Workshop: Discover
Words That Sing
“Metaphors are the gate-crashers of the spirituality static quo.” Joy Sawyer
Metaphors are meant to help us see life through
a fresh perspective, both verbally and visually. When they tap into theme and
character and setting and atmosphere they have the ability to gate-crash
through our pre-conceived clichéd views. Even clichés were at one time a fresh
perspective—so innovative in fact that they eventually became overused.
And we don’t need to jettison familiar images.
In fact metaphors often work better through familiarity but need to be slightly
angled. Sometimes the image must loom large in order to crash through numbed
thinking. Other times it only needs to be a soft reflection that catches us up
enough to pause and take a deeper look.
Waiting For Midnight, by Merrie
Destefano, is a brief collection of short stories and flash fiction that
highlights the power of image and metaphor and theme in unexpected ways. By
altering the anticipated viewpoint character or the setting we step into the
story one side up, but come out the other end as if we were in house of mirrors.
For example, in her flash fiction piece Breathtaking we immediately
identify with the character’s desperate struggle to simply take a breath—to
fill out the form—to remain calm instead of anxious in the emergency room—to
remember. How many other images of trying to simply breathe pass through our
imagination as we struggle along with this person wondering what is really
causing his anguish. And then the mirror metaphor shifts.
“No. Not poison. My sweat on the floor, my blood, my skin. It was
my own
designer
disease, all brand new and deadly—
And,
unfortunately, highly contagious.”
Action Steps:
1. What was the first
thought/word/image/or emotion that struck you?
2. Take a brief scene
from your novel, either in dialogue, or internal monologue, and twist the end
into something opposite.
3. What impact would
that have on your character’s situation emotionally, spiritually, or mentally?
4. Even if you cannot
use the shock difference at this moment, is there a way you can introduce the
possibility of another outcome?
Share: Did your opposite effect turn into humor
or shock?
Read deep, marcy
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