Entering the darker places: The lodge-gates in The Hound of the Baskervilles

This next clause is pretty tricky.

What are we looking at it?

It’s basically a wrought-iron gate like this one: 

The way Doyle describes it, the gate design is so complicated that it is:

A maze wrought in iron

No more than that, it’s:

A maze of fantastic tracery wrought in iron

That’s actually a complex image so let’s build our own version in two stages.

Let’s go back to the simplified version:

A maze wrought in iron

The gate is made from wrought iron, so that is literally true. However, the word maze is a metaphor.

So we have this:

A maze wrought in iron

Metaphor material

Let’s try a few variations. To do this, start with your material, then add a metaphor.

Now let’s expand this fragment.

From: A maze wrought in iron

To: A maze of fantastic tracery wrought in iron

Fantastic tracery highlights an important detail of the gates, the incredible detail in the design. This detail is actually the most important part of the description.
 

To write a variation, try thinking of something and what physical material it is made from then choose the most interesting detail and turn it into a metaphor. Then you write your response out in the reverse order.

Don’t worry about being gothic. Just try to get an image that hangs together.

A field of sparkles made from glittering ice crystals.

That’s pretty tough. This time I’m going to try to come up with an adjective to go with the detail, and a better verb than made.

Getting closer! Let’s try another one.

A fistful of towering javelins carved from stone.

Oops, I sort of got the detail and the metaphor mixed together in that one.

One last time.

A plague of miserable expressions spread through their faces.

That one wasn’t bad! Yay! Persistence!

Now you have a go. Don’t sweat it too much. Just try to come up with something along the lines of:

Metaphorical description of a compelling detail made from a physical material