Is metaphor important or what? Not just in poetry or prose, but in the universe at large. Metaphor in the broadest possible sense, as in “Presenting one thing in terms of another”. The apple was the metaphor for Graviton falling on Newton’s head, concentric waves from the Broad Street pump were John Snow’s metaphor for the spread of cholera, and the tree is the metaphor for your social media circle of friends. When I say to my darling “My love for you is like…” my mind draws on 10 million years of hominid development to come up with something both non-trivial and appealing. Not easy at all! Is coming up with a good metaphor art or science? It feels like the former, but I wish it was the latter. Do mental shortcuts to reliably create a metaphor on the fly exist?
Good question! I think it's an art. It amounts to taking two things we know and tying them together in a new and creative way. There's a "favourite metaphors" thread you might enjoy: https://www.writingforums.org/threads/share-your-favourite-metaphors.173285/
Metaphor or analogy reveals "a world ramified as far as the eye can see and entirely filled with the same sap" (Andre Breton, "Rising Sign.") I think the "mental shortcut" is basically fearlessness- no juxtaposition is too absurd. You can play a game called "The One in the Other"- basically, pick two objects at random and describe one in terms of the other. Here's an explanation: http://zackrogow.blogspot.com/2012/11/one-in-other-surrealist-game-for-writers.html
First @Agile Wit thank you for causing me to look up what Uber Alles means. I had heard it before but didn't know what it meant. Not long ago I came to the realization that metaphor is symbol. Symbol is a huge part of the language of the unconscious, hence why dreams are so filled with symbols. As opposed to signs—a sign means one definite and specific thing and nothing else (like for instance a stop sign), but a symbol is rich and multi-dimensional. It can refer to many things, as they frequently do in dreams, literature, poetry and art. I believe metaphor/symbol is indeed uber alles.
I don't know that you can create a good metaphor through strenuous mental flexing or fully conscious thought. I think that's necessary to begin the process, but you need to listen to the quiet inner voice of the unconscious (or subconscious, however you think of it). That's where it will come from. The way the unconscious works is, you put your conscious mind to work trying to solve some difficult puzzle. You work at it, and at some point you stop and take a good long break. Stop completely. In fact it's best to start doing something totally different that engages your mind fully—a crossword puzzle, a Rubix Cube, or a video game. Often after some time a good answer will just emerge, or maybe the next morning after sleeping on it, or the answer may very well occur in a dream that you wake from excited, wanting to shout "Eureka!" Many of the great problems of science, design and invention have been solved this way. Let me see if I can find a good article or two. Here we go: Unconscious Problem Solving 15 Famous Ideas That Were Invented in Dreams
That's how it works. However, my main interest is in the 'On the fly' timeframe. I sometimes struggle in verbal situations like "Give me an example of [something]" That "something" may not necessarily be a metaphor, but the essence of the problem is similar. Having a broad and deep knowledge certainly helps, but less so if you can fish something out of that knowledge after 5 minutes (or 5 hours/days) Thinking up right away a metaphor (simile/example) related to a dog is better than coming up with something related to Shakespeare 5 minutes later...
I might have made it sound like it's always going to take a day or hours. Not necessarily. I've had conversations where I'm tring to explain something to somebody who isn't getting it, and I'm unable to come up with a really good example or metaphor right away, but maybe 5 minutes later one floats out of the ether for me, because my unconscious was processing it that whole time while we talked. I think it's an abbreviated version of what I said earlier, it can be done in a matter of a few minutes by struggling briefly to come up with something and then relaxing and just talking for a while. And sometimes it's more like a day or two later, I'll be doing something completely different and it will hit me—oh, here's what I could have said the other day! I don't think it can be forced instantly, though that would be nice. I mean, sometimes you can come up with something pretty quick, but not always. And I don't know any technique for doing it instantly.
