What Metaphor Fits Your Writing Career?
By Greer Macallister | June 5, 2023 |
I know I’m not alone in this: I love a good metaphor. Finding a comparison (metaphor, simile, analogy, call it what you will) that perfectly suits the narrator’s voice is one of my favorite things in fiction.
However, there’s one thing out there that I’ve heard compared to just about everything under the sun, yet none of the metaphors I’ve heard quite fit.
I’m talking, of course, about the shape of a person’s writing career.
Here are the three metaphors I hear most often and why they fall a bit short of helping you figure out your own way forward.
Your writing career is a ladder. Yep, this is the one I hear most often. And I see why it’s tempting. Especially in traditional publishing, there are “tiers” of success, and you aren’t going to reach a higher one (the New York Times bestseller list!) without having achieved the rungs below (writing a book, getting an agent, etc.) The issue with this is that it implies that once you reach a particular rung, you’re only going to go up from there–but publishing is full of ups and downs. You don’t just go up and stay up. You might have to switch to another ladder entirely, or maybe you climb what you think is a ladder and it turns out to be a step stool. Anyway, publishing is way too complicated to fit this narrow model.
Your writing career is a road. In the whole “life is a highway” vein, it’s easy to compare any particular endeavor to traveling–there are forks in the road you need to choose between, sometimes you run out of gas, all that good stuff. Like a road, a publishing career can certainly branch off in different directions and circle back on itself, so it’s more fitting than the ladder, but the comparison still leaves much to be desired. Is the rest of your publishing team in the car with you giving you advice on navigation? What exactly is the gas that fuels you forward? Can you change cars? Food for thought, but not a lot of answers.
Your writing career is a garden. I’m a little more fond of this one, since it leaves space for more complexity. And it does include the dimension of time–you can’t expect to plant something and harvest its fruit right away. Gardens are vulnerable to outside forces, like storms and drought, that can stunt your plants even if you do everything right. So it’s fitting in that way. But in a real garden, winter will always come, forcing you to start over in the spring. In writing, starting over is only one of many, many possibilities.
So… your turn! Can you find a better metaphor that fits the shape of a writer’s career?
Raised in the Midwest, Greer Macallister earned her MFA in creative writing from American University. Her historical novels have been named Book of the Month, Indie Next, LibraryReads, Target Book Club, and Amazon Best Book of the Month picks and optioned for film and television. Her latest novel, The Thirteenth Husband, is inspired by Aimee Crocker, the Paris Hilton of the Gilded Age. Macallister also writes the ongoing Five Queendoms epic fantasy series as G.R. Macallister. A regular contributor to Writer Unboxed and the Chicago Review of Books, she lives with her family in Boston, MA. www.greermacallister.com
A wrestling match with Roget’s Thesaurus.
A walk in a fire-blighted forest.
A long day’s journey into write.
(Fun post, Greer)
Your writing career is like an Asian snack mix– sometimes you get a rice cracker, sometimes an accidental wasabi pea.
Great post! I’m feeling inspired by the snake on your book cover. Your writing career is like a snake — moving forward, but looking nonsensical and vaguely threatening even when it means you no harm.
It’s like endless parenting. It takes a village, but also all your hopes and dreams, tears and fears, time and energy. For years you give everything you have. Then, abruptly, you must let go.
And repeat.
Maybe something like setting out across an ocean in a rowboat?
Effortful. One wave after the next to conquer. Taking on water, then rowing even harder to regain forward momentum after bailing. And then, land! I made it! Nope—just an island, but one where I can use my experience to build a bigger boat before setting out again, but this time I’ll bring along a few others to help row.
Fun post, Greer. My own journey is definitely land based: a road trip with interesting detours and diversions but also having a taste of the promised land.
At different times, it’s a rollercoaster, hacking my way through a forest filled with brambles, giving birth.
My writing career is a mountain to climb, with progress along the way (a collection of short stories published) and positive sunshine stops. Yet there are other stops making me seek cover from the rain. BUT I WILL GET THERE.
TILTING AT WINDMILLS – One must live life in a genuine way, passionately, in spite of what other people think
Your writing career is like painting a picture of life itself.
Dumpster diving. You can find intriguing things that no one in her right mind would want.
My “career” is a Will o’ the wisp. I ain’t goin’ in that swamp no more.
My writing professor said that published authors are often the only ones left standing after every one else has given up and gone home.
My career is like a shopping cart with one wonky wheel that keeps veering sideways when you want to go forward. The only thing to do is keep going in the direction you want to go until it gets back in alignment with the others.
My writing career is like a ditch. No, make it a little creek. A creek sounds cleaner. Sometimes it runs along on its merry little way, never getting very big, just rippling along nicely. Other times the water is diverted, maybe even damned up, and the creek bed sits empty and dry. Sometimes there’s a flood of activity and good luck that almost makes the creek think it’s going to become a river. Thankfully, it has never dried up for good. Yet.
My writing career resembles Chutes and Ladders (Snakes and Ladders in Australia). Sometimes much more traumatic and fraught than dips and peaks. Making forward progress, but occasionally taking an unexpected tumble.
Still wouldn’t exchange it for anything.
A river. It starts in a cold place, melting snow to reveal little tufts of ideas, grows larger as it takes in more of the delightful it unearths in the world; it grows, takes in more of the setting, and flows through countries, through hills and valleys, creating life and death, and eventually comes out into the supreme sentience – the ocean, as the lungs of the world, and evaporates into the atmosphere, the subconscious of all minds joined to one purpose/planet.
My writing career is an archaeological dig. I study pulp stories from the 1930’s and 40’s and write new pulp stories as accurately as possibly. It’s fun. Language usage has changed a great deal since then so I’m always challenged by how much a modern reader can take in the way of description. On average, pulp writers used about a third more color than we typically use today. Also, many more adjectives and adverbs. lol Of course, political correctness has made some ideas verboten but generally, much can be done. I’m writing my first pulp detective story right now and I’m hooked! (And terribly worried about the big shoot-out that’s about to happen.) Cheers!