Many metaphors don't go to such abstract lengths. In the story, "Long Walk to Forever," Newt repeats the phrase "though leaves, over bridges." Seamless and natural to the story. One would definitely encounter leaves and bridges on a long walk through a park in the fall. And the concept of leaves and bridges is pretty concrete, so the metaphors feels less like metaphors.
"When our friendship was a tent, I sought to set in its place a mansion made of diamond, but the tempest of my words set our tent to flight and now it flows in the emptiness. And moving against the common way, in the way that it had moved, it whirls it the shape of what it drove away, but it never takes the form, nor carries back our dwelling from afar. Therefore, the heat is not around us, and the wind is naught but cold, and the curtains cannot come that they might warm us." Edit: Changed warmth to heat. Revision: "When our friendship was a tent, I sought to set in its place a mansion made of diamond, but the tempest of my words set our tent to flight and now it flows in the emptiness. And moving against the common way, in the way that it had moved, it whirls in shape like what it drove away. But it never takes the form, nor carries back our dwelling from afar. So the heat is not around us, and the wind is naught but cold, and the curtains cannot come that they might warm us."
When our friendship was a tent, I sought to change our curtains into diamond, and to expand our dwelling, that we might look upon the walls of a mansion. But by the tempest of my words it soared into the distance and the wind now flows in the emptiness. Having moved against the common way, against that way it moves. It whirls in the shape of what was there, but never takes its form, nor carries back our dwelling from afar. So the heat is not around us, and the wind is naught but cold, and the curtains cannot come that they might warm us.
This to me is a definition of purple prose. Mansions made of diamonds, winds of my words, all a bit meaningless if you're trying to characterise a relationship. It's a no-no for me, I'm afraid. Apart from that, I think you went way too abstract here (in both examples), the metaphor is loose and too vague. It also doesn't evoke much emotion and the word 'tent' repeats way too often. I would go back to the drawing board on this one. I hope that helps!
Yes, I agree with all of this. It'll be a large step forward when you can see just how purple this prose really is.
I do feel that some clarity is called for in the tent versus the diamond mansion. As I see it, a tent is flimsy, temporary, casual, whimsical. It's not a permanent, planned formal structure. But you still might get tremendous enjoyment from it. So a couple of friends that come together once in a while, informally and casually, without talking about big deep issues, could have a friendship like a tent. It brings you together, shelters you, makes you a unit, but very temporarily. And you might value it greatly and get tremendous enjoyment from it, like a tent. And someone who insists that they want something deeper, more formal, more planned, might be trying to transform that tent into a house. If you have a friend that you go drinking with after games in your corporate baseball league, and then you pressure him to become your child's godfather and start coming to family dinners and showing up at that child's every birthday, that might fit the analogy. Except for the diamonds. I'm just not getting the diamonds. And I'm not sure that I'm getting the wind, either. Tent versus house, I can get, but I can't get anything out of the wind. If you used wind to build a house, that could work, but you don't.
