I should begin by clarifying what I mean by “metaphor.” I do not mean abstract symbolism that you force the reader to dig through, so that he can make-believe he understands what the story’s about, while looking down his nose at the Philistines in the audience.

What I’m talking about is “show; don’t tell” metaphors. These happen in every effective story, whether we consciously realize it or not. They are part of what makes the difference between a story that is just a series of meaningless events and a story that is about something.

The human mind is a metaphorical machine. It associates events, objects, people with our perceptions of them. In a sense, everything’s a metaphor, because our perceptions—not raw facts—determine how we react. And these metaphors, these perceptions, are more important even than the reality behind them.

Over the past weeks here in New England, we’ve been inundated with snow. And between snowstorms, the air turns bitterly cold, as sub-freezing air blasts down from Canada. For the privilege, I get to drag myself out of bed at an ungodly hour each morning and scrape the frost off the Saturn, with its broken blower and no heat. Then I drive my Firstborn daughter to school, as the feeling gradually escapes from three to five of my toes.

During one such trip, as I was driving by the Merrimack River, thinking about The Alchemist, which my Firstborn read for school. The river, with its layer of ice floating on top, inspired enlightenment. I saw that there were three kinds of stories: the lake, the void, and the skating rink. And my favorite of these is the first.