Overview: Last week’s masterclass focused on metaphor as a tool to crystallize emotion. This recap distills actionable takeaways: how to craft fresh metaphors, avoid clichés, and use extended metaphor to unify narrative themes.
Principles shared
1) Use specificity: concrete sensory details make metaphors feel earned. 2) Keep metaphors consistent to avoid confusing imagery. 3) Risk subtlety rather than hammering metaphors into readers’ heads.
“A good metaphor reveals — it doesn’t just label.”
Exercises from the class
- Take a mundane object and produce five metaphors tying it to an emotion.
- Rewrite a clichéd metaphor into a specific, scene-grounded image.
- Write a short scene using an extended metaphor woven through action and dialogue.
Notable examples
Instructors highlighted passages from contemporary fiction that employ metaphor sparingly but effectively, emphasizing how a single recurring image can unify a narrative’s emotional architecture.
Final notes
Metaphor should act like a lens: clarifying, focusing, and sometimes reframing emotion. Mastering it requires reading, practice, and willingness to discard the first neat comparison in favor of something earned by the scene.
