by Sarah Torribio

Created on: January 12, 2009   Last Updated: March 31, 2009

Metaphors are the stuff of which great writing is made. Let's say you are writing about the object of your affection. To you, he or she is the loveliest person you have ever encountered. But how do you describe this so that the reader is also touched by the beauty that inspires you?

You could say, "Well, he is about six feet tall and has blonde hair and blue eyes." But this is not poetry. It is prose. What's more, it's not interesting-it doesn't describe the feelings roused in you by this person. There are countless people in the world who are six feet tall with blonde hair and blue eyes.

This is where metaphor comes in. A metaphor is a comparison between one object and another. You take the unfamiliar, a subject that the reader has never encountered, and illuminate it using the familiar. A metaphor can also set the tone. According to Jacob Drachler and Virginia Terris in their book "Many Worlds of Poetry, tone in poetry comprises "the attitudes of the poet toward his subject and toward his audience, as they can be inferred from the poem." Does this person have a pure and inspiring kind of beauty, or is it a hypnotic kind of beauty, drawing you into an ultimately malevolent obsession?

A simile is a metaphor that uses comparative words such as like or as. Let's try out some similes showcasing two different tones or attitudes toward a handsome blonde man:

"You are like gold, like a blonde tapestry spun from the sun."

"You are like gold stolen from a king's treasury, the kind that carries a fatal curse."

These are both interesting metaphors, creating pictures for the reader. No one has seen the writer's sweetheart, but we have all seen something made of gold, a tapestry and the sun. Thus, the metaphor denotes a shining, rare and regal kind of beauty. We have also all seen pictures of the riches of an ancient tomb, and heard tales of curses being put on such objects. Your metaphor might be even stronger, more daring, if you go ahead and remove the comparative words.

"You are golden, a blonde tapestry spun from the sun."

"You are gold stolen from a king's treasury, the kind that carries a fatal curse."

When you've hit this kind of territory, you are in the realm of imagination, using concrete but unexpected details to draw the reader in.

CLICHE-BUSTING

Many metaphors are part of our common lexicon. They've become pick-up lines, clichs, lines in pop songs.

An example of this would be: "Your eyes are like two deep pools.

Try to find another metaphor, or twist this one to become

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