I need deep sea metaphors to describe emotions in underwater fantasy novel

Maybe go with a water verb.

For example: splash, squirts, jets, propels, sprinkles, sloshes, beats, dribbles, washes, showers, soaks, bathes, ripples, rolls, sweeps, surges, flows, rushes, floods, soaks, rinses, foams, froths, fizzes, bubbles, swells....

shall I go on?

Gringa

My first impulse was "like saucers" which brought the allusion to squid eyes. Though that may be too vague. Sorry, my brain's not fully functional at the moment, but brilliant minds abound here so I'm sure you'll find a good analogy!

His eyes splooshed like when you cut squid eyes open with a scalpel!

Wait no

Okay.

His eyes widened like the hyponome of a cuttlefish scooting away from--

No

So like, how bout

He felt like he had a Portuguese Man o War stuck in his jejunum

or

He felt like he'd just shoved a bushel of lionfish in his eyeballs.

or

He wanted to poop his guts out like a sea cucumber

or

He felt like his balls had just shrunk into his body like a male anglerfish melting into a female's flesh.

or

He was shocked

I wouldn't focus quite so much on external bodily cues. A few are fine, but it's easy to overdo, and it can become contrived. Sometimes you don't even need to say the kid is shocked; you can just have dialogue and skipped beats do it for you But em, yus. Things in the sea are great for weird metaphors because there are billions of weird and fascinating things in the sea, and I find it hard *not* to use them sometimes... but if you're not going for weird, it might be better to stick to vaguer sensations and feels and hinted-at beats than external actions? Just a feeling, perhaps a dumb suggestion

The nitpicker in me wants to point out that using "like" or "as" makes those similes, not metaphors...

I think you could easily overdo this. Just that short bit you used as examples started getting rather "Look! I'm using clever OCEAN references!Get it?" A little could go a long way, here...

That said, IIRC, one of the biggest eyes on Earth belongs to the giant squid (Smithsonian link, confirming)... so maybe that would help?

I liked the pufferfish analogy. How about swapping scared for something like
His eyes bulged like a freshly caught pufferfish.

"Like swimming through someone's piss" comes to mind. You know, when you're in the pool, and the water is warm for a few seconds

Imagine if you relied on taste and smell underwater!

A warm current against my skin.
A cold current against my skin.
Anything describing light or visibilities at different depths or clarities. Light through murky water.
Turbulence (in water)
Kelp forests
References to coral (sharp as coral, perhaps, or brittle as coral)
Delicate as a sea fan
Filaments like tentacles
Sharp as a stickleback's (or some other prickly fish) spines.

It festered, like an urchin's spine broken off under the skin.

The hard part would be names for animals and plants that have the word "sea" in them, since the sea part is taken for granted by your people. If your characters are 100% aquatic, then the names of a lot of sea creatures would make no sense, as we named them with reference to life forms found on land.

Sea anemone (an anemone is a flower)
Lionfish (have they ever even seen a lion)
Sea urchin (maybe just call them urchins. Indeed, anything with the word "sea" in its name would be rather redundant to them).

etc. Maybe they'd need new or alternative names. Or seaweed could just be weeds, sea slugs could just be slugs and so on.

And go-to descriptions or names referencing animals in the ocean, What kinds of characteristics do sharks, morays, eels, squid, seals, jellies, whales etc. have that could be points of comparison for people who live with these creatures the way we live with lions, dogs, snakes, rats, pigs, weasels and so on?


Also, maybe descriptions of how the water tastes. I tasted his fear in the water.

And are your people able to smell things underwater? Odor is very important to aquatic creatures. So is electrical sensitivity in many cases. And many marine creatures have organs (like the lateral lines of fish) that allow them to detect the way currents feel. Oh, and sonar (like dolphins and whales have).

rockondon said:

I want to say his eyes widened like _______ (but I can't think of anything in the ocean that widens to finish this sentence).

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Eyes widened like a gnarly set curling over a reef.

The deep sea itself would be tricky. It's relatively calm and steady in the deeps. On the coast or near the surface, though, the ocean has moods.

Plenty of options and danger near the coast. We just had three divers die in rough seas while trying to catch abalone.

... stomach dropped as if was sucked out in a rip tide. (More of a horror, instead of awe, though.)

Getting Caught Inside. (shudder).

Or read the ocean battle scene in Desolation Island in the roaring 40s, where the swells was large enough to sink a sailing ship with 600 sailors.

Rule of thumb on metaphor and simile:

If one doesn't come to mind in a natural fashion as you write, you probably don't need one.

caw

rockondon said:

.....His rectum erupts like a steam vent.

That last one is tempting

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Momma Mia! Dat's a whale of a problem!

.. Widened like the maw of a hungry shark?

redfalcon said:

.. Widened like the maw of a hungry shark?

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Are we still talking about rectums?