21.15: Using Contrast for Maximum Effect

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Writing Excuses Introduction

3:02Season 21, episode 15.

3:07This is Writing Excuses. Using contrast for maximum effect. Tools, not rules. For writers, by writers. I'm Mary Robinette. I'm Dong Wan. I'm Erin. And this week, we're continuing our conversation about moving through the middles of your book. And one of the things we wanted to focus on, you know, having talked about soggy middles, try-fail cycles, is ways in which you can use contrast to heighten the impact of certain scenes in your book, right? And when we say that, we sort of make contrast in a bunch of different ways.

3:40Sometimes that is putting a big light emotional beat next to an in advance of a dark beat, just to sort of give you a sense of loss when you get to the darker moment. Or even the other way around, right? Having the dark night of the soul before your triumphant success, right? The, you know, night is darkest before the dawn kind of thing, right? And, you know, I think some of the examples that we're going to use will have a feeling of being a little cliched. But I think we're reaching for the ones that are very obvious in that way. And in the back half of this, we want to talk a little bit about ways in which you can sort of

4:13make it feel a little bit more subtle and a little more integrated and not just the like, yeah, the dark cave before the hero's success. So, when you're thinking about moments of contrast, what are some examples that you reach for, either in your own fiction or stuff that you see out in the world? So, this, for me, this came about because I was on a panel and one of the people on the panel said that you always had to have an all is lost moment.

4:45And I always bristle a little bit about the anytime it's like, you always have to. Tools, don't rules. Tools, not rules. Exactly.

4:55And so, what I started thinking about was like, yeah, you know, the thing you have is the moment where it does look like they have lost everything. And I think it provides this big cathartic beat when you come out of it. There's a bigger contrast between the moment where, oh, no, we've lost everything. And look, we've succeeded. But when you look at horror, you also get this beat of contrast where it looks like, oh, they're going to get out and then they get sucked back in and devoured by eldritch horrors.

5:29So, I think that the contrast does this thing for you and that you see it in a bunch of different ways on this really big macro scale, but also a lot of other places. So, I also think about contrast like with foils, like a contrast to the main character. So, those are things that I think about with contrast. Oh, I like the idea of what contrast is like a foil, like a thing to show, you know, what the character is like. I was trying to think about how contrast is handled in long-running formats like wrestling

6:02and soaps, where like there is no Dark Night of the Soul because like this show is on 300 days a week. And so, like there might be one person's Dark Night of the Soul, but like it will- That's a long week, by the way.

6:15Eldritch horrors consumed my sense of time. But I think like that is a something like I was like, well, how does that work? I was trying to think about it, but what they really do use is like the idea of like this, not that. So, in wrestling, you have your heels, people who are just evil, and your faces who are like the good people. And people do like a heel face turn or a face heel turn. But one of the ways that they do that when they want to shift what a character is or how they're perceived is by if you're a bad person and then somebody worse shows up, then all

6:47of a sudden, you're not as bad as we thought. And it makes it easier for you to turn face. And so, like thinking about using contrast as a way to also reset audience expectations of what's happening on the canvas. I love the idea of having contrast also not just being opposites, but also like gradations, right? You can have this guy that you thought was the worst villain, and then the real villain shows up. And you're like, oh no, the bad guy was just a henchman. The bad guy is actually the nice one. You know, what is truly evil is whatever's happening over there, right?

7:19Um, you know, it's one of the things that makes us love people who are doing heists. They're, they're criminals. Yeah. But they're not bad. Like the way the person is whoever that they're heisting against. Exactly. Exactly. Like Danny Ocean's not a good guy, but, uh, uh, Andy Garcia's character, like that dude's evil. You know what I mean? And so I think having that differentiation really matters. Something else that I was thinking about, um, was, uh, as a contrast moment was in memory of, uh, a memory called Empire, which we, we've talked about in a, um, at length a couple

7:55of seasons ago, but more recently, uh, there's this scene at a restaurant and it's, they're having a nice meal. Um, and then there's an explosion and this is, this is a classic kind of setup where, um, there's, everything's really lovely and then things go terribly wrong. And it's often so predictable, but one of the things that I love about the way Arkady Martine handles that is that she makes it about something else, but specifically she makes

8:26it about something else that is also a contrast. Yeah. It is the difference between the way food is prepared in one place versus another place. And so you focus on that contrast in the scene and you're enjoying the nice meal. And then there's this other, this, this other bigger contrast. So there's a lot of fun things you can play with. I also think contrast can be in a single moment. Ah, yeah. All my examples are just going to be a little, um, very me, but there's a, there's a famous and I'm going to get it wrong now.

8:56Also GH fans don't at me, but there's a famous general hospital moment called clink boom in which one pair of characters, uh, clink the glasses after getting married while another one dies in a car bomb explosion. Um, but what's interesting is that you see both of the things coming, like neither one is a surprise. The wedding is being prepared, you know, someone's creeping around there, do that camera angle where you can show that somebody is being followed. But what you don't expect, despite the fact that both these things are coming is for them to come at the exact same time. And so it makes something that you would have thought was like super not surprising all of

9:30a sudden surprising because you have to deal with it in a contrast that you weren't used to do. And I think that that's, that's a really good example of why it works because both of those feel earned. Like, even though you see it coming in Downton Abbey, when they got rid of Matthew, um, you know, the, the, it's, it's this big contrast moment, Lady Mary is having the baby and then he's driving and then there's just this random car crash and he dies and it's unearned. It doesn't, it comes completely out of nowhere, which like is a thing that happens, but it's,

10:02it exists only because there was a contrast, a contract dispute. And it, it just, it felt cliched. It felt like this is a thing I've seen. This is, there's no surprise. There's no interest. And also they're telegraphing it so much leading up to it that like if he'd been racing home and desperate, um, to get there, then actually I would have been a little shocked if he had died in a car crash because I was expecting the happy ending to be him arriving at home and instead he's tooling along and he just doesn't know that she's in labor and

10:35it's like birds are singing and he's enjoying a nice car ride. I'm like, oh, this dude's dead. Yeah. Well, and sometimes you can just use contrast to heighten moments that wouldn't be heightened without them just, um, just by defying audience expectations. Yeah. Right. And this is a thing that's been used so much. It's become cliched. We can think of all the moments in action movies where everything like slows down and you're getting like a moody pop song over, you know, the, a scene of a bunch of people dying. Right. Um, you know, I think like this is a gamer reference, but like the gears of war commercial

11:10that use mad world, like played in this moody, slow down way while the guy's like chainsawing aliens and half. And you're like, all right, what are we doing? At the same time, it was like, this is cool as hell. I want to play this game because that felt novel and interesting at the time. But the contrast between the two actions gets your audience to pay attention in a way that they might not have otherwise and can give the feeling of more weight and impact than necessarily would have been if you just shown the thing in a more quote unquote normal way. Yeah. That was the way it was used in the much older film, Good Morning Vietnam, which is one of

11:43the first times we see that contrast between the music and the horrors of war. And, and that one is very generated by the story. It's like, this is music he's playing at the radio station while these things are also happening. Yeah. Yeah. The thing, and this will not help you write at all. Sorry. But the thing that I love about those is that they're often the song in a minor key. And what's interesting about that is that is a contrast right there. Like I will say, if you want to creep yourself out, listen to Don't Worry, Be Happy in a minor key because it's so, the lyrics are so bright and the music just sounds creepy on

12:18some primal level and you start creating story. What I think is really interesting about listening to it is I'm like, I don't trust you that you're telling me to be happy because the music is not matching. And so I'm actually going to create in some ways like, what could be going on here? What's happening with this character? And I think that sometimes contrast can also leave space for the reader in between the two poles. Like something is, there's some like gap that needs to be bridged and the reader can kind of step in to bridge that gap. I think you've hit on something that there's a distinction in kind of the ways you're using

12:52contrast. What you're talking about right there is creating something that is unsettling because of the juxtaposition of two contrasting elements. Whereas the other type where it's like, there's a very happy moment followed by a terrible moment. There's a contrast there where you're trying to create more emotional distance for the reader to travel so that you get a bigger cathartic snap. And they're both forms of contrast, but just for different effects. Yeah. I think this hits on a really important point and one I want to get into more after the

Distance and Contrast

13:23break, but how is distance important for juxtaposition and contrast?

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18:57Omaha Steaks removes the guesswork by delivering expert crafted beef with guaranteed quality and consistency. Start your summer off right with Omaha Steaks. Visit omahasteaks.com right now for 50% off site-wide during the Memorial Day sale. And for an extra $35 off, use promo code YUM at checkout. That's omahasteaks.com with promo code YUM at checkout. Terms apply. See site for details. If the world were like a sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Because as your life changes and your body changes, sleep number mattresses adapt and

19:31shift to give you personalized comfort night after night. And now everything's on sale during our Memorial Day event. Save up to $1,200 on mattresses, plus free delivery when you add a base. Ends Monday. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a sleep number store or go to sleepnumber.com. Sleep number to a good life's sleep. Welcome back. Uh, I hope you enjoyed contemplating distance in that little bit of a break that we had. Um, and you know, one thing that really strikes me as we're talking about both these examples, as you were discussing right before the break, Mary Robinette is, you know, in one way we

20:04have ironic distance in terms of like expectation setting, right? And when you have like the moody music over or like a happy song in a minor key that creates an ironic distance. That's something internal to the reader and the reader's expectations. That's creating an emotional distance from the work in a lot of ways to then have the emotional impact of them coming back into it versus the contrasting sort of things within the story of like a happy scene followed by a dark scene or something vice versa that creates net creates impact from shortening the distance between two

20:40different types of emotions, right? So how does, how are you thinking about distance in these ways and are they connected in terms of those two different modes? The way I think about it is using the, um, using the, the, the first moment say to kind of set expectations to, to place the reader in a specific spot. Um, and then the second moment is, um, is kind of like a whiplash or a catapult situation where in order to move from one state to another, you have to move through it fairly

21:14rapidly. Um, and, and, and like the faster you go across a bigger distance, kind of the bigger, um, impact snap it can have. Um, sometimes that will backfire because you, you, you didn't actually load it enough to get that snap, like everything that's surrounding it. Um, but that's, that's kind of the thing that I'm thinking about. Um, I, I will sometimes do this by not necessarily having a happy moment before having a big tragic moment, but sometimes making you think, oh, we're dealing

21:49with this story problem. And, oh no, it's actually this one, but there's a contrast between the kinds of things that the character is trying to solve. And, and the, I don't know, I, I, I don't know another way to describe it other than whiplash, which can be a negative, but in this case, I think it's a bit more like a slingshot effect around the planet as if we've done that, all of us. I have. No. Uh, so here's a question. Do you think it matters whether it happens, like can it happen to

22:21the characters, but not the reader? So the way I'm thinking, we talked about a few episodes ago, the thing that happens where the like spaceship is exploding and then the story rewinds and says like, 12 hours earlier. Uh, so at that point, you know, that like every happy moment that's happening in the 12 hours leading up to this is just the prelude to a disaster, but the characters don't, they're moving forward in real time. And I'm wondering like, does that create, is that the same effect? Is that a different effect? Yeah, I think it is the same effect. Um, like there was, uh,

22:55um, a story that, um, a story that Justin C. Key wrote, a short story, um, in which you know that you are reading about someone who is dead by the end of this story. Um, and, and it is, it's, it's an examination of, you know, of their life together and, and it's a form of mourning. And so you're seeing these, these memories and there's this bitter sweetness because you are existing in both states. Um, and so, and I do think it is, it, it would, I know that it wouldn't work without that contrast,

23:29without that awareness. Otherwise it's like, oh, look, they're at a soccer game. That's cute. You know? And so having that, uh, preloading that knowledge for the reader does provide that contrast for them as they're experiencing things. You know, the deep dive project we did last year, uh, Charlie Jane Anders' All the Birds in the Sky is all about contrast, right? A lot of times what she's doing is either doing the Greek tragedy thing of like, this is going to end a disaster. And we know that, and that's creating contrast in the overall narrative tension way or directly

23:59contrasting two extremely different people by showing us their relationship and the conflicts they have around that. And that lets us see all the unreliability in each of their narrations, right? We can see the ways in which, you know, uh, I believe her name is Patricia is, um, being unreliable and reporting about her own relationships through the contrast of how other people see that, how other people experience those relationships. Yeah. As we were talking, I suddenly had a small revelation, which I always enjoy. Uh,

24:30it's why I like doing this podcast with you guys. Um, there's a thing in puppetry we call compress expand in animation. They call it towards and away. And the idea is that if I'm going to jump, I have to bend my knees first. So that's the compress and then I expand. Um, and so one of the ways you can think about these contrasting moments is loading energy. Um, and that is also, I think why some of them don't work because it's so obviously not loading energy of any sort. This is the thing where you're at the beginning of a movie and it's like, look at how happy this couple

25:04is. I'm so sad she's going to die because there's nothing else happening in that scene. It's not doing anything. It's that scene itself is just existing. So it's not loading energy in any sort of way, uh, in terms of your expectations, in terms of tensions that you can have. And then, then when it releases, it's like, but I, I didn't, I didn't set for that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in that loading comes from stakes, right? In that emotional investment in how the character sees themselves, how the character feels about other characters. And if you're loading that up with

25:38the tension, then when you have that contrast, either through success or failure, that is where you get that big release of energy that makes for an exciting story moment. So how do you not make it feel like, okay, I'm about to have this moment of horrible thing. Like now I've just like low, how do you earn that? Like the happy moment before the sat or the sad moment before the happy. That isn't the like, this is my last job. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like, and I, I just got my place picked out in the country. Um, I think by doing, uh, exactly what Arkady Martine did in Memory Called Empire,

26:13which is that you make that scene about something else. So the, you're faking the reader out. It's like the, the scene appears to be doing something. It is doing something, you know, it is carrying energy for the story. Um, it's doing all of this load building stuff about the differences in their world, about her feelings, about being in this space, about exploring this, her slight horror that people just eat an entire piece of animal, um, coming from a space station. That's just weird. And so it's doing all of these other things. And so in, in, in a way it's a form of misdirection.

26:49Um, you make the reader think that's what the scene is about. And then they don't notice that you're setting them up for this other thing. But it feels inevitable when that other thing happens, right? Because you've been lingering in this tension and the tension is coming from all the micro contrasts in the scene that are leading into the big contrast. How do you do it? I don't.

27:17You do. I don't, I, I, I don't know, uh, to be honest, off the top of my head. I think I do. I don't think I use contrast as much, uh, because I think I tend to, a lot of times I like to center my stories in a mood. And so the mood will predominate. So even though there is differences in what is being experienced, it doesn't, the highs and lows are not quite as high or low. Well, I, I mean, I do, or I, um, I shouldn't have sprung that on you like that because I do think that you use contrast, but in short form, it shows up differently, I think.

27:50Um, in short form, what we're often looking at is a contrast between the beginning state and the ending state. Um, or the contrast in the middle between the way a character handles things at one point and the way they handle it in a second point. I'm thinking about, uh, the contrast, some of the contrasts that are in Sour Milk Girls. Like there's, uh, the difference in the way we are talking and interfacing with memory at the beginning versus where we move to the end and we end, and the reader's understanding of what we're talking about

28:20shifts. Um, for listeners who are just coming into this episode, you can go listen to our deep dive on Sour Milk Girls a couple of seasons ago. It will be correct in the show notes, but I don't remember it. Um, so, so I think that, that in short fiction, because we, um, we aren't having to, we don't have as much room to work, um, that it is often a contrast between beginning and end. Uh, sometimes we use contrast in terms of like, um, what I will sometimes call an avatar

28:52of success. You know, like at the beginning, your socks are cold and wet and at the end, look how dry and warm they are. Thinking actually about the story that we actually just did recently of yours, I believe. Yes. Uh, which. Yes. Possibly. Yes. Time travel. Yes, we have done this. Uh, the story and like the contrast where I actually think, I'm thinking about the difference between the beginning state and the end state, uh, and the difference in like the, the way that the character holds power at the beginning and at the end, which is interesting because I think in some ways, I don't know that contrast is within the character so much as it is within

29:26our understanding of, of what the character is capable of. So I'm going to point at that, um, and say at the end of the story, I am using contrast very consciously, um, uh, because I had forgotten that I did this. So, um, but it's an example of how you can do it in a very tight space. There's this, the very last scene, um, she is having, uh, is, has prepared welcome snacks for her asshole cousin. Um, and it looks like

29:59the tension is just, oh, he's here. I have to, I have to be hospitable to him because he's my asshole cousin, uh, but really it's setting you up for, look at how I've been exercising my power this entire time. Exactly. And I'm going to introduce a little contrast into this episode by transitioning from us talking about the concept to you doing some homework. Um, so what I'd like you to do is to look at a pivotal moment in your book and add a beat either before or after that

30:31inverts some element of the original beat. You can switch up the tone, the mood, introduce a character or a character that's a foil to your protagonist, or switch up the location in a way that allows you to highlight some interesting aspect of the first scene. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.

Conclusion and Homework

30:55Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, Don Juan Song, and Aaron Roberts. This episode was engineered by Marshall Carr Jr., mastered by Alex Jackson, and produced by Emma Reynolds. For more information, visit writingexcuses.com.

31:18If the world were like a sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Because as your life changes and your body changes, sleep number mattresses adapt and shift to give you personalized comfort night after night. And now everything's on sale during our Memorial Day event. Save up to $1,200 on mattresses, plus free delivery when you add a base. Ends Monday. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a sleep number store or go to sleepnumber.com. Sleep number, to a good life's sleep. If the world were like a sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort.

31:54Because as your life changes and your body changes, sleep number mattresses adapt and shift to give you personalized comfort night after night. And now everything's on sale during our Memorial Day event. Save up to $1,200 on mattresses, plus free delivery when you add a base. Ends Monday. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a sleep number store or go to sleepnumber.com. Sleep number, to a good life's sleep.

32:20Shop the Sherwin-Williams Memorial Day sale and get 30% off paints and stains May 15th through the 28th. Whether you're refreshing your interior or exterior, we've got the colors to bring your vision to life. And with delivery, getting everything to your door is easier than ever. Shop online to have it delivered or visit your neighborhood Sherwin-Williams store. Click the banner to learn more. Retail sales only, some exclusions apply. See store for details. Delivery available on qualifying orders.