons of the sun to feelings, two thoughts, two ideas. Son was like a revelation, but even that, maybe not so original, right? Because the revelations like a bright light bulb coming on. So maybe the sun is like something else. Maybe the sun is like a cup of coffee in the afternoon. You know how, how could the semi like a cup of coffee? Because it's bright color and picks you up, it wakes you up. What's it like when you brainstorm and when you're trying to become good at this. Don't just go with your first one. Make yourself go deep to find those really meaty, really valuable, truly creative and true to you. Figurative language pictures by second piece of advice when you're brainstorming these is to think about things that can exist on various levels. To get back to what I was saying one of our earlier videos, it's wonderful to have depth to the pictures that you make. One of the great examples of this actually comes from the Christian New Testament, in which Jesus refers to himself as the good shepherd. Now someone who doesn't know much about biblical history or shepherding or anything else can appreciate that analogy if they simply know what a shepherd is. Because they can say, yes, I understand that Jesus is saying that he is leading his flock. He's the, he's the guide off the flock. But someone who understands what shepherding is a little bit more. It's going to get more out of that analogy because he's going to understand things like, well, she bought the brightest animals on the planet. They're really not terribly bright. And so in some ways, just as kind of saying that He's not saying, Look, I'm the guide over all of these really smart people. Jesus isn't saying, I'm the professor of the class of valedictorians. A professor leads a class. But these are all really bright people or whatnot. And he's leading a class is different than shepherding. When you say I'm a shepherd of sheep, you're saying these little sheep really need a guide, like they can't do it on their own. They're not the brightest bulbs they need you. It's not like they maybe want to as a guide, they need you for survival. They have to have you. So to say, i'm, I'm the good shepherd, is to say I'm Caralyn, I'm leaving. I'm responsible for the lives of these animals that absolutely need me to say I'm the good shepherd. I'm the owner of the flock. Someone's going to appreciate on that level that there were shepherds in who, who they were their sheep and then there were shepherds that were hired. And if you're hired hand shepherd, your sheep gets carried off by a lion or something. You're less likely to go after that sheep, then you would be if it was in fact your sheet. So I could go on. But that metaphor holds up so much in literature because of the many, many ways that it has depth. So think about, as you think about true metaphors, the variety. Think about ones that are going to let people appreciated on a variety of levels. In the next video, we're going to look at how you actually use simile and metaphor in your writing. 5. Conveying Character, Tone, & Emotion: There are many aspects of simile and metaphor that we want to consider for the purposes of this class, I would like us to look at four things, all of which have subcategory. But what we want to look at with the similes and metaphors we have are what are the substantive outcomes of using it? What happens because we used, we also want to look at the parts of speech that similes and metaphors can be. The types of similes and metaphors you can use, and how to actually have variety with the similes and metaphors you create. So let's begin with just looking at the outcomes. What sorts of things can come of using figurative language like this in your writing? They can reveal character, establish tone, and convey emotions. They do many things, but I want us to look at these three. So let's begin with revealing character. It's important to remember point of view when you're considering your story. When you put a simile or metaphor in your writing, you are saying something not only about the object of observation, but about the observer. So if you're saying, if your metaphor is saying something about Sally, you are also there for saying something about the narrative itself. If that's a first-person, then that's another character in your story. If it's you as a writer working in a third person perspective, you are still saying something about you as the author. So really consider, when you're talking about similes and metaphors, what am I revealing about both of my characters? Let's look at an example. Sandra's heart gave a pinch. Her mother's face was so intent. Her intentions, so sincere and unaware. The weight they cause. They're in the bright light, bundled in her garish pink sweater. Sandra could not help but see her as one of her cupcakes. Bright, sweet, but admittedly, too much. After one or two bytes. The thought shamed her. So let's go back and look at that. This is a lengthy, lengthy, similarly. That's okay. A simile or metaphor doesn't have to be. His face was an orange. His heart was walking in the rain. It can, it can extend itself. But let's look at how much we learn about Sandra and her mother from this comparison. So let's go back. Sandra's heart gave a pinch. We know right away is that something is hurting her. Some things inside that makes her feel a squeeze of pain. Her mother's face was so intent, her intentions, so sincere and unaware of the weight. Because now we're observing we began with what Sandra's feeling. She's feeling bad, she's feeling ache and Akin side. But now we're observing her mother and we're looking at her mother's face. Mother is focused. Her mother is clearly coming from a good place of a carrying, carrying place, but also from somewhat of an oblivious place. But again, we have to think about the perspective we can, as readers in this situation. Say her mother's oblivious. Her mother might very well be what we can say from this. Sandra believes her mother is oblivious, and Sandra believes her mother's face is intent. This is all coming from Sandra's perspective. Anything we learned about Sandra's mother in the context of this comparison is actually learning about Sandra. And so just from this bit that we've gone back over, Sandra is hurting. She's looking at her mother. She thinks her mother is kind of oblivious, but really carrying is the perspective that we're getting. So we get the sense that Sandra cares for her mother. But it's also it's kind of a demeaning somewhat demeaning way of talking about her mother is it's just Well, she's oblivious and whatnot that that's that language and that looking at it as there's a little bit of a sense of superiority coming from Sandra. Now we, we get the sense that Sandra pity some other here. But we don't know exactly. We know that Sandra is aching over something, but we're not quite sure what. So let's go on. There in the bright light, bundled in her garish pink sweater. Sandra could not help but see her as one of her cupcakes. Bright, sweet, but admittedly, too much after one or two bytes. Now, in the context of this sentence, having just read it without any narrative surrounding to it that I've given you. This sentence could read, the cupcakes are Sandra's cupcakes, or the cupcakes are her mother's cupcakes. You could read that either way. Let's, for the sake of the fat, just for the sake of here, say that her mother likes to bake and her mother makes these cupcakes. There's a sense in which Sandra's now described her mother as sincere and focusing, carrying, but kind of oblivious. Then we have this she's put her mother into this pink sweater. It's not just any pink sweater. It's a garish pink sweater. So this is even more somewhat. Somewhat demeaning and pitying. It's not a respectful, it's a pitying. When we think about people, we can pity someone, we can sympathize, we can empathize. In pity. The pity comes with a demeaning aspect to it. And so she's her mother, she's garish pink sweater. Sandra can't help but see her mother as one of her mother's cupcakes. So we're imagining this woman now, really intent, bundled into this bright pink sweater. So you can imagine that her cupcakes, cheery and bright and colorful cupcakes, right. Because she's looking at her mother. It's not like she said, Oh, her mother's eyes were large and she thought of her cupcakes, no. She saw the pink garish sweater and thought of her mother's cupcakes, which tells us that Sandra thinks her mother's cupcakes are bright and maybe not the most beautiful things. Even if she thinks her mother's cupcakes are lovely. Sweater, it says something about how she thinks of her mother and her mother's attire and everything else. But then she adds this comment, sweet, but a bit much after two bytes. So we've really created actually a very fleshed out picture of what Sandra thinks of a mother. She thinks her mother has good intentions shooting similar suite, but she thinks her mother's a little bit stupid or can't dress well and makes food that isn't that great apps too much. So overpowering. She thinks her mother's overpowering. She thinks her mother's affection and care and intent is way too much. Now imagine trying to say all of that in text rather than just saying what we've said here. Now the final sentence is so important, right? The thought shamed her. Right there in all that we've just said where Sandra seems condescending towards her mother. We see Sandra feel ashamed that she feels that Sandra becomes redeemed to us a little bit. Because up to that point we might think standards a bit stuck up in a bit snobby and she might very well be, but very least Sandra realizes, I'm saying that I feel this way about my mother is essentially is embarrassed of her mother. There's just a sense that she recognizes the demeaning this of it. And she's just ashamed of feeling that way. But it's also acknowledgement that that is how she feels. So do you see how that that word picture that we've gone over, which extends over sentences. But this bubble is experience of the figurative language, tells us a lot about Sandra's mother, but even more about Sandra. And in fact, everything it tells us about Sandra's mother is through the Sandra lens. So we're always actually learning more about Sandra than her mother because of the perspective of the writing. You want to think about this when you're considering your similes and metaphors. Don't write similes and metaphors that are just things you've come up with for you. Remember your contextualizing this figurative language in your narrative. So don't say, Well, I think the sun is like an orange. Say, What does my protagonist think? It's like sanders eating her mother's cupcakes. So that for her is a figurative language picture. Your protagonist might be a soldier on the front lines and he is not going to think of cupcakes. So consider your characters and say, what? Not only is this word picture going to reveal in this comparison of say, Sandra and her mother, but what it's saying about the character itself. And know that if you're writing a novel in which it is a, an omniscient author who doesn't have a technical character in the story, you're still making a commentary about yourself. So consider that and consider how you are fleshing character out with your figurative language. Second thing that similes metaphors can do is establish tone. And we see that even in the example we just gave with the tone is a condescending one, but it's also a guilty one. There is a sense that we are feeling the conflict in Sandra. But you can use a simile and metaphor to establish the darkness of a setting. How gritty is the scene? The house was like whatever something dork and foreboding. Or maybe it's something bright and cheerful. But it's not just the associations you use it towards themselves that will help you make those analogies. When you're thinking about establishing a setting or a tone, or a feel to your story that can be a great place to interject some figurative language. Because again, it can say so much in just a few words. And the final thing is just conveying emotion, which goes back in many ways to what we were saying about character. It's this feeling that you have about something, but they are actually separate things. So those are all three very good questions to ask yourself when you're doing your writing is, what does this word picture say about my characters? What does this word picture establish in tone? What does this word picture convey about emotion? If you can devise word pictures that do all three of those things. If your figurative language can punch all three of those out, that can be a very solid piece of literature, literary worth. It might not do all three of those things. But often, if you choose the right word picture, it will. Just as when we say walking in the rain, that conveys something about his emotion, that tells us something about his feelings and who he is at, tells us something about the tone of what's going on. So really think about how are we, how is my word picture doing all of those things? And is this the best word picture to do all of those things? In the next video, I want us to look at all the different parts of speech. That is simile or metaphor can be. 6. Essential Types of Metaphor: Very often we find ourselves limiting simile and metaphor to the few forms that we learned when we were back in grade school. But the truth is that we can be using them in a variety of ways. It can be that we use it as a verb. It could be a noun to noun comparison. It could be a modifier, or it could be a prepositional phrase. I would like for us just to briefly take an example of each of these so that you understand all the variety of ways that you can put figurative language into your writing. Let's look at this first, using a simile or metaphor as a verb, His word cut her spirit and she began to cry. So here we have his words acting as a knife, but we're not saying his words were a knife that cut her spirit. We could have said that, but we didn't have to. We could just say His words, cut her spirit and she began to cry. We have made the association an actual verb. It's the action cut. If we had said his words were a knife that cut her spirit, then what we're doing is we're comparing his words, nouns to another noun, a knife. And then the knife happens to have an action. But by removing what we're actually saying. His words are by removing the, the knife or whatever other means by which she might cut something. To say His words cut her spirit. We're turning that figurative language into a verb. And what that does is it actually places the emphasis of the association you are making onto the, the verb, the action rather than onto the object. If we said His words were a knife that cut her spirit, then I'm making the association of words and a knife. And I'm saying, Well what does it do? Well it cuts. But when I no pun intended cut to the chase and I say His words, cut, then it doesn't necessarily matter if it's with a knife or a sword, or a soul or a pizza roller. It doesn't matter. What matters is what it did. The words cut, of course, they didn't literally cut her spirit. We are using them in that way. Using these things as a verb is so action-oriented. It allows the novel to really keep going, keep pressing forward. As opposed to if we were doing a comparison where it's a noun to a noun or something like that. What happens is when you're saying his words were like a knife or something like that, it slows it down because you're doing noun to noun. When you say His words cut, we're keeping the action moving forward. So that's almost it's, it's more of a pressing the narrative forward, forward focused, action, focused way to have a comparison. Let's look at the next example. I love this next one. It's just a very creative with sentence structure. And I believe firmly that a variety in your sentence structures adds great power and beauty to your writing. Using it as a modifier is a wonderful way to bring figurative language into your writing without having his heart wasn't this. It was like this, which can be the standard form we think of when we think of similes and metaphors. For this example, you will see beside her bed was the ring, a swirling planet in a galaxy of stars. The main sentence there is beside her bed was the ring. And in that, we don't have the figurative language. But then it's a modifier that the figurative language picture comes after and modifies the noun of the main sentence, a swirling planet in a galaxy of stores. When you read that, you get the sense that whatever, whatever the ring is, the central stone, there's no, is it an Opel it makes you presumably in the narrative, you would know, but you would have to say, well, what, what Jews are, what sorts of rings have something in it that's swirling maybe, or maybe it's not. Maybe it is a joule and the swirling is referring to things around it. But clearly we might think that there must be diamonds and things around it because it's this galaxy of stores. So it's a very beautiful way to describe the ring. But it's not part of the main thrust of the action. And it's just a very beautiful sentence structure that can be a creative way to think about how to do you're writing. Finally, prepositional phrase. So what is a preposition? Prepositions are words like of 24 by width. They are going to associate something. So she sat with her hands on her head. With her hands on her head is a prepositional phrase. She bought the flowers for her mother. For her mother is a prepositional phrase of 24 by with their loads of list of prepositions, you, any of those would then be a place where you could actually put figurative language. So let's look at this example here. She leaped across the stage with a gazelles. Lightness. Here again, she leaped across the stage. That's the main focus of the sentence. We're not messing with the action of the sentence, but we're saying with a gazelles likeness. And so she gets compared. We don't say she leaped across the stage like a gazelle. That's a straight up. Similarly, with the gazelles, likeness is a prepositional phrase. So it's just a different way to word things. Those differences might not always seem like a lot to you, but the variety in your writing actually really is terribly important. So think about these and try to practice all these different ways that you can actually use simile and metaphor. We'll see at the end that I've worked this into some exercises for you to do that kind of practice. In this next video, I want us to look at two special kinds of metaphors, both extended and implied. 7. Writing Nuanced, Extended Metaphors: When we think of similes and metaphors, we generally think simile metaphor, there you go. But there are two ways we can break this down further. And we've actually looked at some examples of this earlier in the class without defining them, but I'd like to define them here. These are extended or implied metaphors or similes. Let's look at the first. An extended simile or metaphor is one that isn't just a sentence long. We carry it over for a little while, it gets carried over. Possibly sentences. It could even actually be carried over chapters or an entire book, especially when you think in terms of metaphor and symbolism. So you might have, you might have a character who you, throughout the course of the book, you use modifiers and you use a perspective that relates that character too. A bird, might always be referred to in bird language and having a beat or having talents or something like that. That would be an extended metaphor because even if every time you used it, she would say something like she clocked or she tore it with her talent or something. Even though the metaphor or simile itself might be very brief when you say it. If the repeated figurative picture of this woman over the course of your book is a bird-like one, then that becomes an extended metaphor or simile. So you can have an extended metaphor by made up of lots of little metaphors over the course of a book. Or you can have one that just extends over several sentences in one piece. Let's look at an example. I don't care. She hissed. Then she said her fangs into the bag, watching its contents spill to the floor, before contentedly flicking her tongue, turning and slithering towards the door. So what we see here is a woman who is being clearly compared to as a snake. I don't care. She hissed. We have this hissing. We have the sound that snake makes ride. She sank her fangs into the bag. So now we've chosen a physicality of a snake. A snake sounds. We have a trademark feature of a snake, which would be talents. Then we have flicking her tongue, which is an action that a snake would make. The slithering towards the door, which is another action. So we have four different features of a snake that are all being used to describe her as she does this action, as she has this little sort of round about with the bag. This would also be an extended metaphor because we're using numerous comparisons to a snake over a sentence or two. And now an implied metaphor is a less direct kind of metaphor. It's one that we don't actually say what the object is, but that object, the comparison is an implied one. We saw this earlier in the class when we said that his words cut her. We never said that the words were a knife. But by virtue of the fact that the action that his words did in the figurative picture, the knife or something is referenced. But let's look at another example. After this final bereavement, married turned away, arching her back and licking her wounds. In this situation. We've never said that marries a cat. But the implication is that she's a cat, that she's arched her back and she's looking up, pause maybe or something like that. We've never specifically said what she is. We've, we've given the reader something to go on, something to imagine Mary as being in this situation. Both of these are wonderful ways to think about just figurative pictures. Again, the repeat message here is you want to really think about the variety of pictures. It's not just always as simple like or as statement, figurative language as a way to flesh it out. But there's actually so much variety in the ways that you can do that. To that end, let's look at the next video in other ways that we can actually make variety a part of the figurative language that we do. And how do we think about all the varieties of ways to do that? 8. Writing with Sensory Variation: We have at this point already discussed a lot about the kinds of varieties you can have. Do you do assimilate? Do you do a metaphor? Do you do a short comparison? Do you do an extended metaphor? What perspective do you take? You take the perspective of a reader. Do you take the perspective of a character in the corner? Who, who's looking at whom. But you also want to think about the five senses that you have. So think about our snake comparison. There were sound, there was movement, there was visual. So you want to incorporate all of these different senses into your figurative language. Think about what things might sound like. Think about what they look like. What do they smell like? What do they feel like? What do they taste like? And don't limit yourselves. When you think about those things. It doesn't have to be that it tasted like a sweet cupcake. Things can also tastes like defeat. Defeat can have a taste. So bend with the senses. But, but as you're thinking of your figurative language, if you find that you're constantly saying something's visual, that's not necessarily the most, it's not the most variety over your whole book, but it might not even be the most variety over a metaphor if it's an extended one. And it might not even be the most variety if you're only comparing visual to visual to visual to visual, the sun was bright orange. Those are two visual things as opposed to something like the sun was very tart. What is it to have a tart tasting sun? That's interesting, that makes me stop as a reader and go, I don't know. And think about that. So it's okay to have similes, metaphors that make you stop. But make sure you're looking at these various sensors and make sure you're not just going with the most obvious sensory comparisons, stretch yourselves. But when we think about all these varieties, and when we look at this, we say, well, there are a lot of options here. I can really do a lot with simile and metaphor and yes, you can. But we want to make sure to also think about our audience and ask ourselves how accessible or not accessible do I want my figurative language to be? 9. Catering Descriptions to Your Audience: It is always important to consider your audience. Now, some people will tell you, right for you, right from your heart. And what comes out, that that's the truest thing. And that if you are considering your audience at every step, it's more of a marketing thing and it's not really a genuine story. Now, I definitely think that audiences can stretch and reach and meet you. So I don't think you necessarily have to strategically always consider your audience when you make your final decisions. But you should keep them in mind. And you should know that if you want to be published, your editors and your publishers are going to keep your audience in mind because they are the ones selling your book. So if you're writing a book for middle schoolers and you have a metaphor that somebody who is a mathematician, 50 years old with appreciate but a 13-year-old will not. Your editor is going to say where your agent will say. That needs to be a different metaphor. You just, you, you've lost the reader. You do want to think about your readers. Beyond that, you want to ask yourself, do I want to stretch my reader here? How much information do I want to give him or her about my simile or metaphor? How much do I want my reader to imagine for himself or herself and for my purposes? And there's no sort of technical thing out here. This is how I have broken them down. I've broken these down into three. Those that are easily understood. Those that require special knowledge, specialized knowledge to understand, like the example we gave earlier in the course where a scientist might appreciate something that I would not, I don't know science so easily understood, requiring specialized knowledge and things that don't necessarily require specialized knowledge, but that require extra effort. So let's look at the first easily understood. The revelation was like walking out of a movie theater on a cloudless day. Most people have gone to the movies. So most people know what it feels like to be in a dark room and then walk out into the bright light. That's a fairly straightforward metaphor that assumes an experience of our readers. But it didn't axioms and experience that more than likely a lot of our readers probably have had. Let's look at this second, something requiring expert knowledge. It was as if she had entered the room dressed in a yard of chiffon. Now, if you don't so you might not appreciate how much a yard of fabric is. You might not appreciate what chiffon is. You might be able to clean that this is fabric we're talking about. But after that she might not know. So you have a choice as an author at this point. You can leave it as is and not say anything and just hope that by virtue of everything else around it, people are going to get it. Or you can choose to do some contextualization. It was as if she had entered the room dressed in a single yard of chiffon, pretty enough, but concealing nothing. So what we've done here is we have told the readers what she's thinking about when she thinks about chiffon. We could say a lot of things about chiffon. There might be a lot of ways that walking into that room was like wearing a yard of chiffon. But for her, for this character, chiffon is beautiful, but it covers nothing. It's not very much. She feels naked. So we didn't have to add that many words to tell the reader what she's thinking. If you'd left it as is, you could have still set up that. We might have understood that this was happening. But when we added in the modifying conceit pretty enough but concealing nothing. When we did that, we really turned the focus back onto the character to make the reader understand, No, this is what she's thinking. This is what she thinks about chiffon. So it really turns the metaphor back in onto the character herself. In this situation, we don't have to do that. You could just let it stand as is. But if you do that, you will alienate some people. Some people will go look up what chiffon is. Some people won't, most people probably won't. So you might have people feel pulled out at some point because it's required specialized knowledge. But it can also be just that they understand the context of it and they sort of get okay, I understand more or less what it is. That's just a decision that you have to make. The third kind of metaphor is one that doesn't necessarily require expert knowledge, but it's a bit nebulous and isn't necessarily explained. Her voice was a cup of warm milk. What I mean to Z? So this is not necessarily as obvious to us or as easy as yes, we walked out of a dark movie theater into a sunny environment. I really might have to sit there and say, well now how is her voice like a cup of warm milk? Not just any warm milk. A cup of warm milk on a winter's evening. It's a beautiful word picture. I don't necessarily have to have specialized knowledge, but I have to sit with it longer. I just have to sit with it longer. This is a great way to ask that reader to come in and be imaginative and be a part of your story. Now, it's going to slow the narrative down a bit because you've just asked the reader to slow down and think about it. It's not a great, You don't want to put this somewhere. It's like high action. Yes, Go, go, go and then you want to slow it down when you're trying to keep the action forward. But it's a creative word picture that asks me to slow down and consider it. Those are just three different, different types of ways that you can consider the accessibility of your figurative language. I'd like to know next video to just talk a little bit about some of the things that I commonly see people make as mistakes in their writing and how you can avoid them. 10. Avoid Common Mistakes: Common mistakes, things that we can avoid. One, don't overuse figurative language. It can be so exciting to just want to say, oh, well, it was like this. It was like about figurative language is wonderful. But it's also a bit like salt. If you add too much, It's spoils the whole meal. You don't want to bog your readers down with one figurative word, picture after another. The truth is that it does actually slow you're writing down. So use it. Absolutely embrace it. But be careful about it. Be careful about using it in terms of frequency or using these same kinds. Always using a verb or something, always using a modifier. You want that variety in that form as well. Also remember that not all of your characters think figuratively. View of a character who, you might have, some characters who have a figurative way that they think. Those are the characters then where you can utilize a simile or metaphor. But some characters won't think figuratively. And if you make, all your characters think that way, you've made them to similar. Also, overusing figures of speech overshadows your narrative. You don't want to cloud up the narrative and make it lose its taste for its story. To get back to the sort thing, a little bit of salt can make a chicken taste like really good chicken. But if you put too much salt, you're not going to taste the chicken anymore. You're just going to taste salt. That happens with figurative language. If you put so much of it in, I'm lost. The narratives gotten, your chicken is gone and all I have is figurative language. It will bog it down. Be careful because it can really, really kill your narrative. And always remember, you don't have to use them at all. So as grand as they are, if you just find that it's not something working for you for your steroid. That's okay. Don't feel like you have to use it. Don't always feel the need to explain the metaphor. We've gone over a lot of examples in this class, many of which do provide some sort of contextualization and explanation. But you don't have to. So don't feel like you have to brow beat your readers to make sure they get everything your readers are smart. So even when you do sort of contextualize or do some sorts of explanations. What you'll see is if you look at back the examples in this video, they're very delicate explanations. It doesn't go on and on and on to say, Did you get it? Did you get it? Did you get it? Let your readers get it. Get it. You need very little to explain this. So really hold yourself back from thinking, I don't know where they're going to get this wonderful symbol that I made. Maybe I need to make it a little bit more clear. You don't. You're good. And finally, avoid mixed metaphors. What I'm mixed metaphors, mixed metaphors are where you have more than one comparison in the same phrase. Let's look at an example. His words drenched her enthusiasm, grating her motivation. Well now in this case, his words are either a rainy day or a big bucket of water, but they're also like a cheese grater or something like that. His words are two different things and that breaks it up. It would be much better to just choose one picture, choose the greater, choose the water, pick one and go with that. Don't do the mixed metaphor thing. It bogs it down and it lacks a fluidity to what you're doing. In the next video, I want to just do some wrap up and explain the exercises that I have for you for this class. 11. Class Exercise: I've said it before, but I'll say it again. This takes practice. So if you just feel like this is not your thing, just keep brainstorming. It really does become a muscle that you build. The more you practice and think figuratively, the easier it will come, and the more that that figurative language will just naturally find its way into your writing. I do have an assignment for you that I hope will help you get started. And what you'll be doing is you will see that there are, there's a list of just actions. So I've tried to take out any contextualization needed just actions. And what you are going to be doing is you'll be asked prompts and sort of figurative language pictures to make based on a lot of different things that we've looked at in this class. All that pertain to these actions. The purpose of this exercise is to always be considering the situation and the narrative when you were doing your writing. So rather than just making exercises for yourself or saying, the sun is like a blank, fill it in. We want to get in the habit of thinking about the narrative itself, the characters, the story, the audience. So that's what this is designed to do. You have an exercise, you'll have similes and metaphors that you're being asked to create or based on those actions. I highly recommend that you do this. It's an excellent way to practice and it will help you get those muscles going. I hope this course has been helpful. If it has, I would so appreciate you're leaving a good review because that helps me so much. Also, please do look at my other courses. I have a variety on storytelling. You can also find me on YouTube. I have two YouTube channels. One is Barbara, the other is words with Barbara. So you can look up either one of those. I'm also on Instagram, so I hope you will connect with me over those things. Please do leave comments and let me know if there are other courses that you're interested in. That would be wonderful because I do read them and I'm delighted to make courses that you are wanting help in. Otherwise, I thank you very much for watching. I hope you have a wonderful day and I wish you best of luck with your writing. 12. Next Steps: Well, there you have it. I hope this workshop has been helpful for you. It is a classic that goes back a ways for me and has been taken by so many people. It's such a joy to bring it to you. Definitely, definitely go through the exercises, work through them and I cannot stress enough. Don't go with your first ideas when you're developing your imagery, you're similes your metaphors work through numerous ideas because your first ideas are very often a lot of people's first ideas. So don't go with your first idea is you want to find that fruit that's at the top of the tree, not the low lying fruit everyone else can grasp. I am so excited for you to watch this if you enjoyed this course and you're looking for more on developing that voice, I have an authorial voice workshop, which I also recommend. That workshop in this workshop worked very nicely together. This workshop, as you now know, is all about writing beautiful imagery and images with simile metaphor. The authorial voice workshop is all about you developing your unique voice as a writer, which would then influence the kinds of similes and metaphors that you would write. That comes with a series of exercises you do. That you walk, go through and you find what your voice, it will walk you through building. I can do this exercise now, do this, now do this, then do this. Sort of walked through and at the end you come out with something that's uniquely yours. So I love that one too. I highly recommend it. I thank you so much for watching this and for being a part of this writing community. If you liked this course, please leave a review. It helps so much. There are instructions on how you can leave a review below this video. So I hope you'll take a moment to do that. It means so much to me and it helps other people find these courses. Again. Thank you for watching. I'm so excited. I can't wait to see what you create.