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Wordplay & Lyrical Intelligence

The Load-Bearing Metaphor

Build metaphors that carry the argument rather than decorate it.

The teaching

A decorative metaphor is a hat. A load-bearing metaphor is a beam.

Choose a source domain your listener has touched with their hands: tools, weather, roads, kitchens.

Then extend it once. Only once. A metaphor stretched three times snaps.

Example

'Preparation is the rehearsal room nobody claps for' carries more weight than 'preparation is important'.

  • Concrete source domain beats an abstract one.
  • Extend a metaphor once, never thrice.
  • The metaphor should survive the removal of the sentence around it.
Drill
1

Generate three metaphors for 'patience' using three different source domains.

Focus: Concreteness and originality · 60s

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