There's a part in my short story that's really bugging me. The sentence is, "I was as happy as ever." It seems too simple and its driving me CRAZY. Does anybody have any good similes for happiness?
Well, there's joyful, ecstatic, cheerful, glad, blissful, and contented, but it really depends on whether or not its a dialogue or not.
I take it you are looking for similes, not synonyms. Happy as a clam is one cliche simile. Happy as a pig in sh*t is another, as is pleased as punch. If you want a simile that isn't a cliche, you should come up with yourself, and consider connecting it with something in your story. As happy as a day with Julia would convey joy and at the same time reveal the character's feelings toward Julia.
You could always go for a humorous simile, along the lines of: - As happy as a mosquito in a nudist colony. - As happy as a kitten in a yarn shop. Especially if it's a bit rude (and not very PC): - As happy as a bishop in a boys' school.
As happy as Michael Jackson at a boy's slumber party. I love Michael Jackson, btw. You can also show that she is happy rather than tell us. An orange-slice smile brightened her face like one of those little smiley faces baring all its teeth. She twirled around and her heart sang a joyful song. The sun shined brightly as she skipped home. Sometimes writing a few sentences is the only way to really show how happy someone is.
I think the sentence itself, "I was as happy as ever" sounds funny because there should be more to it. Like for example, "I was as happy as I ever had been." However that is wordy. Also the tense, is this a thought, dialog, or narrative summery? If it is written in the first person, it is more like narrative summery in the first person. It seems like this could be done out in thought form, "I am happier than ever before." "The happiness tingled through me from head to toe like a jolt lightening" (second one is somewhere between first person thoughts and narrative, yet still descriptive. You could also re-word it like: I am more happy now, than ever before. I was the happiest I've ever been. But, like cog said, it is better to make it applicable to your character's situation, then try to come up with something to avoid sounding cliche.
One point that seems to be orbiting this discussion, without having yet been explicitly said, is that the word as does not automatically mean you are dealing with a simile.
