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CHAPTER FIVE

POLAR OPPOSITES

—— McKENNA ——

The other day, I had a student writer present the beginnings of an idea during a workshop session. She featured two sisters who are basically in tune with each other at the outset and who remained so throughout.

This was as far as she'd gotten, and she was frustrated that she couldn't find the story. So I asked her to consider the differences, rather than the similarities, between the characters.

I was asking her to use the storytelling tool of Polarities, of Polar Opposites.

Responding to “Polarity” questions, the writer decided that Sister A was older, more headstrong and inclined towards security. Sister B was younger, more heartfelt and had a taste for adventure. A good start, and from it we deduced that Sister A is the alpha female who (as the story begins) can always rely on her younger beta sister to be a trusted sidekick.

The Polarities tool was generating the basics of the conflict that would drive the story.

The writer had envisioned a romantic setting of upper-class wealth and privilege. Our storytelling tools helped us infer that such privilege would be rooted in long-time traditions and rules to maintain the luxurious status quo. This suggested that alpha Sister A could be a conservative figure, devoted to following and protecting those rules. Polarities could posit beta Sister B as a potential radical who might be tempted away.

What could tempt her? What might threaten the status quo and tear the girls apart? How about the arrival of a swarthy, handsome fellow from the lower classes? Sister A could see this fellow through the eyes of traditional values and immediately pigeonhole him in a subservient position. But Sister B might see instead the fellow's natural charm and the possibility of a romantic relationship. Eureka! We were finding a story!

AN ESSENTIAL TOOL

Polar Opposition is one of the tools that all good dramatic craftspeople value. On the most fundamental level, stories pit two opposing forces against each other and then stage scenes of physical, emotional and philosophical combat (i.e., Reciprocal Action) until the conflict is resolved. The conflict usually continues until one of the Polar Opposites prevails or until the two forge something new that wasn't present in the early going.

PULP FICTION: TWO CHARACTERS, TWO POLES

Think about the post-credit opening of Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. We initially see Jules and Vincent as a matched pair of businessmen, colleagues who are carpooling to work. They are almost mundane as Vincent describes his recent vacation in Europe.

But Tarantino uses these two as Polarities to personify the opposing forces of his morality play. The separation begins when the two argue over whether giving a woman a foot massage is a sexual act. This lively debate creates conflict between the otherwise identical colleagues.

The Polar Opposition becomes clear during a key dramatic event. Jules and Vincent complete their mission by blowing away a roomful of bad boys. Out of nowhere, a previously unseen enemy barges into the room and opens fire with a hand cannon. Impossibly, all of the bullets miss Jules and Vincent.

In this all-important moment, Vincent claims that they were lucky. Jules rejects this, claiming that they've been saved by a miracle. The two characters are in thematic conflict, and the Polar Opposites argument focuses the script's actions. Pulp Fiction begs the question: Are we merely subject to random good and bad luck? Or is there a greater force at hand with which we can communicate?

Pulp Fiction implicitly debates this thematic question at all points. Is it luck or God that causes fugitive boxer Butch to encounter Marcellus on the street? Is he lucky or divinely inspired when he wins redemption by rescuing Marcellus from the evil gun shop owners? Is it fate that puts the watch from Butch's father at hazard?

Tarantino seems to have strong feelings about this question. Just look at where Vincent and Jules wind up. Placing his faith in luck, Vincent survives a near-fatal night out with Marcellus' wife. His luck runs out when gun-toting Butch catches him on the toilet. Denying God, Vincent dies as a secondary character in someone else's story.

Belief in God gives our Polar Opposite character superhuman powers. Faith allows unarmed Jules not only to talk mad killer Ringo and his wildly unstable girlfriend Honey Bunny out of hurting anyone in the diner, he also convinces the homicidal pair to return his wallet and Marcellus' mysterious suitcase.

In the thematic play Tarantino is staging, faith in the divine leads to control and mastery while belief in luck puts one at the mercy of random events.

Once we become aware of the Polar Opposites in play, we stick with the story. Suspense tightens as we root for one side or the other to prevail or to hope that the polar conflict will lead to a new possibility by the end.

The Polarities don't get much more obvious than this image from Snow White. What do Snow White and the Queen represent?

THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY: ONE CHARACTER, TWO POLES

Polar Opposites can occur within a single character. In Clint Eastwood's The Bridges of Madison County, Francesca is a loving Iowa farm wife who supports her husband and kids in their mundane pursuits. But she's also a displaced Italian with music and romance in her soul. Her inner being embodies two Polar Opposites.

Screenwriter Richard LaGravenese dramatizes the polarities when he temporarily removes Francesca's family, slightly altering her Ordinary World. LaGravenese then has globetrotting Robert bring the world and the possibility of extramarital romance to Francesca's doorstep. A good wife would shun him. A romantic Italian would woo him. Which Polar Opposite within her will respond?

By the time the film reaches its climax, the new lovers must decide how to proceed. Francesca returns to her role as farm wife, but the romantic in her will continue to live, too. She becomes something that she wasn't before. The same is true of gadfly Robert. Until meeting Francesca, he was taking each moment on its own terms. As he leaves her, she has given him a spiritual home which will live in his heart for the rest of his life.

The Bridges of Madison County succeeds because its Polar Opposites are both complex and clear. The two poles are joined together to create something that hadn't existed at the beginning of the story.

The point is that the matter of Polar Opposites is a tool that opens an entire realm of productive questions that can launch the storyteller forward and can craft the inspirational visions into a workable dramatic structure.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1 What are some of the Polar Opposites in vampire movies? In the Star Wars movies? In Sex and the City?

2 Brainstorm a list of twenty possible Polar Opposite pairs (e.g., Honest vs. Deceitful, Nervous vs. Calm, Flexible vs. Unyielding). Then hatch stories and conflicts that could be generated from each pairing.

3 What Polar Opposites are present in your own life? In your family? In your local community? In your state/province? In your country? Can you generate story ideas from these polarities?

NOTE FROM VOGLER

This notion of polar opposites was among the earliest storytelling principles that David and I agreed on, finding delight in movies and plays that expressed the flip sides of a human quality, like Shakespeare's study of knighthood through his contrasting characters Henry V and Falstaff. I've written a bit about story polarity in the third edition of The Writer's Journey, comparing it to magnetism and electricity, and trying to describe how it sometimes reverses itself temporarily, throwing characters out of their comfort zones with comic or dramatic effects.

Perhaps David and I are drawn to polarity as a storytelling device because we are polar opposites in many ways. Compared to me, he is a neat freak, and we couldn't be more different in our approaches to deadlines. His rule is “Read the script or do the assignment as soon as it comes into your hand, then relax.” Mine is “Relax and put off doing the job until the last possible moment.” It has made for some interesting tensions in our professional collaborations.