Analogies are to writing as furniture is to a home

"Analogies, it is true, decide nothing, but they can make one feel more at home." - Sigmund Freud

The majority of my writing is related to health issues, but I blister when anyone labels me as a technical writer. I use prose, metaphor and analogies to lure my readers down the path of health. I want them to be excited about their bodies. Goodness, our bodies are amazing enough without poetry, but all the more so with it. Just read Sherwin B. Nuland’s The Wisdom of the Body and you will see what I mean.

Analogies are my favorite tool. I think it is easier to imagine pipes and pumps than the circulatory system.  A good analogy can even simplify the renal system.  Metaphor is also powerful. Imagine being able to craft a poem about the liver.  Pablo Neruda did in Oda al Higado (Ode to the Liver). Here’s an excerpt: "Seafaring anger soul whose innards measure blood, you live hands on oars and eyes ahead navigating the hidden mysteries, the alchemist’s chamber of life’s microscopic, echoic, inner oceans…" Doesn’t that just make you want to swoon over that amazing organ and never get drunk again?