Pushing the Colors of Writing
All art forms have similarities and artists in one art form can learn from artists in another. In the visual art forms, there is a phrase that is used, “push the colors.” It can mean different things, but if often implies boosting the saturation of the colors in an image to make it more vibrant. The colors in an image that might have been dull and gray will pop, making the image look clean and fresh. Pushing the colors can help the artist highlight his vision, but if we push up the saturation too much, the image will appear surreal. In writing fiction, there are ways to “push the colors” as well. Because it is fiction, we don’t have to worry as much about overdoing it as we might if we are writing non-fiction. One thing we can do is to deepen the contrast between good and evil. In real life, people are neither totally good or totally bad. We tend to sit in this mush of mediocrity. We might have a story in which a CEO is laying off employees. Rather can making it because sales are down...