I am writing my first short story to try to get it published.

>>8547653
You have a heavy relience on metaphors and they all contrived and lack any sort of cohesion towards giving a hint of a mind or vision behind them.
This is nothing but regurgitation. Use words

>>8547677
Where is even one metaphor?

>>8547677
duly noted. I will change some stuff

>>8547683
>fog rolled
>light (...) scattered into mist
>pixelated glow

It's perfectly fine. Try "dueling with pixellated glow from the foodtrucks' neon signs." The fog may not want to "roll". Roll is a cliche attached to fog, often when you have a cliche you can be slightly more precise for what you mean by finding a noncliche. but find something that sounds similar and isn't weird, unless you want to rework the sentence. If roll is precisely what you mean, you can go with it, or you can think more about the motion of that fog, what you imagine it doing, how it moves.

Anyway, that's what I'd do. I have no idea what the fuck this retard means, there aren't even any fucking metaphors in the fucking sentence. >>8547677

>>8547692
those aren't metaphors you fucking retard
take high school english

>>8547692
do you know what a metaphor is?

>>8547692

Those aren't metaphors dipshit. Light scatters through mist, fog rolls. A pixellated glow is a glow which is not unitary. Probably the fog did that shit.

This dogpile is triggering my tendency to favor underdogs. But I must say those ain't metaphors.

>>8547697

In general this opening line does not sell your story by itself, as perhaps an opening line has rarely done, but really the important thing is the rest. Openings don't -need- to be fucking clever or whatever. Set the scene. Proceed. A structure begins to grow, coral encrustation (metaphor), incorporating that first sentence, giving it new sheen.

>>8547653
It's not the worst, it is a bit bland though.
Really consider every word in an opening line.
Does the fog roll into?
Does the fog roll over?
Does the fog roll through?
Does the fog roll?
Does the fog drift?
Does the fog seep?

dueling with pixelated glow felt like a sensory reach as no fog I've witnessed has made anything angular. It could be fine depending on what you're doing though.
Hope it all works out for you, mate.

Thanks for the help everyone.

New question: how much of the main character's internal thoughts should I explicitly mention was the narrator?

Writing in third person

>>8547735
I meant to indicate that the neon was coming from pixel screens

>>8547745

that is a complex question and not one someone can answer for you. What serves the story? You should be reading widely and you will come across stories that do it either way. Compare how different authors use these narrative forms.

>>8547735

>dueling with pixelated glow felt like a sensory reach as no fog I've witnessed has made anything angular

dude nice. OP this is the kind of thinking you want to do

>>8547653
too much info for opener. would ditch the fog, Patrick, and Portland


>>The end of his shift arrived. The sun had set, and the soft light of gas lanterns scattered into the mist, dueling with the pixelated glow of the food trucks’ neon signs.


Long-awaited redundant already implied in the ending of a shft

>>8547766
long-awaited shows that the character had been looking forward to it

>>8547774
>implied in the ending of a shift

>>8547653
Holy... I want more

>'CRASH' Mom's made Pancakes!

That's all you rubes get for now but rest assured, I have been touted as the Next Great American Novelists and that line alone should be evidence of that, unless your tiny minds cannot comprehend my linguistic prowess.

>>8547838
what if the guy enjoys his job?

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>>8547653
>dueling with the pixelated glow of the food trucks’ neon signs

?????

Never open with weather.

>>8547703
>>8547704
>>8547706

How can three anons be such fucking retards in a row and not know what metaphors are.

Fog doesn't literally roll.
Light doesn't literally scatter.
Glow isn't literally pixelated.

>>8548568
Literally this.

>>8547653
>long-awaited end of Patrick’s shift (had?) arrived.
>dueling with the pixelated glow of the food trucks’ neon signs
Stop

>>8547653
H o l y . . .
o
l
y
.
.
.

I want more

>>8548568
I don't know about the others, but light does scatter.

>>8548568
So a guy walks to the corner grocer. When he is away, someone asks, "Wherefore didst he go?" Another says, "He ran to the store."

So, "ran" is a metaphor, is that what you're saying?

>>8548568
>Fog doesn't literally roll.
yes it does, retard
>Light doesn't literally scatter.
yes it does, retard.
>Glow isn't literally pixelated.
it can be, retard.

please come back to this board when you graduate middle school.

>>8547653
Just my personal opinion, but it's weird to mix 'dueling' (archaic) with 'neon' (modern).

>>8548568
These are idiomatic verbs, dipshit
Do you think that everything that doesn't literally happen is a metaphor?

>>8547766
this is much more immersive
follow this guys advice op

My 5 cunty cents of criticism
>A fog rolled into downtown Portland as the long-awaited end of Patrick’s shift arrived.
First of all, what does the fog has to do with the end of Patrick's shift, why are you putting these two completely unrelated bits of infomation into your opening sentence
>The Planet Earth was still round as the long-awaited end of Patrick's shift arrived
Is it any different?
Secondly, the word 'long-awaited' is redundant, all work shifts are awaited. If you want to keep that word, you have to justify it's existence by explaining why why the end of this particular shift is more awaited than all the previous shifts.
>As the long-awaited end of the shift had arrived, Patrick smiled at the thought of going home to enjoy his newly arrived shipment of XXL-sized dragon dildoes.
Also, you're not writing a screenplay for a movie, there's no need for an establishing shot. Write something dynamic and engaging. Ain't nothing draws me into the novel more than a line about some wagecuck's end of the day.

Second sentence is an absolute clusterfuck, delete this.

Questions to ask yourself:

1. Have you ever seen fog "roll", or is that just the most common expression? If it's the most common, cut it as people will already picture it rolling. If the motion of the fog isn't important here, cut it.

2. Is there a less subtle way you can communicate the fact that Patrick couldn't wait for his shift to end? Generally it's something we will already suspect.

3. The comma after "The sun had set" already hints at the tempo of your story and the means by which you afford different images value. If you are slowing the pace here and making us pause at and potentially reflect on the fact that the sun had set make sure it means something in the wider context of the story.

4. Does light scatter? Light is something consistent, and here you are suggesting that a single unit of light scattered into the mist, leaving it dark. Use "scattering" if you really need to use it.

5. Did you write "dueling with the pixelated glow" because it benefits the story or because it benefits you personally as an individual and your self-esteem because you feel there is potential for a reader to read that and praise you and think better of you as a writer and perhaps as a person? It comes across to me as a rather amateurish in its desperation to impress.

6. "Neon signs" is something infamously associated with young unseasoned writers, is there a reason you are including it here beyond the purpose of establishing a setting?


My edit:

>"Thick fog descended on Portland as Patrick checked his watch one again, mopped the empty aisles once again, and once again looked forward to end of another shift. Through the forecourt window he could see the gas lanterns and the food trucks glowing. He bucketed the mop and walked to the back office. Martha sat with her back to him. She patted the side of her hair as she talked on the phone. Haggled the price for grooming her dog. Can you really not go any lower? Well I'll see. She saw his reflection in the window. Turned. I really have to go. Patrick unbuckled his belt, undid the button, tugged his pants down at the waist and waited. Martha moved to a kneeling position on the red tiled carpet. She crawled towards him. He waited with lips pursed, checked his watch again. Checked it longer this time. Martha pressed her face to his crotch. Rubbed it there a while. Outside a truck pulled away, disappeared into the night. Two red lights merging in the dark. Martha was crying now. Her nails dug into the soft flesh at the back of his thighs, just below each buttock. She began to wail. Patrick knew her eyeliner would be running. Her face would be shining with tears. She looked up and closed his eyes as his manager began to pant and cling to his lower body. After a minute or so she coughed, raised herself to her feet, brushed something from her knees, her skirt, her blouse. All the same red as the carpet. Well you'll be wanting go leave now, no doubt. Right, Patrick said, refastening his pants."

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>>8547653
>>8549042
>decent opener
>it's a schlock porn story
Dude, stop.

>>8549042
What is red tiled carpet? Carpets and tiles seem like different things to me?

Also is the red blood? Did she bite his dick? I feel like this is unclear.

>>8547653

scratch it sir, don't waste your time rewriting total junk. do you organize the contents of your garbage can?

>>8549042
>Haggled the price for grooming her dog. Can you really not go any lower? Well I'll see.
NOICE

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>>8549069
>What is red tiled carpet?

Virgin detected.

It's the type of thin, shitty carpet that you find in low-status offices. Cheap, easily replaced, and this context serving as reinforcement to the subtle notion that Patrick is working a minimum wage job in some sort of gas station or convenience store. Of course the blood is red you freaking virgin!?!? She doesn't bite it. It's a Lynchian sequence wherein the exact reason for this woman and this young man acting as they do is not explicitly expressed, but which is fascinating and odd nonetheless. Surely we will learn more about this woman who perhaps does not have her own children and maybe not even a husband if she invests so much effort into grooming her dog. She, a presumably middle-aged woman (only that age group pat their hair and wear blouses) is the manager at this establishment and it's obviously something of a ritual for her to not suck on or do anything conspicuously sexual to her young male employee, but simply degrades herself (why does she brush her clothing if there is nothing obviously tarnished about them, only "something" that not even the narrator can see) for a short period before returning to a formal way of addressing her employee. It's a bizarre image, and if you have any imagination at all you could easily imagine this young man mopping the empty chequerboard aisles of an isolated gas station surrounded by mist but glowing perhaps indecently in the dark, imagine his reluctance in walking to his manager's office where it's dim but everything seems to glow with a reddish hue, you could experience the intense confusion and growing disgust as he simply exposes himself and watches his manager, this figure of authority, crawl to him on all fours and sob while rubbing her face into his genitals before sending him on his way without so much as an explanation. But you can't, can you kiddo? You don't know the first thing about imagination, do ya? You'[re just a poor, ham-fisted charlatan who thinks churning out cliches and idioms will get you somewhere in life. Well it won't kid, mark my words. I know who you are. I know who you all are. You don't scare me. Just try it, you'll see what happens. I know my rights.

>>8549113
is this the birth of an epic new meme?

>dueling
>rolled into
>gas lanterns (?)

>>8549113
>You'[re

>>8549042
Let me fix it for u senpai.

>Thick white fog, thick as a canned soup, descended on Portland, as if the soft white clouds were falling from the sky surrounding Patrick with their mystic aura. A raggedy man dressed in long shabby coat, he looked barely more neat than a homeless bum. The aisles were empty, and eerie feeling of solitude was felt by the uneasy Patrick. He looked at his watch, then at the aisles, then at his watch once again. And through the forecourt window, one would see a food truck approaching, slowly appearing from the mist like a boat ride from hades. The gas lamplight glimmers with a dim glow, illuminating Patrick and the truck like a moving surreal painting from the Victorian ages.

>>8549113
I thought she was wiping something red from her clothing, and the something was the same red as the carpet. You've made you actual intention unclear, in that she's just wiping away "something" and that her clothing is in fact entirely red, which I only got upon your explanation.

>>8549042
>"Neon signs" is something infamously associated with young unseasoned writers
Literally something mentioned in passing on the first few pages of Finnegans Wake. Try not to make up rules.

>>8549180
>Thick white fog, thick as a canned soup, descended on Portland, as if the soft white clouds were falling from the sky surrounding Patrick with their mystic aura.
That was nearly good bruh.

>>8547653
>A fog rolled into downtown Portland as the long-awaited end of Patrick arrived.
I just made it so much better for you, you're welcome.

>>8547653
It's good, and the criticisms ITT confirm my suspicions that this board is worse than /v/

>>8549213
You sound a redditor, fuck off there if you don't appreciate the board culture

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>>8547653
>>A fog rolled into downtown Portland as the long-awaited end of Patrick’s shift arrived. The sun had set, and the soft light of gas lanterns scattered into the mist, dueling with the pixelated glow of the food trucks’ neon signs.

The long-awaited end of Patrick’s shift was painted by the pixelated glow of the food trucks’ neon signs that dueled with the sunset as fog rolled into downtown Portland.

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>>8549225
"board culture" = ignorance

>>8549186
If you really can't believe that someone's clothes are the same colour as the carpet in the room they happen to be occupying then you are beyond redemption and I pity every acquaintance who will ever have the misfortune of meeting you.

>>8549213
Honest criticism is something you ought to value highly here. It is perhaps the rarest commodity today.

>>8549237
...I didn't say it was unbelievable, just that you made it unclear.

>>8549186
>I thought she was wiping something red from her clothing, and the something was the same red as the carpet.
Same. I guessed it was bits of cheap carpet/carpet dye, but it seemed clumsy.

For her to be brushing it off herself it has to mean that something obvious was transferred, so the whole her clothes are red line from the other anon makes no sense. What could have worked is the cheap floor tiles staining her clothes red with a little follow up scene about it, that would have been nice.

>>8547653
In spite of the all "improved" versions posted, I prefer OP's. Post more.

>>8549226
This has been the only decent edit in all of the thread.

>>8547941
light tends to mix and the "dueling" he is talking about is the heavy mix between the two or the struggle of one light over the other

>>8547653
Not bad OP, people(including me) enjoyed it.

>>8547653
>The sun had set, and the soft light of gas lanterns scattered into the mist, dueling with the pixelated glow of the food trucks’ neon signs.

this is almost objectively a bad sentence


and there's literally no point asking for critique on TWO SENTENCES

post at least the first page of your story

anything else is just jerking off...

>>8549042
>>8549180
Cont.

>The neon lamps on the side of the truck radiate their colors. Green, blue, orange, and red. In the thick mist it formed a grotesque chandelier. The face of Moloch. As the food truck passed away, Patrick felt the emptiness of his stomach. For two days, he had forgotten to eat anything, not even a loaf of bread. A few minutes before he was planning a suicide attempt, but the ravenous torture made him stop thinking about it for a while. His will to live was emptier than his gut, hence his mind was cleared again soon. On the other side of the road, there was an empty office building. All it's lights were turned off. "That could be a good spot to shoot my own head, no one would find me there", said poor Patrick to his own wretched self in his head.

>>8548930
>yes it does, retard

No it doesn't. It's a metaphor.

>it can be, retard.

Only on a screen.

Fuck, for a literature board, this place is fucking ignorant of language.

>please come back to this board when you graduate middle school.

I'm a fourth year literature undergraduate, m8.

>>8548880
You're right. I was wrong about light. Technically, it does "scatter."

>>8548895
No, because people run. But saying "the blood was running quickly that day" that is a metaphor. Or "his blood ran"

It's a metaphor in the form of a cliche. Just because it's a part of common expression and speech doesn't stop something from being a metaphor.

>>8548941
>These are idiomatic verbs

They aren't idiomatic verbs or phrasal verbs at all, actually. They are verbs being used in a metaphorical way. There's nothing idiomatic about them, they are "Cliches"

Not only are you ignorant of grammar, but you're ignorant about figurative language. I wouldn't usually have a problem with this, but you retards took it upon yourself to reprimand someone who was obviously right, the first poster that pointed out that they were metaphors.

>Do you think that everything that doesn't literally happen is a metaphor?

No. Do you think that a metaphor has to be in the form of "something IS something else, or something WAS something else" to be a metaphor?

Read about what a fucking metaphor before you go calling people dipshits you pseud.

>>8550946
Don't bother, these people won't learn.

>>8547653
Nothing successful was ever done by, or about, a "Patrick"

first sentence works, second one doesn't. scattered, dueling, and pixelated aren't very good choices of words

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I misread the second word as "frog". I wish it wasn't a misread.

>>8548568
Would the former not be personification?

>>8547653
>Neon
>Pixels

Neon lights are just tubing with coloured lights going through them, where would the pixels come from?

>>8547653
>and the soft light of gas lanterns scattered into the mist,

I think this would be better if it weren't in the passive voice, honestly. I'm not one of those people who hates the passive voice all the time, but I just don't think it reads so well here.

It might be better as:

The sun had set, and the gas lanterns' soft light scattered into the mist.

>BRTTTTTTTTTTTTTT, went her fecund and gristly arse. The miasma of colonic dreams hit my face in one fell sweep and in that moment I was complete.

What do you think?

It's a fart fetish shirt story.

>>8551058
Personification is a form of metaphor.

>>8550946
Sir I support your cause and know you to be correct.

>>8547653
Opening the story with a description of the weather is often seen as poor style, unless there is a quality that is particularly outstanding about the weather or climate (a storm, etc)

It just shows the reader you don't have real emotion or drama to open with but have to lay out a bunch of idle stage-setting details before you get started.

>>8551076
As is all figurative language, to some degree. The terms 'metaphorical language' and 'figurative language' are basically interchangeable.

'Metaphor' just has the added connotation of a specific type of metaphor, where something is described as another in the most literal sense, but 'metaphor' can describe everything in the figurative spectrum. We just tend to use 'figurative' as the overarching term.

So many pseuds got exposed in this thread.

>>8548568
lmao at the autists disagreeing with you, just because the description of fog rolling has become idiomatic and common doesn't make it not a metaphor you autists.

>>8547914
reader assumes he doesn't

>>8547745
Completely depends but it's great that you're asking. Honestly I find it much easier to mention very little to none because that's what I enjoy reading. I prefer to have the characters interior world implied by not just their actions in the hard realism muh hemingway sense but by the vocabularly and pacing I use to describe their interaction with the environment and the environment itself, if that makes sense. Thats just me though, gotta find what youre comfortable with. Some writers can use explicit internal thoughts very well. See Flannery O'Connor for an example of that.

>>8547653
>neon
>pixelated

>>8547766
good advice here desu

>>8547653
1. How can glow be pixelated?
2. What kind of food trucks have neon signs?

Shit

>>8547653
>The sun had set by the time Patrick's shift ended, and the glow of the streetlights and the food truck's neon signs shined through the fog.

Never been to Portland, by the way, but does it get foggy at night there? Fog is usually a morning thing.

>>8550946
>No it doesn't. It's a metaphor.
Fog when it's thick and hugging the ground does literally roll.

>I'm a fourth year literature undergraduate, m8.
Between above and the light scattering shit I think we've established just how crap that is. Not to say your other points haven't been decent but not knowing that light scatters and fog rolls is retardland.>>8547653

>>8547692
the word you're looking for is CLICHE my friend

except for pixellated glow, that's not one, but it isn't good either

>>8550946
>he doesn't know light can scatter and fog can roll!

jesus fucking christo!

>>8550946
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEa5Qk_TKxI

hyur dyur

>>8549042
>>8551598

>>8551598
Fog doesn't literally roll. Check the definition of "roll" then read about "fog" And then ask yourself if the fog in that video looks like it's spinning while it moves. It doesn't. Fog is an amorphous and sometimes windswept thing, but it doesn't roll like a cylindrical object. The description of fog as "rolling", no matter how common it might be, is metaphorical.

And light doesn't scatter to your eyes. It scatters on the quantum level, but that's not what's meant here. Therefore it is metaphorical.

>>8551570

>>8551043
>>8551689

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>>8551598
>the fog is clearly sliding and flowing not rolling

These pseuds think they can ever be a writer when they can't even describe basic things

>>8551700
That is why you shouldn't ask for creative writing advice on 4chan.

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>>8551689
it's fucking spinning you idiot

>>8553021
No. It's circulating within itself in that image for one thing. And it certainly isn't spinning, even if it were solid, based on your image and that video, it still wouldn't be spinning or rolling.

Fucking hell. Circulating != spinning. And it's certainly not rolling, because there's no axis.

>>8551689
>Fog doesn't literally roll. Check the definition of "roll" then read about "fog" And then ask yourself if the fog in that video looks like it's spinning while it moves. It doesn't. Fog is an amorphous and sometimes windswept thing, but it doesn't roll like a cylindrical object. The description of fog as "rolling", no matter how common it might be, is metaphorical.
>And light doesn't scatter to your eyes. It scatters on the quantum level, but that's not what's meant here. Therefore it is metaphorical.
Fog literally rolls because eddy currents form from friction with the ground.So it looks like it moves by rolling over itself. Compare to the tide rolling in.

Light scattering isn't a purely a quantum mechanics thing, it can refer to the way uneven ground seems to get lit in bits and pieces such as in the morning sun or from a single light source. It can also mean how light becomes diffuse in wet air.

Your problem here is that you don't go outside and look at the real world often enough, or talk to people enough, and you definitely don't read enough. Stop being so dependent on googling definitions of words for meaning and get a life bro.

>>8547653
>end of shift arrived
just say his shift ended or finished or terminated or whatever
>a fog rolled
cliché af
say it creeped and crawled, or that the air was miasmatic or something
>soft light
also cliché
call it fuzzy or cool or dreamy or hazy or something
>scattered into the mist
kinda redundant
>the pixelated glow of the food trucks' neon signs
alter the word order to give more of a punch at the end of the sentence
>dueled
wrong image, make it constructive

>>8554128
Learn what a metaphor is, stop telling people things about literature when you don't understand what a metaphor is.

>So it looks like it moves by rolling over itself.

It doesn't literally roll. It is a metaphor. You know what's even worse? That you think tides "roll in". Fucking hell. That's a metaphor too. I live near the ocean. Tides dont roll, at all. They come in and sometimes theyl curl.

>it can refer to the way uneven ground seems to get lit in bits and pieces such as in the morning sun or from a single light source. It can also mean how light becomes diffuse in wet air.

Again, a common metaphorical usage. Light doesn't literally scatter.

> you don't look at the real world often enough, you definitely don't read enough

Nice diagnoses. But it looks like that's your problem, buddy. You've taken common metaphorical expressions and integrated them into the way you view the world to the point you can't tell when somethings figurative if or if that's how it actually behaves. In effect, figurative language works as a simulacrum for you.

It's not really a problem but you shouldn't be telling people what's what when it's wrong, and it'll be detrimental to you if you want to write prose, and especially poetry.

>>8554173
The writing style of Darren Shan is not the height of literature

>>8554192
jokes on you i dont know who that is

>>8554182
>In effect, figurative language works as a simulacrum for you.
Ow, the pseud is too much here - it hurts. Anything you want can be read as metaphor pretty much, see Levinson. The dude one.

>Tides dont roll ... sometimes theyl curl.
Holy shit. If this is the 4th year undergrad what that fuck are you doing broheim?

>>8554224
Most people in this thread haven't agreed with your viewpoint, you know. And it's true that in the poster who wrote 4th year undergraduate, but that was a lucky guess on your part, considering I haven't been the only one debating this point.

>Anything you want can be read as metaphor pretty much

But there is a specific meaning and "fog rolls in" is one. It's a clichéd metaphor. Even one of the posters a couple posts earlier refers to the clichéd use of it.

Waves curl. Tides dont roll in. If you can't understand that it's a metaphor, then there's no use debating you. It's a common metaphor. Look up some more clichéd metaphors. You might be surprised how many more you use without thinking that they're metaphors.

>>8547653
It's bad. Way too much description, nothing to set intrigue. Personally, I tend to like books that start out with some of the author's strongest prose to hook me in. Speak from your soul and try to make your opener sound like how you feel when read aloud.

>>8547653
Almost every noun has an adjective in front of it. They're also merely describing action without any developed metaphors or even characters (Patrick is just a name at this point). It just sounds bland. Vary your sentences a bit.

>>8554173
Rewording cliches does not make them fresh. I learned this the hard way, he needs to come up with something new.

>>8554270
> that was a lucky guess on your part
Not really.

>But there is a specific meaning
Read someone who actually writes about metaphorical language.

>clichéd clichéd clichéd clichéd
There is nothing new under the sun. If you try to avoid clichés all the time you'll not only fail but come across as a tryhard.

>Look up some more clichéd metaphors. You might be surprised how many more you use without thinking that they're metaphors.
Again, stop googling shit and go out into the real world a bit bro. You're asking me to look up some dumb list you've seen somewhere on the ol interwebs. Likely it was clickbait that played on your neuroses, which seems to be what most writing related clickbait does ("three phrases that make people hate you" and the like).

>>8554309
Not who you're quoting, but what a horrible defense of cliches. To a degree, they're unavoidable, but you can't write "the fog rolled in" and consider that decent prose for fuck's sake.

>>8554306
>>8554306
yeah probably
OP you need to completely rethink what it is you want to describe and how it ties into the rest of the story
read some kafka or something to get a feel for this

Here's what I'd do:

> It was cold that day. Patrick had felt the fog rolling in all afternoon. It came in through the doors and off of the people that had come in, shivering, smiling. Outside, the sun had gone down. The light that was coming in through the main window was either from gaslights or the neon signs across the road. Everything felt dim, pixellated. He was happy to be done.

Did I overwrite it? Fuck. that was fun tho

>>8554309
>Again, stop googling shit and go out into the real world a bit bro

Nice condescension. How is your idea of the real world supposed to help me realise, according to you, that fog rolls and tides roll in? I've seen both and they don't. I literally live a 2 minute walk from the beach. I don't understand how you can say tides roll in isn't a metaphor so assuredly with a straight.

>There is nothing new under the sun. If you try to avoid clichés all the time you'll not only fail but come across as a tryhard.

So you're advice to writers is to embrace cliché. Okay, fine. That sort of relegated you to only writing genre fiction then, the literary market usually scoffs at clichés and books with clichéd metaphors will be ripped apart by the literary field.

>all the time you'll not only fail but come across as a tryhard.

Nice advice. Don't even try to be original.

>Again, stop googling shit and go out into the real world a bit bro. You're asking me to look up some dumb list you've seen somewhere on the ol interwebs. Likely it was clickbait that played on your neuroses, which seems to be what most writing related clickbait does ("three phrases that make people hate you" and the like).

Nice presumptions. I don't read articles like that. If you really search for clichéd metaphors I imagine you'll come across cached academic websites. Anyway, feel free to read some books on language and writing, they'll tell you what I've told you, also. There are even books, plenty, going back decades, that have tables of commonly used or phrasal metaphors if you're interested. Your local library probably has some.

Why does it bother you so much that others have said things contrary to you? Also what makes you think you are right? There have been enough people in here trying to tell the op that a few of his word choices are metaphors or clichés, but you have denied that they are even metaphors. Why do you feel the need to resort to calling me a "pseud", and telling me to get out in "the real world", how is that even related to anything?

>Neuroses

What? How is it?

>>8554334
This is YA tier. Better than OP, but still not very good.

>>8554362
Sorry poorly written on my.phone.

>>8554309
>"A fog rolled in" isn't a cliché.

How much more wrong could you be.

You're encouraging shitty writing.

BTW simple phrases like that, if they're clichés (and this is), are clichés because they're overly used figures of speech. If you use a word that actually fits what you're talking about, without metaphor, then it won't be or feel cliché, unless it's a plot or character "cliché"

Cliché turns of phrase are okay every now and then. They are forgivable. You don't wanna open your novel with one though.

>>8547653