A metaphor can resonate far beyond its original invocation; you can thread a metaphor all the way through a story if you want to. An insistent rain might fall through a story about a failed businesswoman trying to get back on her feet. This kind of recurring imagery is a story’s central metaphor. For example, you could fashion a story around an ice-climbing expedition, using it to mirror and vivify the up-and-down emotions that the climber is experiencing in his crumbling marriage. Michelangelo’s Pieta could be the central metaphor in a story about a woman artist tending her own dying son.

Writers often discover central metaphors by accident. A friend might exclaim, “I love the kite-flying as a metaphor for Kate’s marriage,” leaving us to nod wisely while secretly wondering how we ever missed it. Much of our writing comes from the subconscious, and we are all guided by our own personal metaphors, which is why some authors seem to write the same novels over and over. Make yourself aware of your own recurring metaphors, and be careful not to let them become stale.

Whether you discover a central metaphor by accident, or deliberately set out to create one, make sure to weave it subtly into the body of the story, and keep it free of cliché. For example, a five-page story about a young girl’s coming of age may be smothered by too many images of springtime, making a simple story seem overblown and melodramatic: blooming flowers, blooming girl. Just because you find some recurring images while rereading a first draft does not mean you are obliged to turn those images into a central metaphor.

(Monica Wood, Description. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1995.  14-5)

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