A few days ago I examined literary techniques via a book that was advanced to me (you can read the article here).  I provided an example of a passage in the novel and why it was problematic to me as it was in the middle of an action sequence and focused on something that didn’t advance that chapter’s main purpose: To build suspense.

Now, let me get into another literary element: Similes.

What are similes?  A full description and definition is offered in the link below:

Simile: Examples and Definitions

To spare you clicking the above link, here are some examples of similes:

He collapsed like a bag of potatoes.

The car wheezed as if a severe asthmatic.

The gunfire was like a series of explosions.

The bottom line regarding similes is that you compare something with something else, usually using the word “like” of “as” to make the comparison more direct.  The purpose of this is to give you an idea of the degree of the item(s) being compared.

Taking the above examples, the person didn’t just fall to the ground, he did so “like a bag of potatoes”, ie with great force and complete chaos.  The car wheezed like a severe asthmatic because that implies not only a failing motor, but one that is dangerously failing.  The gunfire wasn’t just loud, it was explosive loud.

Got it?

Good.

Now, and at the risk of having someone point out my own hypocrisy: I really don’t like using similes, at least for “serious” writing.  And it’s fair to say up to this point most of my writing has been fantastical but relatively “serious”.

Yes, I’m certain I’ve used similes in the past.  I don’t doubt that if someone goes through all my past writings they will find examples of me using them.  But I really don’t like them.  I really, really, don’t like using them.

Why?

In part its because most of the times similes are incredibly lazy.

I mean, how many times have you read about someone falling “like a sack of potatoes”?  Or that gunfire being like “explosions”?  Or how about these, presented as examples in the link above: Something being “as dry as a bone” or someone being “as cunning as a fox”?

Blah.

But there is another big reason for my lack of enthusiasm for the literary device and it involves, of all things, the Naked Gun films of Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker.

Bear with me here.

Starting in the late 1960’s and going through the 1970’s, disaster films were all the rage.  You had the “classics” like The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure (which, btw, featured a cameo appearance by one Leslie Nielsen).  These gave way to bigger and bigger disaster films like Earthquake and Roller Coaster and The Swarm and Beyond The Poseidon Adventure.

But one of the bigger “disaster” hits in the 1970’s were the Airport films.  The first movie, released in 1970, featured a huge, all star cast and was an equally huge hit.  It was followed by Airport 1975, Airport ’77, and The Concorde: Airport 1979.

In 1980 the above mentioned Abrahams and Zucker Brothers released the classic comedy Airplane! which parodied the living hell out of the “airliner in distress” movie genre.  However, I would argue the film also took great glee at parodying all disaster film tropes.

So good was the film at pointing out the many absurd cliches in airplane/disaster films that if you look carefully at the films released post Airplane!, you’ll see that the airline disaster film was all but gone for years afterwards (though some may argue The Concorde: Airport 1979 didn’t help the cause) and that big scale disaster film also were much more muted as well.  Sure, there have been disaster/airline-type films released since but they haven’t ruled the box office quite like they did up to that point.  In fact, the only big successful disaster film I can think of in recent days is probably the original Independence Day.

Jim Abrahams and the Zucker Brothers would go on to make the Naked Gun films and within them, at least to me, they laid a similar wrecking ball to the use of similes, something which was a commonly used literary device in the type of crime drama the Naked Gun films so beautifully parodied.

Here are the biggest/most hilarious lines, IMHO, featured in the three Naked Gun films:

Like a blind man at an orgy, I was gonna have to feel my way out.

Like a midget at a urinal, I was going to have to stay on my toes.

I like my sex the way I play basketball, one on one with as little dribbling as possible.

As Airplane! did with airliner/disaster films, these twisted -and hilarious!- similes affected my writing.  As much as I may want to use a “serious” simile in a passage, when I use the word “like” in comparing one thing to another I can’t help but recall one of the three above lines.

If I were writing a comedy, these lines would be inspiration.  But for “serious” writing?

Nah.