Freshen up a stale metaphor

Stop using stale metaphors in your writing!

A metaphor is stale if it’s lost its meaning from overuse, like:

At the end of the day

Low-hanging fruit

Bed of roses

Put this on the backburner

Booooring!

But, I’ll admit that even as someone who writes every day, it’s hard to come up with fresh metaphors.

One technique you can use to liven up your metaphors is simply to expand on their meaning.

“Would you be willing to put this on the back burner so you can cook up this other idea?”

Try it the next time you find yourself writing a stale metaphor. Think about its deeper meaning, and expand the notion.