Stretching Points?

Lately, the notion of “figurative writing” has come up in my circles of on-line travel. Let me say this about that: simple, short, declarative sentences speed up the movement of a story, but that staccato also gets monotonous. Figurative – maybe lengthy metaphor or or run-on simile or picturesque slang are good ways to let the reader mentally breathe and bask a moment, and maybe feel a sense of the place of the story or grasp better the essence of an important character's personality, but figurative can be too much also - like too much paprika.