Writing Exercise #4 - Moving from Abstract to Concrete

[Glen]

When I find I have difficulty with description in my novel writing, I sometimes go back to my roots and write poetry. Poetry is by its very nature about description.

This exercise takes the general and moves to the specific, goes from the abstract and moves to the concrete. The idea is to take an abstract concept--in my case below the theme of "Failure"--and asks you to describe it, in poetic form or otherwise, in as concrete terms as possible. This necessitates the use of metaphors and similes, or course.

[Glen]

FAILURE

It is a voice in the back in my mind.
It is the echo from my past that haunts me.
It is the reason I don’t try.
It is the old man who sits in the back of the room, smirking when you stand up to speak, or sing, or present the project you sweated blood to complete.
Failure has smacked me around more than once. It has bloodied my mouth, blackened my eyes, given me a limp, left me with a bruised and broken body.
And yet, if I do his bidding, I will never succeed.
For success and failure are siblings. Success is the beautiful sister that everyone wants to date. She is the queen of the prom, the girl who rides on the float, the head cheerleader. She is every boy’s—and girl’s—dream.
Failure is her big, ugly brother. He stands in the road, taunting you, egging you to try and get past him.
Everyone wants her. No one wants him. And yet, to get her, you have to confront him.
And get beaten up from time to time.
Because every time you get your nose bloody, or an eye blackened, you learn something. You grow into a person who someday will not only get past the bully, but will get to a day when you can beat him up, humiliate him, bully the bully. And the girl—success—will be yours.
The trouble is, there’s always another, more beautiful girl somewhere down the road.
And her brother is bigger and badder than ever before.