This document discusses metaphors and how they are used. A metaphor is a comparison between two unlike things that is not using "like" or "as", such as "A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running." The document provides examples of literary, hip-hop, cliche, and obscure metaphors. It encourages the reader to take common cliches and make them more creative or obscure. It also provides guidance on how to come up with original metaphors by starting with a target concept, considering different possibilities beyond surface comparisons, and letting your mind consider less obvious connections.

1. Metaphors

2. How do you describe this?

3. Comparison
The thing
I Want to
Describe
+
Something my
audience knows
about
=
A metaphor
or
simile
metaphors = simile (but it’s close enough)

4. Comparison
+
=
A hospital bed is a
parked taxi with
the meter running.
Groucho Marx
metaphors = simile (but it’s close enough)

5. Literary Metaphors
All the world’s a stage, and “Memories are bullets. Some “Love is a snowmobile racing
across the tundra and then
all the men and women whiz by and only spook you.
Others=tear you (but and lclose enough)y it flips over, pinning you
open it’s eave suddenl
merely players. They have
metaphors simile
underneath. At night, the ice
you in pieces.”
their exits and their
weasels come.”
― Richard Kadrey, Kil the
entrances.
― Matt Groening, The Big Book
Dead
Wil iam Shakespeare
of Hell: The Best of Life in Hell

6. Hip-hop Metaphors
"I come fresh like your "Throwing out the wicked like God
"My rhymes are like shot clocks,
did the devil,
breath after you brush,
interstate cops
funky like your grandpa's drawers,
wack Mc's metaphors = don't test me,it’s close enough) and blood clots,
simile (but
like that orange soda get we're in like that, you're dead like my point is your flow gets
crushed."
stopped."
Presley."
- Talib Kweli
- Fatlip
- Q-Tip

7. hungry
as a
horse
Cliche
I'm hungry as a
cannibal trapped
hungry
in a van
as a
metaphors = simile (but it’s close enough)
of cantaloupes.
- Earl Sweatshirt.
cetacean
Obscure

8. Your turn
fast
as
the wind
Cliche
fast
metaphors = simile (but it’s close enough)
as
sublimation
Obscure

9. Turn a Cliche
sweet as sugar
Serious as a heart attack
metaphors = simile (but it’s close enough)
Sweet like licorice, dangerous like
syphil is--Lauryn Hil

10. Turn a Cliche
easy as pie
slept like a log
metaphors = simile (but it’s close enough)
YOU?

11. How do I do this?
Start with your
target
metaphors = simile (but it’s close enough)
A cold morning

12. How do I do this?
COnsider the
possibilities
metaphors = simile (but it’s close enough)
Think about not only what is cold
but how you think about that cold

13. How do I do this?
Reject lameness
metaphors = simile (but it’s close enough)
Abandon cliches (ice, cucumber)

14. How do I do this?
let your mind go
sideways
metaphors = simile (but it’s close enough)
Cold = liquid hydrogen, Alaska, freezer
Cold = the grave, undertaker, corpse
Cold = kil er, Ted Bundy, Voldemort

15. How do I do this?
Your turn
metaphors = simile (but it’s close enough)
The dog is stupid.

16. Another Version
metaphors = simile (but it’s close enough)