Kids Corner: GCSE - Similes in Creative Writing

Similes are cool ways of describing things when you do creative writing. Look at the following examples:

·         The USS Anchorage inched slowly by the bay. It was big, heavy, and full of people.

·         The USS Anchorage inched slowly by the bay, like a two-hundred ton floating city.

The first example is a bit boring isn’t it? Yes, it’s big, and yes it has a lot of people in it. When we use a simile though “like a two-hundred-ton floating city”, it sounds much grander and more exciting!

Similes are a way of saying that one thing is like another. You can use “as something as” or “like” to make your own similes. In our ship example, we are comparing the USS Anchorage and a floating city. This makes it possible for us to take all the things we think of when we think about a city (full of people, busy, loud, lots of different jobs, buildings, entertainment, places to sleep…) and make them all true for our ship.

Let’s look at some more examples of similes using “as something as” and “like”

·         My backpack is as light as a feather

·         The president is like the boss of the government

·         My Dad is as strong as an Ox

·         I run like an asthmatic donkey

So, make your creative writing a bit more interesting by using similes! Do you run like an asthmatic donkey? What do you eat like? Talk like? What similes can you make about yourself and the world you live in?