-
Noah Cochran replied to the topic Character Voice in the forum General Writing Discussions 4 years, 9 months ago
Character sketches sound interesting, I’ll try one ofย those sometime. Thanks for sharing that!
I agree with you Brian; I also find metaphors more evocative and enthralling. However, I will agree with Rose that I like similes mainly because I am able to come up with non-cliche ones much much faster than non-cliche metaphors. With those examples you gave I was immediately thinking of similes and not a single metaphor came to mind. I know, I need work. xD
I absolutely agree with what you (and Rose) said about not overusing these. That’s what we have poets for. ๐
First off, that character voice questionnaire is fantastic. I had a lot of the info on it already, but you had even more to share and put it all in a coherent and succinct manner. You know your stuff. ๐
You’ve now inspired me to write a character who is so romantic that he uses metaphors and similes in his thoughts in the middle of a fight. xD
“Those were incredibly bad examples, but Iโm making them up on the fly, cut me some slack XD”
Yes, those examples were truly atrocious. I mean, how could someone write something so aweful…….No silly! Those were great and I would have enjoyed reading them in any book. The way you used those two similes to juxtapose two characters’ POV was a joy to read. ๐
I had actually been planning on doing something similar with a character voice exercise by taking a couple scenes (maybe a stream in the woods and a village) and describing them from the three different POV’s of my main characters to help develop their character voices.
When anything just comes to me in writing it’s a joy! Thanks for the tips.
Thanks for the reply Ashley!











Hi Noah,
Here one of the Koontz-ian simile from “Night Window” Chapter 28.
“In Arizona, the sky was as dry as the land below, salted with stars, the moon a bitten Communion wafer.”
Here’s a Koontz-ian metaphor from “Life Expectancy” Chapter 9:
“All our yesterdays neatly shelved, time cataloged in drawers: News grows brittle and yellow under the library, in catacombs of paper.”
And as for intriguing first lines, Koontz is as sharp as any Japanese katana blade:
“With draft beer and a smile, Ned Pearsall raised a toast to his deceased neighbor, Henry Friddle, whose death greatly pleased him. Henry had been killed by a garden gnome.” Chapter 1 of his novel “Velocity”.
Those are great examples Brian. I think I need to take a class on metaphors or something. xD