Never use the exceptional as metaphor for the everyday. Rule of analogy: use the familiar to describe the exceptional.

I chanced to hear a violation of this rule this morning on my drive to work:
Jason Beaubien of NPR's Morning Edition, reporting from Haiti: «The Catholic Cathedral of Gonaive is inundated with mud. The pews are strewn in every direction as if the devil himself had come in and furiously kicked the chairs about» (2:52).

The part following this colorful language dramatically described the human devastation in Haiti.

Eco's The Name of the Rose borrows the language of Revelations and the Song of Songs to add a supernatural patina to his mystery novel.