Are these Metaphors bad or good?

[Kire]

Bad Metaphors from Stupid Student Essays
(actually these are mostly similes, see Literary Terms)

Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

McMurphy fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr. Pepper can.

More: http://mistupid.com/people/page027.htm

[despairing optimist]

1. They're similes, not metaphors, but they are bad just the same

Bulwer-Lytton contenders if they could be fleshed out (now there's a metaphor for you).

[Demit]

2. I think they're brilliant!

They make me smile like a newborn infant with gas.

[omega minimo]

3. Klunky

as a pail of cans and hammers
tumbling
down
stairs

[Mutley]

4. My favorite is

"McMurphy fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup."

Would a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup hit the pavement differently than a Hefty bag filled with chicken noodle soup?

Actually, I also like:
"The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't." What? LOL!

[Kire]

5. More..

I stumbled upon some more:

Questionable Analogies

The sun rose over the horizon like a great big radioactive baby's head with a bad sunburn, but then again it might just have been that Lisa was always cranky this early in the morning. (Debra Allen, Wichita Falls)

Jane was toast, and not the light buttery kind, nay, she was the kind that's been charred and blackened in the bottom of the toaster and has to be thrown a away because no matter how much of the burnt part you scrape off with a knife, there's always more blackened toast beneath, the kind that not even starving birds in winter will eat, that kind of toast. (Beth Knutson, Coon Rapids)

Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. (unknown)

As Fiona slowly drew the heavy velvet curtain aside, her eyes smoldered black, deep, and dark as inside the lungs of a coal miner, although it would be black in anyone's lungs if you could get in there because there wouldn't be any light, even in the pink ones of people who don't smoke. (Lou A. Waller, Norman)

Having O.J. try on the bloody glove was a stroke of genius unseen since the debut of Goober on "Mayberry R.F.D". (John Kammer, Herndon)

Losing is like fertilizer: it stinks for a while, then you get used to it. (Tony, Hibbing)

A branch fell from the tree like a trunk falling off an elephant. (unknown)

He was as bald as one of the Three Stooges, either Curly or Larry, you know, the one who goes "woo woo woo". (unknown)

More: http://funny2.com/questionableanalogies.htm

Edit: some of them are the same :shrug:

[Jack Rabbit]

10. These are worse than those in the root post

The first one might work with a lot of rearranging in order to make it clear that this is how Lisa reacts to the sunrise. Modern fiction is a romantic enterprise, meaning that the inner life is what is explored.

The third one (Her artistic sense . . .) runs afoul with me simply by referencing a commercial product. Even worse, it references a television commercial. It's OK to use specific commercial products for character development (what kind of person drinks Miller or Bud as opposed to a micro brew?) Even this must be done with caution. Otherwise, who is going to know to what I Can't Believe It's Not Butter is several years from now, when the commercial is no longer being run on television and the product is pulled from the market?

Having O.J. try on the glove . . . runs into a similar problem; although I am old enough to have watched Mayberry RFD, I didn't very much; I am only vaguely aware that Goober is Gomer Pyle's brother and that the character was basically a clone of Gomer.

Losing is like fertilizer . . . would work in a first person narration or as character development. I could almost imagine Raymond Chandler using a sentence like that.

A branch fell from the tree . . . obviously fails because an elephant's trunk does not fall off.

The last one (Jane was toast . . .) also might work if it is quoting another character for development, but in no other context.

The sentences about Jane and Fiona are Bulwer-Lytton contest material.

[Straight Shooter]

6. Those are as bad as the downwind aroma of a pig farm on a sweltering day.

Maybe I'm being generous with the word "aroma"? :7

[ContraBass Black]

7. " Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever."

I like that one.

[Abelman]

8. simile is a form of metaphor

I remember learning that somewhere.

[Jack Rabbit]

9. Wow, these are really bad

(This is my first post on the writer's forum; I plan to spend some time here.)

As an exercise, let's try to identify what's wrong with these and suggest a few improvements.

Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

Are we trying to sell exercise products here? I'm not too familiar with Thigh Masters and how they compress things; it doesn't sound like compressing a circle is how they're used as a rule. There are a lot of words invested here to give the reader no definite image.

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

This is way too complicated. What the writer is trying to convey is the way the thoughts freely associate with other thoughts. The word alliances needs to go. Statesmen and businessmen make alliances; underpants do not. An improvement would be simply: His thoughts tumbled in his head, bouncing off each other like clothes in a dryer.

She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.

This is way too wordy. By the time I finish the sentence I have to go back and see what the simile is about. Simply: She could catch a man's eye like a hook catches a fish.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

This doesn't work at all. Please tell your reader how the boat floats, not how a bowling ball sinks. It doesn't conjure any image in my mind.

McMurphy fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

We might substitute the word hitting for something more descriptive, like splattering. Ms. Mutley's suggestion (if that is what she is suggesting) of leaving the noun soup unmodified by an adjective. Of course, that still leaves a problem. A human body falling 12 stories would not splatter like a plastic bag full of soup. It wouldn't be a pretty sight, but the corpse would be more in tact than that. It would be more mangled and crushed than splattered. A simile to a wrecked car would be better.

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

This might work if the idea is that the hair is glistening because it is oily and unwashed. In that case, we might look for another word to replace glistening. I find this simile gross. Of course, it could be the writer's intention to gross out his reader.

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.

This is almost cliche. Even then, it doesn't work. The picture I get of each eye is of a brown circumference with a black dot in a field of no particular color. Although it isn't much of an improvement, my suggestion would be: Her eyes were like two concentric discs, black within brown.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

If this is used to develop a character, I wouldn't use it at all. I would let the character's vocabulary speak for her. Often, she would be fumbling for a word simply because she doesn't know one.

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

This one is funny. Is he also as tall as a six-foot-three inch sunflower? Obviously, a tree and a sunflower present two different images. A person described as looking like a tree might play football, whereas one might describe a more lanky individual as looking like a sunflower. An improvement, even if it's something of a cliche, would be: He was six-foot-three and solid as an oak.

The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

The simile is so bad almost anything else would be better. It's gross and, unless acid rain becomes worse than it is now, is used to describe something that just isn't gross.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

What's wrong with this? Where do we begin? This one could be entered in the Bulwer-Lytton competition. It's beyond saving.

The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr. Pepper can.

It would be better here to drop the simile altogether. The politician left and those he came to impress turned their attention to other matters of interest. This might be the basis of a whole passage in a story. I would turn it into at least two paragraphs: the first would describe what he did to try to impress his audience; the second would be what his audience discussed after he was gone.

[Kire]

11. thanks

thanks for the offer

it sounds like you had fun writing this, but some things are meant to be bad

[eridani]

12. Aren't they from the Bulwer-Lytton contest?

You know--it was a dark and stormy night? They sound familiar.

[Jack Rabbit]

14. Paul Clifford by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton

I've never had a problem with the sentence "It was a dark and stormy night." The sentence that begins Bulwer-Lytton's Paul Clifford would a good opening sentence for a crisp, fast-paced Gothic story. It sets a gloomy mood briefly and economically.

There are two problems with the praise I have given it. First, Paul Clifford is neither crisp and fast-paced nor a Gothic novel. It is a work of fiction whose purpose is to criticize the British judicial system. More important is that is that "It was a dark and stormy night" is punctuated with a semi-colon instead of a period. It is what follows the semi-colon that really makes the sentence bad:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

That's still worse than any of the sentences that Mr. Kire has kindly provided for our amusement and edification. Okay, it's worse with the possible exception of that one about lovers rushing toward each other like trains at specified velocities.

[jmm]

13. Those are cheesy. Cheesy like mozzarella

on a pizza with extra extra cheese.

[jayctravis]

15. Theres the Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest

which inspires authors each year to write the worst paragraph they can, and they are judged.

My favorite bad sentence is, "His eyes slid seductively down the front of her dress."

[gator_in_Ontario]

16. Thanks for the

much-needed laugh!

[brainpan]

17. Good Stuff!

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

This one is my favorite by far. It is actually pretty clever, and quite funny.