The opposable thumb, the awareness of death, and the use of metaphor separates homo sapiens from the rest of species that wander our planet. We use metaphor in all parts of our existence, signs, icons, brand names, nicknames, and countless conversational expressions that are so completely integrated into the way we use language that we long ago stopped viewing them as metaphor.

Metaphor in writing can be a wonderful pleasure, or a horrible trap. We take pleasure when a story gives us a powerful metaphoric reference filled with implicit associations that deepen and strengthen our story.

Unfortunately, trying to sustain metaphor throughout a story, or the mixing of metaphor, can immediately send the work down a slippery slope and backfire on you (ugh). Poetic urges in storytelling should be rooted in the organic voice of the teller. Listening to an Irish lass talk about her dog standing in a field can be as poetically charged as a reading of a published poet at your local bookstore. But many of us are not raised in cultures that lapse into metaphor with a delicate ease. Don't work too hard at finding a large or small metaphor to enhance your story, let it come when it comes.