Category Archives: metaphors

Encourage complex thinking in little kids’ writing

Posted on September 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

When children start to write sentences, teachers and workbooks encourage simple sentences (sentences with one complete subject and one complete predicate).  Such a sentence might be “I am seven years old” or “My dog had pups yesterday.”

As students progress, teachers encourage compound sentences (two simple sentences connected with a FANBOYS—for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so—conjunction).  Such sentences might be “I am seven years old but I can ride a bike” or “My dog had pups yesterday and I can name one.”

As students progress to a greater age, and in theory, to more complex thinking, teachers encourage complex sentences (two simple sentences connected in such a way that one sentence is clearly more important).  Such sentences could be “I am seven years old although I look older” or “My dog had pups yesterday while I slept.”

Teaching sentences this way presupposes that little children think in simple sentences, then gradually grow into thinking in compound sentences, and then as they mature more, think in complex sentences.

The problem is, this pairing of sentence types to maturity is a false correlation.  Have you ever listened to four- and five-year-olds speak?  “I want five candies because Johnny has five candies” (complex sentence).  “For Halloween, I want to be a princess with a long pink dress and a sparkly crown in my hair and maybe ballerina slippers” (simple sentence).  “She pushed me into the snow with a real hard push, the kind of push of a football player mad at the guy carrying the football.” (simple sentence)

These sentences in the previous paragraph contain complex thoughts (cause and effect, layered details, and a metaphor).  Yet only the first sentence is a complex sentence, and of the three, it is the least complex in thought.  The other two show far more complexity of thought, yet they are simple sentences.

The complexity of these sentences can be shown by boldfacing the simple subject and predicate, and by stacking the dependent ideas  above (if they are said first) and below (if they are said after the subject and predicate).  Notice how the two simple sentences show more layers (more complexity of thought) than the complex sentence.

I want five candies

because Johnny has five candies.

 

For Halloween

I want to be a princess

with a long pink dress

and a sparkly crown

in my hair

and maybe ballerina slippers

 

She pushed me

into the snow

with a real hard push

the kind of push

of a football player

mad

at the guy

carrying the football

 

My point:  Little children speak with complex ideas.  Encourage them to write with complex ideas too.

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Posted in complex sentence, compound sentence, expressing thoughts, FANBOYS, how to teach writing, metaphors, sentence structure, simple sentence, teaching writing

Coherence, the most important element in writing

Posted on December 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

Writing well requires following certain steps in sequence:

  • Narrowing your topic
  • Organizing your information, including writing an overarching topic sentence or thesis and subtopic sentences or plot lines
  • Writing a first draft
  • Revising, revising, revising
  • Editing

Once your first draft is complete, revising becomes most important.  So many tasks comprise revising—checking for complete sentences, tightening wordiness, analyzing ideas for logic, honing vocabulary, fixing grammar errors, adding figures of speech and style.  Students wonder where to begin.

Begin with coherence, the most important element of writing.  Coherence means making sure all your sentences make sense and flow from one to another.  Coherence means making sure your readers understand what you mean—easily, at first read, without an interpreter.

How do you do that?  Some ways include:

  • Make sure every sentence in the body paragraphs supports the thesis. If you use an anecdote, make sure it is an example of the ideas in the thesis.  If you use a simile or metaphor, make sure it fits with the topic.  If the topic is igneous rock, for example, the simile “as hot as the steam from a steam boat” is off topic, whereas “as hot as a lava lake” is on topic.
  • If you use numbers (three kinds of rocks, five members of my family, one favorite memory), check that you have named all the numbers and no more.
  • Use logical transitions. “Because” means something causes something else.  Make sure you have named a cause and an effect if you use “because.”  “Finally” means the last one in a series or the last point.  If you have only two or three points, you shouldn’t use “finally.” You should use “secondly,” or “next,” or “third.”
  • If you use a pronoun, make sure you have named the noun the pronoun refers back to. And make sure you have named that noun before you use the pronoun (not “When she fell, Mary broke her arm,” but “When Mary fell, she broke her arm.”  If you use “this,” make sure your reader can know in a word or phrase what “this” refers to.  If “this” is vague or complicated, add a noun after “this” (this situation, this erosion, this loss of interest).  If you have two women talking, make sure if you use “she,” the reader knows which one you are referring to.  Otherwise, use her name or title or position.
  • Check that your sentences are complete thoughts–not fragments or run-ons.  Make sure your complex sentences contain no more than two dependent clauses so readers needn’t hold multiple ideas in their minds at once.  Check that your sentences vary in length, with most more than ten and fewer than 20 words.
  • Change your weak, vapid verbs to active, dynamic verbs.  Eliminate the verb “to be” and passive voice verbs.

If what you write lacks coherence, no matter how specific the vocabulary, no matter how beautiful the description, no matter how lofty your aim, your writing will flop.  Your writing must make sense to a reader without you standing at her elbow explaining, “Well, what I mean is. . .”

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Posted in "to be", active verbs, because, clarity, coherence, complex sentence, English Writing Instruction, flow, good writing v. bad writing, metaphors, number of words per sentence, organizing information, passive verbs, pronouns, readability, revising first drafts, run-ons, similes, thesis, Transitions, word choice

George Orwell’s six rules of writing

Posted on April 18, 2020 | Leave a comment

George Orwell, author of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, published an essay in 1946 called “Politics and the English Language.”  In it he offers six rules for better writing.  I reproduce them here in Orwell’s own words.

1.  Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2.  Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3.  If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4.  Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5.  Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6.  Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

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Posted in active verbs, Figures of speech, George Orwell's six rules of writing, metaphors, passive verbs, similes

Add these two mysteries to your reading bucket list

Posted on August 11, 2019 | 1 comment

As a tutor, one way I help students is to read the books they are required to read in school.  Then we discuss and write about those books.  The student learns more about the books this way, I can develop writing topics for my students, and I can analyze gems to help me be a better writer.  Win–win–win.

Detective with a magnifying glass inspecting a newspaper.During the past week to help an eighth grader, I reread The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie.  In 2013 the Crime Writers’ Association in Britain named it the best crime novel ever, in part because it “contains one of the most celebrated plot twists in crime writing history.”  A similar group in the US named it number 13.

At the same time, for my own reading pleasure, I reread The Big Sleep  by Raymond Chandler.  In 1999, it was voted 96th of Le Monde‘s “100 Books of the Century.” It was included in Time magazine’s “List of the 100 Best Novels” in 2005.

I like both books, but for different reasons.

I reread the Christie book to find out how she was able to hide the identity of the murderer until the last pages while having that character front and center throughout the telling of the story.  She gives subtle clues but on the whole stuns readers with the book’s ending.  Christie said she wrote this book to see if she could succeed at this twist in a plot line.  She did, brilliantly, though her characters, except for her debuting detective, Hercule Poirot, are easily forgotten.

I reread the Chandler book not remembering who the murderer is or even caring.  I read to enjoy the author’s style.  Detective Philip Marlow’s character, especially his sense of humor, is developed deliciously.  The author’s descriptions of settings are meticulous, each seeming to be a metaphor of the characters who inhabit them.  Tiny details like the doctor writing on a pad with attached carbon paper date the story, while other details like “a smile as wide as Wilshire Boulevard” anchor the story in Los Angeles.

Writers can learn from both authors.

From Christie we can learn how to plot a novel, especially a crime mystery.  We can learn to include light-heartedness—in the form of the narrator’s chatty sister, Caroline—in what otherwise is a humorless story.  We can learn that pivotal details must seem organic to the story, not pulled out of a magician’s hat, unlike the explanation for who made a crucial phone call to the doctor on the night of the murder.

From Chandler we can learn how to develop memorable, quirky characters.  We can learn how to write metaphors and similes which reveal character but which are also in keeping with the personality of the person thinking them.  We can learn to use witty, flirting dialog.  We can learn how to make a setting—in this case 1930s LA—almost a character.

Since Chandler’s novels rely on sex in their plots and in their chauvinistic development of women characters, his books might not be suitable for eighth graders.  Christie’s, on the other hand, are suitable for almost all ages.  If you have a bucket list of books to read—for pleasure or to hone your craft—add The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and The Big Sleep to the top.  You will thank me.

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Posted in adding details, Agatha Christie, details in writing, dialog in writing, fiction writing, Hercule Poirot, Including details in writing, metaphors, mystery genre, Philip Marlow, Raymond Chandler, similes, writing tips

Do you use metaphors? How about similes?

Posted on April 8, 2018 | Leave a comment

I don’t use metaphors or similes when I write fiction.  I’ve been aware of this for a couple of years, and so made a resolution to incorporate more metaphors and similes into my writing, especially my fiction writing.  But I have had little success.

Now I know why.

When I insert a metaphor or simile into narration, it reminds readers that an author is writing what they are reading.  A metaphor or simile draws readers away from the story line to consider a comparison.  A metaphor or simile interrupts the flow of writing and takes readers out of the story to consider the meaning of or the aptness of the figure of speech.

And I don’t want that.What I want, as an author, is for my readers to become “one” with my story, to find my story so real, so compelling, that they “live” in the story, unaware of the real world around them.  Metaphors and similes force the reader to leave the story—momentarily, true—and enter the real world to think about the figure of speech.  The flow is broken.

Two exceptions exist. One is that it is okay to include a metaphor or simile in either the spoken words of a character or in his or her thoughts.  Once your smile to me was wine, a character could think as she looks across the table to her long-time husband.  Or a mother beset with children’s demands, a ringing phone, and a dog’s whine could say, “My life is like a soap opera.”  In these situations—thinking and speaking—metaphors and similes still interrupt the flow of the story if the reader needs to think about the comparisons.  But they can seem organic if a character uses them.

Another exception is when the figure of speech is a cliché that is readily understood and needs no consideration.  When a character says, “That water is as cold as ice,” or when another character thinks, I smell a rat, we needn’t think about the comparison because we have heard it many times before and readily understand it.

Of course some writers do use metaphors and similes successfully, especially when a story is told in the first person.  If you have read any of Raymond Chandler’s stories about his famous detective, Philip Marlowe, you have encountered hundreds of figures of speech because the character of Marlow thinks in similes and metaphors.  Those stories are told in first person point of view, so the figures of speech form part of the personality of the narrator.

How about you?  Do you use similes and metaphors?  Do you agree with me that these figures of speech interrupt the flow of narration?

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Posted in Figures of speech, flow, metaphors, similes