The foundation of wish fulfillment – Contrast

One of the specialties of commercialized writing is powerful contrast—a huge difference in expectations.

Regardless if it's an eastern fantasy novel or some other genre of novel, any successful commercialized novel is one where we can find at least some traces of contrast. Typically speaking, the stronger and more obvious the contrast, the greater the attractiveness of the novel.

The hugely popular Japanese manga and anime "Hikaru no Go" is an excellent example of this. In the story "Hikaru no Go," the main character is a total novice who doesn't even know the rules of the game Go. However, the spirit who resides in his body is the former Go teacher of an emperor, as well as the number one ranked Go player of his time. This type of powerful contrast will give readers great expectations. Just how far will the main character progress under the teachings of this spirit?

Actually, the use of contrast in "Hikaru no Go" is far more than just that example. For instance, when the main character learned the basics and started playing by himself, he was nothing more than a complete beginner who was totally weak. But if he listened to his spirit's advice, and allowed the spirit to play for him, he would become a mega first-rate expert.

This will cause the other beginning-level Go players around him to believe that the main character is quite weak and look down upon him. Meanwhile, top-level Go professionals are impressed with the main character's strength, being astonished with his incredible talent, which creates a powerful contrast. And when the beginning-level Go players mingle together with the Go professionals, comical or dramatic scenes will naturally appear.

This type of contrast found in "Hikaru no Go" can definitely be expanded and used for any type of novel. For instance, in a martial arts novel, you could design the following type of common story. A former number one in the world finally ended up dying, but his soul didn't perish with him and instead attached itself to some youth who's a total beginner in some martial arts sect. This youth has no martial arts knowledge whatsoever. However, the spirit attached to him is a martial arts grandmaster. This will create a powerful contrast, and it will make it easier to write the following story as well. For instance, the youth's martial arts will increase at an amazing speed, he'll occasionally show signs of being a martial arts genius, he might show off one or two techniques that are amazing, and everyone else is confused whether or not he's actually strong or weak… All of these can be great selling points.

Of course, there are countless methods out there to create contrast, not limited to only this one. It's just that in comparison, the recently popular reincarnation or spirit possession type of story is easier to show contrast, especially with regards to the main character.

In this type of novel, either the main character's soul goes to someone else's body, or returns to their own body from many years in the past. But no matter what, the body, way of thinking, knowledge, techniques, etc. will all have obvious changes before and after the reincarnation or possession, creating a powerful contrast.

For instance, this new book I saw recently was about an elderly and well-respected Xiaolin Temple head monk who reincarnated into another world and took over the body of a well-known playboy with a terrible reputation. With this, apart from the typical martial arts contrast, since the Xiaolin Temple head monk was a martial arts expert while the playboy was useless and never studied fighting, there's a moral contrast as well. The Xiaolin Temple head monk has strict self-discipline, follows Buddhist scripture, and is incredibly upright and moral, while the playboy was known for committing all sorts of evil acts and being an untrustworthy, vulgar individual. With such a contrast, comedy and drama will naturally arrive by itself.

Or, you could even reverse this topic so that a playboy is reborn into the body of an elderly monk who's quite respected. This way, the contrast will be present as well, along with the comedy and drama. Of course, if you change it this way, the main character's personality and setting will be different, so the story will become a totally different type of story. You would also need to change the writing style for this type of story.

If you want to have contrast with your main character, you don't need to rely only on reincarnation. Actually, many cliché methods are all there in order to show the changes in the main character. For instance, in so many martial arts novels out there, the main character gets to eat some mystical magic fruit, or obtain some mega-powerful secret technique. With this, the main character's former weakness and his potential future power will form a contrast as well, giving the readers expectations to look forward to.

There's another type of even more common commercialized writing technique out there—pretending to be weak when actually strong. This is actually a type of contrast using your main character as well. More accurately speaking, the main character is secretly quite strong, while the fake weakness he shows off to others creates a powerful contrast. Although this method is incredibly cliché, it's still a forever effective cliché that can attract readers.

Apart from the contrast of the main character with him or herself, of course there's also the contrast of your main character with other characters. This contrast is the easiest to show in stories about the main character transmigrating to the past. Since the main character went to ancient times, his knowledge of modern technology and way of thinking will create a powerful contrast with the people from that time period. As I stated earlier, as long as contrast appears, the story will naturally develop on its own, together with its attractiveness.

Actually, as long as you carefully look, you'll discover that almost all the cliché commercial methods of writing will show contrast in all sorts of shapes and forms. Without contrast, the story will become incredibly limited in appeal, unless the author's literary skill is overwhelmingly excellent. Otherwise, the story will become incredibly stale and boring.

For instance, if you're writing about a martial arts expert, if you only keep describing how powerful he is, with a bunch of adjectives, that'll be incredibly boring. But if there's a person to compare to, then state that the main character is stronger than this expert, that'll make it seem far more alive. And as for how much stronger the main character is, that's easy for the author to decide as well. You could make it so that the main character fights with this expert for three days and three nights, or make it so that the main character wins easily with only a single attack. As long as there's contrast, everything becomes much easier.

Similarly, if you only write about how your main character defeats some enemy, the readers won't be too excited about this. But if you keep writing about how powerful and evil this enemy is before the fight, and write about the enemy's condescension and other people's lack of confidence in your main character, and the main characters' friends worry for him, or write about how important this battle is, then finally have your main character win while the enemy is shocked and disbelieving, the spectators are wowed, the friends are cheering… with this type of contrast, the readers will instantly become far more excited.

In conclusion, contrast is a factor that's absolutely required in commercialized writing. To be the number one in the world is something that requires a number two as contrast. A mega popular novel also needs contrast with all the other novels in its genres. Trying to think of methods to create contrast and making it as large as possible is something that a commercialized writer needs to consider.