As I prepare for a new semester, inspiring and prodding (okay, mostly kicking and dragging) young writers and writer-wannabes, this seemed appropriate to share.
From English teachers across the country, actual student metaphors:
Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thighmaster.
His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free
He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
She grew on him like she was a colony of E.Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
The plan was simple, kind of like my brother Joe, but unlike my brother Joe, this plan would work.
The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00pm instead of 7:30.
Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
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 6:36pm, traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19pm at a speed of 35mph.
They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.
Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it has rusted shut.
Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for awhile.
He was as lame as a duck. Not a metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a landmine or something.
The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one long slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
3 comments:
I about died laughing. Thank you!!
Yes,Carole is cool - and so is Wendy! Interesting that as time goes by I find out things I never knew about my own kids - burning Wendy's clothes?! I must have been gone or busy somewhere else. I never knew!!!Carole and Rebecca did a great service as Wendy was fashon-challenged as a child. Sample conversation with 5 year-old Wendy - "Your clothes don't match, Wendy. Plaids and flowers don't look alike." "But I like them and I'm going to wear them." And she did. from MOM
Oh my gosh. that was so funny.
Post a Comment