Figurative Speech: The Voice That Transforms Words, Into Stories

What distinguishes a story from a regular body of writing? Could it be the conflict-resolution structure of the events described? Maybe. Could it be the descriptive tone that helps one visualize a specific atmosphere? Possibly. Although one could argue that a piece of writing is passed off as a story once it upholds the baseline components of plot, character development, and atmosphere, I believe that these components can not exist in an intriguing way until they are told through, what I like to call, “the storytelling voice” — a voice that is made to sound creative, unorthodox, and lively through the use of various figures of speech.

Now I’m going to contradict myself for a second and tell you that technically, you can write a story without using figurative language. We pretty much all did this from the ages of 5–11, and we were probably even proud of it back then, too. I know whenever I want a good laugh, I go through my collection of elementary school short stories to look back on and chuckle. Although it would have been humorous for us all to continue writing in this bland style as a young adults, somewhere along the timeline of when our brains started developing we began to realize that writing in this way was BORING. Our focus shifted away from enjoying the destination of the story, towards enjoying the journey of actually reading it. We started to question just why our writing didn’t seem complete at times, despite it possessing a full blown beginning, middle, and end. As we grew into more aware and observant people, it became clear that the reason we loved reading certain stories was because of the way in which our favorite authors wrote. We needed more than a description of events to keep our focus on the writing — the writing had to be different.

This is where I believe figurative writing comes into play. It is a style of writing that is not normally utilized to its full extent in every day chatter, and most definitely not utilized at all in forms of nonfiction or informative writing. In stories however, the use of things like similes, metaphors, puns, and hyperboles can give a piece a different feel and a more exciting tone. If a body of writing that lacks figurative language is like black coffee without sugar and cream (not the best tasting thing ever, but it gets the job done), then a body of writing that does incorporate figurative language is like that same black coffee, but this time after it’s been thickened and sweetened with cream and sugar. Isn’t it easier to feel and understand the power of figurative language now that I’ve compared it to a familiar sensation that we’ve all experienced?

This is why I believe figurative writing has the power to evoke all our senses without ever actually having to interact with our senses in a physical way. When an author describes the way a character’s features sit, or the way they can smell a certain aroma, or the way they can hear the beauty in certain a song, he or she is trying to reach the reader’s visceral self through nothing but words on paper. This is why the beauty of writing amazes me, because those who are truly capable of crafting an amazing story will have their readers submerged in their fictional world, almost as effortlessly as if the reader were experiencing that world in real time.