A good simile is like chocolate syrup on a bowl of ice cream, the perfect addition to a story that makes it all the more delicious and vivid.
But a bad simile is like a bottle of ketchup squirted on top of your sundae, wrecking an otherwise potentially-tasty story.
The question then is, what’s the difference between them and how do you write GOOD similes?
During the last stream, we did an exercise where we went over good vs. bad similes, and then came up with some of our own.
You can watch a recap of the exercise here,
or scroll down to read what we came up with.
A GOOD SIMILE…
1) Helps to SHOW not TELL
– “She was surprised in a bad way” vs.
– “She felt like an ax had been thrust into her back.”2) Can be used to EMPHASIZE
– “The water quenched his thirst” vs.
– “He lapped up the water like a rabid dog, each swallow making him feel like he was being reborn into the world.”3) Can make a description more CLEAR
– “She smiled” vs.
– “A mischievous grin spread across her face like a little girl who’d just tricked her parents.”A BAD SIMILE IS…
(Thanks to this site for the simile examples!)1) Redundant
– The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object.
– The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.2) A poor comparison
– Her lips were red and full, like tubes of blood drawn by an inattentive phlebotomist.
(Takes the reader out of the story.)– The sunset displayed rich, spectacular hues like a .jpeg file at 10 percent cyan, 10 percent magenta, 60 percent yellow and 10 percent black.
(Completely out of tone with the rest of the story.)– It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.
(Too excessive!)3) A cliche
– “Dead as a doornail.”
– “Good as gold.”
– “Feel like a million bucks.”4) Overused
– Her eyes were shimmering like the moon reflecting in the pool of a cave. Her cheeks reddened like the rising sun across the desert. Her breath turned heavy, as if terrified. And yet she moved closer, like a curious cat.
(One of the above may be fine, but four is too much.)
After going over good vs. bad similes, I asked chat to suggest some things that we would describe using our own original similes. Here’s the five things that voted on: a pickle, Tom Hanks, hot chcoolate, an abandoned mall, and of course, a never ending butt.
Here’s some highlights of the similes we came up with:
1. A pickle
– The pickle’s skin was bumpy yet smooth, like a wet frog caught in the creek.
– I cracked into the pickle, snapping it in my mouth like a long, sinewy piece of beef jerky. The sour taste filled my mouth, along with crunchy bits of salt.
– The brine of the pickle tasted like a day at the beach.2. Tom Hanks
– As far as his acting is concerned, Tom Hanks is like our modern-day Cary Grant.
– The stream of water was weak and subdued like Tom Hank’s bladder infection
– I want someone to look at me the way Tom Hanks looks at Wilson.3. Hot chocolate
– The hot chocolate warmed my soul like a snuggle with Mom
– I stared down into my cup of hot cocoa. Its surface shimmered like the sky, marshmallows floating about listlessly like fluffy clouds.
– He seemed a bit incomplete, like a hot chocolate missing its marshmallows.4. A closed shopping mall
– The air in the closed shopping mall was heavy, as if the dead dreams of the store owners whose shops had gone out of business were lingering all around me.
– The shopping mall was forgotten, like a teenager’s first teddy bear left alone in the attic.
– The abandoned mall was as decrepit as the ruins of an ancient temple.5. A never ending butt
– Her butt was like a planet, complete with its own gravitational pull. And of course I was not immune to it.
– His butt was every bit as unending as the nagging that flowed from its owner.
– Her butt was like a black hole, complete with its own gravitational pull. And I was in past its event horizon.
After that, chat voted that we write this prompt created by ManectricBound: A necromancer, instead of building an undead army, decides to use the undead to solve all of the world’s problems.
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 7:30pm-11:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Scott Wilson is the author of the novel Metl: The ANGEL Weapon,
forthcoming March 2019.
Featured image: Pakutaso