Shall I Compare thee to a. . . Wait, What?

The art of creating a great simile/ metaphor

By definition, a simile is comparing two decidedly unlike things whilst using the words “like” or “as.” To take an example from the eternally great playwright William Shakespeare, “My bounty is as boundless as the sea,/My love as deep (Romeo and Juliet 2.2).  A metaphor, as you probably know, is also the comparison of two unlike things, but you forgo the “like” or “as.” Here is an example from the same play: “But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?/
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun" (2.2).  The point of all this, then, is not to tell you what a metaphor/simile is. You are probably already aware of what they are.  So, it might be more helpful to mention what they are not.

 Metaphors/similes do not:

·         Compare two things that are alike. “Juliet is a girl” is not a profound comparison. It’s an observation

·         That being said, a metaphor/simile does not have to be profound; it can be silly.

Metaphor/simile should:

·         Illuminate something within the context of what you are writing. A misplaced comparison is just confusing.

Here is a list of the 19 funniest, not so effective, simile/metaphors (according to the internet):

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides
   gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like
   underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes
   just before it throws up.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was
   room-temperature Canadian beef.
5. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
6. McBride fell twelve stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag
   filled with vegetable soup.
7. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
8. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry
   them in hot grease.
9. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one
   that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
10. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil,
    this plan just might work.
11. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating
    for a while.
12. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but
    a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or
    something.
13. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg
    behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
14. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because
    of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a
    formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
15. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with
    power tools.
16. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a
    bowling ball wouldn’t.
17. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the
    grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left
    Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19
    p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
18. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as
    if she were a garbage truck backing up.
19. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

 Haley, West writing tutor