A Peek Into Metaphors

First, What Is A Metaphor?

Metaphors are phrases that mean something. It’s a figure of speech, meant to make you think about one thing with another. Like saying someone has a heart of gold! They don’t literally have a heart of gold, but you’re implying that they’re a good person.

Metaphors are used frequently in writing. You’ve probably even used metaphors in your day to day talks with friends. Everyone knows what a metaphor is! Metaphors can also help you figure out writing as well.

Ways To Think About Writing

Within “Ten Ways To Think About Writing”, by Shelley Reid, she uses metaphors to explain how we as writers should understand writing. Writing can be undeniably hard, Reid knows this, so within her ten ways to think about it, she uses metaphors to push her thoughts on writing. From not repeating yourself, to making sure you explain your ideas, there are many things to take into account.

There are challenges that we as writers all face, but these ways to make things a bit more clearer. The “Show and Telepath” is one of the more interesting ways to think about because in a lot of cases, a lot of people tend to forget to mention what exactly they’re writing about. Me included! The metaphor itself is comparing that not everyone can read your mind and that’s okay! You may know what you’re talking about, but not everyone else can decipher what you’re trying to explain.

Reid’s “The Little Green Ball And Some People” as well is a very important concept. It hinges on doing details and how to do them right. You might describe that you have a “little green ball” and have this image in your head, but everyone might have a different idea of small and what shade of green it is. The amount of detail can be crucial to a story or an argument because without it, not everyone is going to get the big picture.

I believe that this is one of the important ways to think about writing, and Reid describes it using “Fruit Jell-O”. She’s comparing arguments and examples to a gelatin, and how much fruit is in it. Like how much examples do you need to put into your paper? You can flood your paper with examples if you’re not careful like you can flood your Jell-O with too much fruit. There needs to be a balance of what you write and the examples you put in to support it!

The way Reid uses these kind of metaphors is really interesting and honestly really invigorating when it comes to understanding writing. Writing as a whole is something that can’t be completely done right or wrong but with how students are taught it, using metaphors to make sure certain concepts are understood are really clever. It gives a new way to look at things and gives way more for students to think about when they go and try to write anything.