Crafting an analogy is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle: You need to get things to fit together just right before you can see the big picture. Actually, no, writing analogies is more like weaving a tapestry, threading together different elements into a new whole. Wait—maybe making an analogy is really most like building a bridge, joining two distinct ideas that wouldn’t otherwise connect.
Clearly, finding the perfect analogy is hard—get it wrong, and you risk overcomplicating or oversimplifying your exposition, or taking your reader down rabbit holes (as my attempts might demonstrate). But the risks are often worth it: A well-built analogy doesn’t just explain a complicated idea, it can offer connections that help carry your reader though a story and even provide structure and artistry to a narrative, like memorable bridges do in a cityscape.
“It’s like crafting jewelry or pottery,” striving for a balance of form and function, says Miami-based Colombian journalist Ángela Posada-Swafford. And, she warns: “It’s not easy.”
At their heart, though, analogies are simple things: They connect two ideas, typically relating something complex or unknown to something familiar. Many feature metaphors, figures of speech that suggest a likeness between two things by directly substituting one for the other. Such comparisons are often a natural part of our vocabulary, especially as writers.
“I have always used metaphors and analogies a bit instinctively,” says Posada-Swafford, who has written for the Miami Herald and the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, worked with Discovery Latin America, and written novels for children. “What I always try to do is aim to capture the mind and the heart at the same time,” providing clear explanations in tandem with a compelling and satisfying story.
In the hands of a skillful science journalist, analogies work as translators, helping fill in knowledge gaps by turning specialized or technical concepts into language that more readers can understand. While working on a recent story, Posada-Swafford compared cactus spines to a man’s beard, transforming a possibly alien plant into something familiar, even intimate. Such a comparison adds vivid sensory details, allowing readers to imagine how the exotic plant looks and feels.
For more abstract topics within physics, astronomy, and neuroscience, analogies can be particularly useful in helping readers understand and visualize something they could never see. “We need things that are familiar to ourselves,” says Danielle Sedbrook, a freelance writer based in Germany who writes about chemistry and physics.
Most reporters agree on the building blocks for a good analogy: simplicity, relatability, and accuracy. They can provide solid footing to help readers understand difficult concepts, and they allow journalists to enrich a story with detail. But as useful as a good analogy may be, a bad one—like a decrepit, wobbly bridge—may leave you and your readers stranded.
Thinking Up a Storm
Analogies often emerge as a natural part of the writing process. Many writers start reaching for them when they see the need to describe a necessary but difficult concept, particularly something removed from a reader’s everyday experience. If you want to take a reader somewhere they’ve never been, it might make sense to build them a bridge.
Compelling comparisons can arise by letting yourself be inspired by the natural wonder of a subject and trying to relate it to everyday life.
Sometimes it’s not a concept that drives the search for an analogy, but a need to express a particular tone or feeling. While working on a story about a questionable study that raised concerns about spreading misinformation, Laura Dattaro, a freelance writer who used to be a reporter at Spectrum, considered using fire to convey the rapidity with which misinformation could flare out of control from just a spark. “The metaphor itself helps explain, but it also imbues the mood or the vibe of [the subject],” she says.
Some analogy ideas come up even earlier in the process: while talking to sources. “Sometimes there’s a sense when someone’s talking about something that this thing has some poetry or beauty to it,” says Dattaro. “That can be inspiring, like, I want to cash in on that poetry and come up with something beautiful.” For a Quanta story on astrocytes, she recalls one of her sources describing how these cells fused together in the brain into a sort of matted blanket. This made her think about astrocytes like the nets of soil fungi that nurture trees in a forest: “While neurons and their branching dendrites are often pictured as trees,” she wrote, “astrocytes are more like a fungus, forming a tightly woven mat that blankets the brain.”
It’s also useful to note if scientists often use a particular comparison when talking with their colleagues, Sedbrook says. That’s a good sign that it might be an effective way to explain a concept to readers, too.
Build the Bridge
However a writer identifies that an analogy fits into a story, the next step is to craft it. Compelling comparisons can arise by letting yourself be inspired by the natural wonder of a subject and trying to relate it to everyday life. Posada-Swafford traveled through Antarctica with researchers and was amazed by the icebergs, calling them her “constant trip companions” in her subsequent book on the continent. To help readers connect with these icy fellow travelers, she evoked familiar textures, describing one iceberg as “round and smooth, like a glass bell” and another as “full of tiny craters, like small golf balls.” She says, “People always tell me, ‘When you write I imagine myself being in the place.’”
Once a writer has found the right analogy, it’s important to integrate it into the piece in a way that supports the story’s structure, rather than as a stand-alone explanation.
Other times, writers can come up with an appropriate metaphor by focusing on the key aspects of a process or concept they’re trying to explain. For a panel she produced at the World Science Festival, Dattaro wanted the introduction to reference dark matter, the mysterious stuff that astronomers are pretty sure is holding much of the universe together. Most importantly, she wanted to communicate that dark matter is an invisible structure with visible matter on top of it. “That idea of structure naturally lent itself to buildings,” she says. Ultimately, she compared dark matter to the New York City skyline at night: You can’t really see the buildings, but you know they’re there because you see the lights. Visualization is helpful, Dattaro adds, since “a lot of what you do in science writing is write about stuff that you cannot see.”
If the perfect comparison still proves elusive, it can be helpful to turn to the experts. Reporters can ask their sources if there is a relatable example that captures the essence of the process or concept they’re trying to explain. Chances are, they’ve already thought of one. “[The scientists have] been trying to explain this stuff to their family and everyone for years,” says Natalie Wolchover, a senior editor at Quanta.
And sometimes good comparisons can be hiding in the reporting. Writers can look back to conversations with sources or readings to identify moments of clarity in their own understanding of a concept. “A lot of times my stories that have analogies are because I needed the analogy,” says Dattaro. For this reason, analogies can be helpful for journalists even if they don’t make it into the story, she says.
Once a writer has found the right analogy, it’s important to integrate it into the piece in a way that supports the story’s structure, rather than as a stand-alone explanation. Wolchover suggests first explaining the difficult concept and then introducing the comparison. “Once the reader has somewhat of a grasp, or at least is trying to grapple with the concept, then you come in with the analogy at the end that boosts them along,” she says. “[It] supports the scaffolding of the explanation that you’ve already provided.”
Extended analogies or metaphors can also be helpful, coming back to the same image or comparison at different times throughout the story. These can provide a point of reference for the reader, says Dattaro. And they allow you to build up the comparison gradually, going from a simple plank connecting two ideas at the start of the story to a fully functional drawbridge by the end.
Calibrating for the Audience
Writers may need to tweak their analogies, depending on the audience’s geography, age, and background, to ensure the references are relatable and inclusive.
Clara Marques de Sousa, a Brazilian freelance writer who has written for Medscape and the Brazilian newspaper Estadão, uses analogies to relate to Brazilian readers. Disinformation and distrust are rampant in Brazil, she says, making it critical to connect with her readers.
For broader audiences, writers should refer to more universal themes and processes.
The most effective analogies will tap into common experiences or interests of the target audience, Marques emphasizes. This means journalists should possess tacit knowledge about their audience’s backgrounds and cultural contexts. “We must have a persona on our mind,” she says. When writing about math for Brazilian audiences, for instance, she sometimes explains things through the lens of the country’s most popular sport. A large number like 10,000 is just an abstract numerical concept, but referencing half the capacity of such-and-such soccer stadium provides a concrete and relatable mental image for her audience.
Posada-Swafford also relies on culturally specific references to help her readers relate to a subject. For example, when writing in El Tiempo for a Colombian audience about the narwhal, a toothed whale often compared to a unicorn, she related its tusk to a melcocha, a long, brown, twisted candy popular in Latin America. “All I have to do is say, ‘the narwhal’s tusk is like a 4-meter-long melcocha,’” and everyone understands, she says.
For broader audiences, writers should refer to more universal themes and processes, reporters say. “I wouldn’t want to come up with a metaphor that requires special knowledge or special life experience to even know what it’s about,” Wolchover says. Dattaro notes that nature-based analogies, like comparing something to a river or forest, may be more widely understood.
Knowing When to Step Back
As much as a good analogy can help, a bad one can take you somewhere you didn’t want to go. Analogies are not always necessary and, if done wrong or used too often, can distract from a good story, says Wolchover.
A bad analogy might be superficial or decorative, adding little understanding or explanation. Or it can take the reader too far from the subject at hand by being overly extended or complex. Wolchover recalls reading an attempt to explain the flow of information in a quantum system using an analogy based on the economy, itself a complex and difficult subject. An analogy shouldn’t force readers to waste brainpower thinking through a difficult comparison.
Another potential waste of words is overused comparisons, which can become clichés. An overly familiar analogy can sometimes help readers grasp complicated ideas, but it can also lead to stale writing.
Dattaro has also gone through this. When trying to describe how scientists learn about non-coding parts of the genome, she likened it to exploring outer space. Ultimately, though, she decided the comparison was too complex and would distract readers. “If the metaphor is taking you down five other back roads away from your destination, it’s probably not a good metaphor,” says Dattaro.
Your editors can also help pinpoint when a comparison may not be needed. When thinking about misinformation, Dattaro leapt for the comparison to easily sparked fire. But although it accurately conveyed a potential problem, her editors pointed out that it was not serving a purpose in the story. “It was just kind of a waste of words,” she says. She ultimately cut it from her piece.
Another potential waste of words is overused comparisons, which can become clichés. An overly familiar analogy can sometimes help readers grasp complicated ideas, but it can also lead to stale writing. To strike a balance, Sedbrook uses a practical test: If you truly can’t devise a better comparison, it might make sense to go with the familiar phrase.
And there’s something worse than simply boring or confusing your reader: Actively misinforming them. Marques points out that a bad analogy can reduce a concept to an inaccurate stereotype, either by oversimplifying or exaggerating. “You don’t want to let your analogy be misleading in a way that overly promotes the science,” Sedbrook says.
Unfortunately, relying on an analogy can sometimes mask a writer’s lack of understanding. To avoid this, talk through analogies with scientists and make sure that you really understand, says Sedbrook. See if you can describe the subject without resorting to any analogies—sometimes, plain language can suffice when a clear, insightful analogy doesn’t present itself, Dattaro says. Better “not to force it, everything doesn’t need a metaphor.”
Agrees Sedbrook, “It’s only when I feel like it doesn’t make sense without it or if there’s some really strong visual image that I see that really connects to it, then I would use an analogy.”
Ultimately, crafting meaningful links between concepts takes practice, says Posada-Swafford. She reads a lot of poetry, looks up new words and meanings, and plays with language to find connections. When successful, those efforts can ultimately help readers build their own bridges of understanding.
Claudia López Lloreda is a science reporter at The Transmitter covering neuroscience. She received her bachelor’s degree in cellular-molecular biology from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, and her PhD in neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania. She was the 2021 Mass Media Fellow at STAT and worked as a news intern for Science. Her work has also appeared in Wired, Undark, Scientific American, Smithsonian Magazine, and Science News. Claudia is a TON early-career fellow sponsored by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. Find her on Bluesky as @claudia-lopez.bsky.social.