Simile

Simile

noun | Screenwriting & Development

A figure of speech that draws an explicit comparison between two unlike things using the words "like" or "as," illuminating a quality of one through its likeness to the other. Unlike a metaphor, which asserts direct equivalence, a simile preserves the distinction between the two things being compared while drawing attention to a specific quality they share. "She moved like water" does not claim she is water - it claims that a specific quality of water describes a specific quality of her movement.

Quick Reference

The Explanation: How & Why

Every screenwriter has faced the moment when a character's interior state resists plain description. "She was sad" tells the reader nothing they did not already know. The simile solves this problem by borrowing the specific qualities of a concrete image: "She was sad like a building with its lights turned off one by one." The comparison gives the reader a visual, spatial, and emotional experience that literal language cannot deliver. That is the mechanism - the simile borrows sensory or structural qualities from one thing to illuminate another, using "like" or "as" to announce the comparison openly.

The significance of the simile lies in its transparency. By using "like" or "as," the simile announces itself as a comparison rather than a direct statement. It keeps the two compared things separate while drawing attention to the specific quality they share. This explicitness is both the simile's strength and its limitation.

The strength is clarity. A simile names its comparison openly, making it accessible and immediate. "He sat like a stone" is instantly comprehensible - the quality of immovability, weight, and absence of response is communicated through the comparison without requiring interpretation. The simile does not ask the audience to make the interpretive leap themselves; it makes it for them.

The limitation is that same transparency. Because the simile announces itself as a comparison, it keeps a slight rhetorical distance from its subject. "He was a stone" (metaphor) fuses the person and the quality more completely. "He sat like a stone" (simile) is a comparison that both illuminates and maintains separation. In dialogue, this distinction often determines the emotional register: characters who speak in similes are articulating their perceptions carefully; characters who speak in metaphors are expressing states more fully absorbed.

In cinema, simile appears primarily in:

Dialogue: Characters comparing their experiences, emotions, or perceptions to other things. A simile in dialogue reveals the character's specific way of seeing the world - what they reach for when they try to describe their interior states. A character who consistently uses precise sensory similes ("I feel like I'm standing under water") is different from one who uses cultural similes ("It's like that painting - the one where everything is melting") or structural similes ("It's like the whole house of cards just tipped").

Voice-over narration: First-person narrators describing their experiences often speak in similes. Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe narrations, adapted into classic noir films, are dense with vivid similes: "She had a face like a Sunday school picnic that had gone wrong" - a simile that communicates a specific quality of naive viciousness in a single comparison.

Action lines in screenplays: A screenwriter may use a simile in the action description to communicate a visual quality to the director and DP: "The light in the room is like the light inside a bruise."

Historical Context & Origin

The simile is among the oldest rhetorical and poetic devices in Western literature, present in Homer's epic poetry (the Homeric simile - extended, elaborate comparisons spanning multiple lines) and in every subsequent literary tradition. Aristotle's *Poetics* identified simile as a subset of metaphor, noting that "the simile also is a metaphor, differing from it only in the form of its expression." In cinema, the simile's primary home is the spoken word: dialogue and narration. The visual medium's preference is for the metaphor (images asserting equivalence through juxtaposition) rather than the simile (images compared through "like" or "as"), because visual juxtaposition asserts rather than compares. Film noir popularised the verbal simile through its hard-boiled detective narration tradition - Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and their screen adapters created a simile-rich vernacular that became one of the genre's defining stylistic signatures.

How It's Used in Practice

Scenario 1 - Character Voice (Screenwriter): A narrator describes their first sight of the city they have returned to: "It looked like a face I used to know - familiar in all the wrong ways." The simile communicates both recognition and estrangement through the specific comparison. The city and the face are not the same; the simile claims only that they share a specific quality of the narrator's experience of them.

Scenario 2 - Dialogue Characterisation (Screenwriter): A character under extreme stress says: "I feel like I'm running in water - my legs are going but I'm not getting anywhere." The simile externalises an interior state through physical experience, giving the actor and director a specific, concrete image to work with. The comparison communicates exactly what literal description cannot: the particular quality of effort without progress.

Scenario 3 - Action Line Direction (Screenwriter): A screenplay's action line reads: "The interrogation room is lit like a surgeon's table - everything visible, nothing hidden, no mercy in the light." The simile directs the DP and production designer toward a specific lighting aesthetic through comparison rather than technical description. The simile communicates a quality rather than a specification.

Usage Examples in Sentences

"The line is a perfect simile - 'like a Sunday school picnic that had gone wrong.' Chandler could put an entire character history into a single comparison."

"Use 'like' and you have a simile. Drop the 'like' and it becomes a metaphor. Both work; they have different registers."

"The action line simile is for the director and DP, not the audience. It communicates a quality; the crew translates it into specifics."

"Her dialogue is full of similes - she compares everything to something else. That is who she is: a person who always sees one thing through the lens of another."

Common Confusions & Misuse

Simile vs. Metaphor: A simile uses "like" or "as" to make a comparison explicit: "Her voice was like honey." A metaphor asserts equivalence directly: "Her voice was honey." Both create meaning through comparison, but the metaphor fuses the two things while the simile keeps them distinct through the explicit marker. In casual usage the two terms are often conflated; in precise usage, the presence or absence of "like" or "as" is the distinction.

Simile vs. Analogy: A simile is a brief comparison that illuminates a quality through likeness. An analogy is a more extended comparison that explains a relationship or process by mapping it onto a more familiar one. "Explaining string theory is like explaining colour to someone who has never seen" is a simile used as part of an analogy. Analogies use similes as their building blocks but extend the comparison into a structural explanation.

Key People & Films

Raymond Chandler remains the most influential practitioner of the simile in screenwriting and hard-boiled fiction. His screenplay for Double Indemnity (1944), co-written with Billy Wilder, deploys similes throughout its dialogue to layer subtext into every exchange between Walter Neff and Phyllis Dietrichson. Chandler's novel The Big Sleep (1939) contains the famous line "Dead men are heavier than broken hearts" - a simile that compresses grief, guilt, and physical weight into seven words. Ross Macdonald extended the Chandler tradition in the Lew Archer novels, using similes that were less baroque but equally precise. In contemporary cinema, the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski (1998) parodies noir's simile-heavy narration while demonstrating that the device still functions as characterisation.

Equipment / Tools Reference

Screenwriting software does not generate similes, but it shapes how they appear on the page. Final Draft 13 remains the industry standard for feature screenplays, formatting action lines and dialogue to WGA specifications. Fade In offers a lighter-weight alternative with the same formatting engine. Highland 2 and WriterDuet provide real-time collaboration for writers' rooms where simile-heavy dialogue is workshopped. All four applications render action lines identically - the simile's placement and line length in the action description is what the DP and director actually read.

Standards & Specifications

No formal industry standard governs the use of similes in screenplays. The WGA Format Guide specifies screenplay formatting (12-point Courier, 1.5-inch left margin, scene headings in caps) but does not regulate literary devices within action lines or dialogue. Aristotle's classification of simile as a subset of metaphor in Poetics remains the foundational literary-theory reference. Screenwriting craft guides including Robert McKee's Story and John Yorke's Into the Woods discuss simile as a tool for characterising narrative voice rather than as a structural element.

Common Questions / FAQ

Q: Can similes be used in screenplay action lines, or only in dialogue?

A: Action lines are the most common place for similes in screenplays. A line like "The room is lit like a surgeon's table" communicates a visual quality to the DP and director without specifying technical details. Dialogue similes are character-specific - they reveal how a particular person processes and describes their world.

Q: What is the difference between a simile and a metaphor in screenwriting?

A: A simile uses "like" or "as" to make a comparison explicit: "Her voice was like honey." A metaphor asserts equivalence directly: "Her voice was honey." In dialogue, characters who use similes are articulating perceptions carefully; characters who use metaphors are expressing states more fully absorbed. The distinction affects emotional register.

Q: How many similes should a screenplay use?

A: There is no target number. One well-placed simile in a key scene can define a character's voice for the entire film. Overuse flattens the effect. Chandler's density worked because it defined a genre; most contemporary screenplays use similes sparingly, reserving them for moments where literal language fails.

Related Terms

• Metaphor - The direct equivalence version of a simile; asserts "A is B" rather than "A is like B"
• Symbolism - Uses images to represent meanings; related but operates through representation rather than comparison
• Subtext - Similes can function as subtext when the comparison implies more than it states
• Allegory - An extended systematic comparison; similes are the local-level version of what allegory does at the story level
• Theme - The story's central meaning; similes in dialogue and narration can directly express or approach thematic statements

See Also / Tools

The Shot List Generator helps plan the visual images that screenwriters describe through simile in their action lines - translating the comparison into specific cinematographic choices about lighting, composition, and colour. For more on how literary devices shape visual storytelling, see the blog post on story structure and screenwriting craft.