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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45156
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

 **Writing is not real life**. It is words on a page arranged to produce an effect, express a truth, or meet any of the many other possible goals of writing. So neither the non-naturalistic eloquence of some writing or the rough-edged bluntness of other writing is the point. The point is whether or not the desired impact is produced in the reader.

In your example, you're using simple, unadorned language to produce a certain effect --perhaps to give a sense of the (presumably) simple animal viewpoint. That's perfectly fine. **There's no rule or guideline that forbids you from doing that**. But neither would it be wrong to use flowerly or eloquent language here, if that produced an effect you wanted to achieve. Simple language isn't necessarily more natural or realistic --or more deeply felt, or more moving --than eloquent language. After all, wolves don't think in English in the first place, right?

If a metaphor calls unwanted attention to itself, that may be a function of the clumsiness or inaptness of that particular metaphor itself, and **not a general statement** about whether or not it's right or wrong to integrate literary devices into your own narrative voice.

Original score: 2