Following on from Anacoluthon64s summary of Dan Browns new novel in the Flame wars thread, I thought I’d add these fun examples from aspiring writers…
- Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its
two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master. - His thoughts tumbled around inside his head, making and
breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling
Free. - He spoke with the kind of wisdom that can only come from
experience, like a guy who goes blind because he looked at
a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in
it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools
about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one
of those boxes with a pinhole in it. - She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he
was room-temperature Canadian beef. - She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like the sound a
dog makes just before it throws up. - Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
- He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
- The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disin-
tegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude
shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM
machine. - The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly
the way a bowling ball wouldn’t. - From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene
had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation
in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead
of 7:30. - Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after
a sneeze. - Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers
raced across the grassy field toward each other like two
freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m.
traveling west at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19
p.m. traveling east at a speed of 35 mph. - They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with
picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth. - John and Mary had never met. They were like two humming-
birds who had also never met. - He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and
she was the East River. - Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel
trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted
shut. - The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But
unlike Phil, this plan just might work. - The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get
from not eating for a while. - He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck,
either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from
stepping on a land mine or something. - He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he
heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.