Is it still a secret wish if everyone knows it? My secret wish is to be an English teacher.
I love good metaphors and I hate that they teach metaphors in school with such boring examples as "the clouds are pillows." They (you know who They are, don't you?) should use passages like the ones I collect. Like this one, from Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos. Teens would get it:
"The kiss started out the way she wanted--aggressive, muscular, businesslike; but he turned it into something else--a beach vacation, a Mediterranean cruise--and made it last much longer than she'd intended."
I like this one too, from A Man Without A Country by Kurt Vonnegut:
"Then I go outside and there is a mailbox. And I feed the pages [of my manuscript] to the giant blue bullfrog. And it says, "Ribbit." p61
4 comments:
Great examples!
ERUDITE!!!!
Those kids must be in high school or something by now. Yikes!
Ha! Just saw a book in Borders today called "Never Metaphor I Didn't Like".
Sure, go ahead and steal my blogpost idea and publish it as a crappy book with an even lamer pun for a title than I used!
not sure, but it might be your lucky day---you seem like a pretty savvy reader--i like your book wish list, and i LOVE that line you quoted from BROKEN FOR YOU. I'm Stephanie Kallos's editor and I'd be happy to send you a copy of her brand new novel SING THEM HOME, which I can promise you is chock full of metaphors and images and characters that will crawl under your skin and stay put. (and i mean this in a good way :)
Let me know if you'd like me to send it your way, otherwise, just add it to your wish list and get a copy when you can. It's a great read!
All best,
Lauren Wein
Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
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