I've been thinking about the virtues of contrast recently.
I'm not sure where it's come from. I've just finished reading - no, savouring - the best book on writing or story that I've ever read. Robert McKee's Story is not for beginners. It gets to the guts of how stories are developed and how they work. There's no mamby-pamby advice like "write every day", but he goes deep and illustrates character constellations, delineates value systems, and goes to the nature of conflict itself, showing how it develops, deepens, and then destroys.
I love this book.
One bit that really worked for me was about how it can be boring to describe goodness, but describing badness - where you'll find all your conflict, and therefore your character and the rest of the stories - that's what makes your good look better and better. I guess the contrast grows richer.
I'm now reading John Simmons' Dark Angels (another writing book). And I've learned a problem with contrast: the value I place on one thing can seep across, and I can struggle to enjoy the next on its own merits. Making me forget that different is good.
I'm having quite a converstaion with the author in the margins of Dark Angels...so I'm completely engaged, and learning. And using the ideas as well, those that are new as well as those that are refreshers.
It's good to learn.
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