Metaphor

So, I was going to write this long post comparing writing a novel to a love affair, but I was having some trouble elucidating some of my points, so I turned to KB to bounce ideas off. After discussing it, I had to discard it as an untenable metaphor. It wasn't something I could make make sense to someone else. Not coherently, not elegantly, despite it being a very simple idea to me.

Metaphor is one of my favorite tools, so it saddened me to not be able to make this one work for me. But one of the most important aspects of metaphor is to know when to stop, know when pushing it farther will make it all fall apart.

Some metaphors are easy cultural shortcuts, like the apple not falling far from the tree as reference to heredity. But the stronger ones, that will stick with people after they finish reading, are always going to be the ones that don't take the shortcuts.

We remember freshly blazed trails. Well-worn footpaths require something fresh to stick out. Which, in terms of metaphor, does not mean Newton jokes.