I often wake in the mornings with the lingering pieces of a dream swirling around in my mind. I’m a vivid dreamer, and my dreams take me to interesting places. One of my recent dreams was nearly movie-like: I remember flying over a huge field of antelope, then plunging underwater, where I encountered an enormous whale. It was like an episode of National Geographic, except I woke up in my own hundred-year-old home with creaking floorboards, dusty rugs, and the steady background of city noise. I shuffled downstairs (no flying or swimming involved), where I brewed—then spilled—my first cup of coffee, and finally, sat down for my morning writing time.
Because I write mostly narrative nonfiction—true stories from my or others’ lived experience—my writing is nothing like the fantastical, fictional adventures from last night’s dream. I have never actually flown over a field of antelope or encountered a blue whale face-to-face. Instead, I have stories that are much more . . . ordinary.
But at the heart of narrative nonfiction is the belief that our true, even ordinary, stories are compelling, that our lives hold all the mystery and meaning of an old wardrobe leading to Narnia, if only we can spot the adventure in them.
So, how do we find this meaning in our ordinary moments, without turning every experience into a lesson or sermon? How do we tell our stories in a way that invites a reader to see their lives sparkling with truth, beauty, and goodness too?
Part of the way is by finding and weaving well-crafted metaphors.
When I was an elementary student, I learned metaphors were a comparison between two unlike things that did not use “like” or “as.” I understood metaphors were a more subtle figure of speech and could be trickier to understand.
This definition has served me well as a writer. Metaphors are the way we hold something up to a reader and say, “Look, this experience has meaning!” but without exactly saying that.
Weaving a beautiful metaphor takes time and practice. But as you work on connecting the real to the abstract, below are five concrete tips to help you find connections, metaphors, and meaning in your own true stories:
1. Keep a running list of moments that strike you.
I often encounter a moment in the normal course of my day that feels as if it needs to be written, but I have no idea why. Sometimes, a series of moments will line up together in the same day or week, with a familiar, even eerie, feeling about them. These pieces belong together, but I’m not sure how, I think. Understanding those pieces, then translating them in a way that makes sense to a reader, can feel like puzzling over a strange dream: What was that all about?
The first step, I have learned, is to commit to a regular practice of notetaking. Although it may seem obvious, the difference between making a mental note and jotting down a written note is often the difference between a fleeting, forgotten idea and a finished essay.
I encourage writers I coach to carry a small journal wherever they go. Personally, I like the tangible feeling of opening my journal to scribble something down. But the Notes app or Google Docs app on your phone works just as well, if you can avoid getting distracted while you’re there.
Write it down now. Figure it out later.
2. Search for surprising connections.
Every once in a while, sit down with your journal or list and look for intersections between the moments you have recorded. Watch especially for surprising connections. Remember that a great metaphor puts two unlike things together, so don’t discount anything!
Maybe you wouldn’t think the story about your flowers blooming has anything to do with the difficult conversation you had with your spouse. But on second thought, perhaps those flowers unfolding on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, the same day you struggled to communicate your feelings, actually do relate.
What if you place the flowers next to that conversation, and let them help you tell the story? Could the flowers carry the emotional weight of the conversation? Try moving back and forth between the story of the flowers and the hard conversation (a technique sometimes called braiding), and see if those stories might unfold alongside each other.
3. Write your way in.
Many of us spend time thinking about our writing instead of remembering that writing is its own powerful discovery tool. Sometimes, the only way to discover a good metaphor is to write your way into it. Often, I will be writing along, describing the way someone’s voice sounded, or the color of a room, and I’ll realize that singular detail carries more meaning than I expected. A tiny clue can unlock a whole essay.
Write, write, write. Pay attention. Be very patient with yourself and the story. Meaning and metaphor often unfold slowly.
4. Pay attention to setting.
I often find metaphors in the very places where my stories occur. Winding roads, curtain-lined rooms, the way the sky looks—all of these can be connected to the meaning of a story. Unlike in fiction, where you can simply create ominous clouds on the day a character receives terrible news, you cannot make up these details in nonfiction.
Perhaps the sun was shining brilliantly the day you received word of your mom’s cancer diagnosis, and that felt entirely wrong. But maybe the juxtaposition can create a larger theme for your essay. Try describing different elements of the sunny sky as you show how you were feeling on that terrible day. The tension can help a reader experience the jarring moment of unexpected grief.
5. Show a metaphor—but sometimes tell us too.
“Show, don’t tell” is classic writer’s advice, for good reason. Inviting a reader into scenes and stories creates urgency. That said, depending on the genre of your piece or audience you’re writing for, a brief explanation of a metaphor can be useful.
In The Art of the Essay, Charity Singleton Craig provides a helpful definition on the difference between showing, telling, and explanation.
Showing is all about the observable action, dialogue, and basic details of the story. It’s delivered in real time and set up like scenes in a movie. Telling, on the other hand, is the work of a narrator to summarize, condense, and describe. . . . Exposition [or explaining] operates in the dimension of abstract ideas, examining and analyzing information and events.[1]
Craig explains that these three elements—showing, telling, and explaining—must work together. Although there’s no exact recipe for blending them, artfully including all three can create a memorable essay.
Last year, I wrote an essay about motherhood and writing, using a primary metaphor of ants and peony flowers (you can read it here). This particular essay includes a good deal of showing, as I re-created several scenes involving my children. But before the essay was published, the editor suggested I had a slight overbalance of showing. She recommended I add a few lines of telling to help create a connection between my scenes and the meaning of the piece. Although I never explained the metaphor outright, I did include some gentle nudges toward my metaphor.
In other cases, of course, I’ve been guilty of too much telling! Writing is always hard work, isn’t it? When in doubt, assume an astute reader who can read between the lines.
From Dreams to Reality
Remember my National Geographic dream? A few hours after I dreamed it, my husband walked into the room and told me about a real-life dream he has—an adventure, of sorts, that he wants to pursue. His dream has nothing to do with antelope or whales (unfortunately), but isn’t it interesting that those two stories happened on the same day? Could there be a metaphor in my adventure dream, after all?
I’m not sure yet, and I don’t think we need to find a metaphor under every rock. But I also don’t think it’s strange or mystical to believe that ordinary life is full of such connections—moments we couldn’t make up, even if we tried! May we have the courage and perseverance to hold our seemingly ordinary events up to the light, observe them closely, and find metaphor and meaning, wherever they might be hiding.
[1] Charity Singleton Craig, The Art of the Essay (Ossining, NY: T.S. Poetry Press, 2019), 38–39.
Jenna Brack is a writer, teacher, and celebrator of the arts. She currently owns a small writing and editing business, through which she enjoys encouraging other writers. Her creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in Fathom, Every Day Poems, Coffee + Crumbs, The Sunlight Press, Mothers Always Write, and others. She holds an M.A. in English (Composition, Rhetoric, and Literature) from Kansas State University and lives with her family near downtown Kansas City. Learn more about Jenna's writing, classes, or coaching on her website.