In the last piece of flash fiction, I used the above imagery – a metaphor – that prompted the following comment from Oatmeal Girl:
“I could hate you for this.
I was going to say I could hate you for thinking of it before I did. Except I wouldn’t have thought of it. And you did.â€
I take this as a great compliment because I have, from time to time, come across metaphors used by other writers, which elicited the same reaction in me. I thought it might be time to write a post on metaphor.
One of the most dangerous and sublime elements of writing, whether in poetry or prose, is imagery. I use the word in its traditional sense – any type of descriptive writing that appeals to one or more senses of the reader. Most often we understand this as language that creates strong visual images in the mind of the reader, but it can equally be language that triggers taste, touch or smell echoes for the reader as well.
The simplest form of imagery is straightforward descriptive writing, of course.
She had red hair and freckles.
The second type of imagery is the use of simile: to compare something to something else in order to create a richer image in the mind of the reader. If the description uses ‘like’ or ‘as’, it’s a simile.:
The tendrils of her hair framed her face like licking flames, and freckles lay on her cheeks like coffee-coloured confetti.
The third and – some argue – the most sophisticated form of imagery is metaphor. Instead of asking the reader to consider that something is LIKE something else, it proposes that it IS that other thing:
The tendrils of her flaming hair licked at her confetti-strewn cheeks.
Metaphor is both powerful and dangerous. It can bring an image vividly to the mind of the reader or can make the description comic and ridiculous. The term ‘purple prose’ arose from the misuse or overuse of metaphor. I must admit that, reading that last example of metaphor, it’s pretty damn purple.
The trick is to stretch the reader’s imagination enough, but not too much and this is a skill that is never fully mastered, no matter how long you have been writing. Of course, there are some guidelines: certain genres accommodate metaphor better than others. It’s not appropriate in journalistic writing, but to assume that prose has to be poetic in order to use it is also a mistake. Noir is famous for its stark, unapologetic and almost brutal use of metaphor. ‘The bloody gash of her painted lips glinted under the streetlamp.’
Of all the prose genres that use metaphor liberally, erotica might very well be the one where it can either take the reader to the edge of orgasm, metaphorically speaking, or kick them out of the ballpark.
Erotica, for instance, has been ridiculed for its use of metaphor to describe genitalia: his manly staff, her secret swollen flower, his stony face, her bee stung lips, etc. It is my opinion that good erotica should never, ever use metaphor to describe the organ itself. However, it is an extremely good device to use to describe what that organ is doing.
Why not use metaphor to describe our parts? After all, might it not bring some freshness to the writing? Well, it might. But the problem is that we’ve spent the last 2,000 years avoiding the word cock and cunt and, consequently, almost any metaphor you can think of has not only been used, but used so often it has become cliché. For the very reason that we’ve been shy about calling parts by their proper terms, it’s probably safest to just call a spade a spade, or a pussy a pussy.
However, we have a very thorny dilemma in erotica: detailed and sexually explicit passages are a convention of the genre. As writers, we are tasked with writing, over and over, an act that is extremely familiar to the vast majority of our readers; most of them have had sex. It’s not like describing a killing in a murder mystery – something that is, hopefully, very unfamiliar to the reader. So metaphor can play an important part in not only presenting something familiar in a vivid way, but also by asking the reader to see an everyday act from a new angle. Moreover, the careful and clever use of metaphor can help bind emotional auras to the act and therefore give it context.
“Fiercely hot, impossibly tight – she had the angriest cunt I’d ever been in.â€
This doesn’t just describe the feeling of penetration; it links the act to the attendant psychic tone of the scene.
Describing orgasms is famously problematic. For one thing, the sensation of orgasm is so overwhelming, it’s extremely hard to analyze adequately enough to metaphorize. And annoyingly, it’s very much like pain. You remember that the event was painful or pleasurable, but the details of it are too squirmy to store well in the memory. The best I can suggest is that you masturbate ad nauseum and try to pay attention as best you can.
Another problem with orgasm description comes from the infuriating reality that it is quite different for males and females. Sadly, writers often forget this. My advice is to have lengthy, alcohol-laden discussions with a member of the opposite sex, before you attempt to describe an orgasmic POV corresponding to the other gender. It is also worth mentioning that many women feel that clitoral, vaginal and g-spot generated orgasms feel different, as do orgasms as a result of anal sex. Men have told me that there are subtle differences in the orgasms generated by hand, mouth and penetration. Whether the cause of these differences is physiological or psychological doesn’t really matter. As an erotica writer, you are expected to do your research.
Orgasms for women have been so often described as wave-like, it has become almost unforgivable to repeat this particular metaphor. I am guilty of this faux pas myself. However, you can get yourself into terrible trouble if you try too hard to find new and fresh ways of describing it. I offer you one of my own, rather embarrassing attempts:
My deepest apologies for that one.
The more I write orgasms, the more I think that it is best to attempt to trigger the reader’s own personal recollections of that sensation, and stick to describing the physical results of it instead: the muscle spasms, the mental silence, the way breathing changes, the flush of skin, etc. I’m not suggesting you should do the same; I’m just explaining the conclusions I’ve come to.
All this aside, I think that erotica is, at its very best, an imagery-heavy genre. And the judicious and creative use of metaphor can turn a perfectly quotidian sexual encounter into something really worth reading and cherishing.
Beyond diligent research, there are a couple of other things that I believe can help you with creating good metaphors:
1. The very best book I’ve ever read on the subject is Seven Types of Ambiguity, by William Empson. It isn’t an easy read but well worth the effort. Empson considered ‘ambiguity’ as “alternative views [that] might be taken without sheer misreading.†He believed that use of imagery to add ‘ambiguity’ to text made the experience both deeper and wider. Interestingly it also gathered some chilling fans; James Jesus Angleton, one time head of the CIA, considered it something of a bible and used it to tease out hidden and ambiguous information he collected through espionage. This has a lot to do with Empson’s belief that it was possible to tease out the hidden truth of an author by analyzing his use of metaphor. Luckily, since it was written in 1930, it is now available free for download at the Internet Archive.
2. Tell it to an alien. One way I come up with metaphors is by imagining I’m trying to explain something to an alien. It forces me to come at a description of the thing from a lot of obtuse angles. Don’t use a metaphor you’ve read before. Make sure the alien remember that you’re special and individual by choosing a fresh one.
3. Read writers who use metaphor well. I don’t have a lot of links on hand at present. However, Penny Goring’s “Small is the New Big,†is probably the most breathtaking radical use of metaphor I’ve come across in a very long while. Obviously this is not erotica, but I’d ask you to read it, paying special attention to both the freshness and the shocking gut-level familiarity of her use of metaphor. Her writing is rich, dense and very poetic. Don’t go worrying about whether you understand what is going on. Trust your instincts and let the language speak to your gut; you’ll ‘get’ it. Read it here.
For me, one of the hallmarks of great use of metaphor is the meaning-vertigo that it can induce. That sense that perhaps you don’t know what the writer is talking about while, at the same time, your skin, your intestines, and your bones know it perfectly well. This coaxes the reader to commit to the text, to have faith in the writer, and to experience the story on something deeper than just a factual or intellectual level.