Four Corner Opposition

How to attack your main characters' beliefs using side characters.

1. hola

2. four corner opposition, explained

3. resources

1. hola

Hello writerly friends, and welcome to the fourth episode of season three (aka our 28th episode, because time flies when you’re making vampire sex jokes). We are LOVING releasing full length episodes where we deep dive into specific craft topics and nerd out about them at length. This season, we’ve been taking turns being the teacher/student and doing some live learning. And this week, Anna is teaching Lyssa her new favorite craft obsession: four corner opposition.

2. four corner opposition, explained

Four corner opposition is a craft technique you can use at the scene level, act level, and even book level. It’s a dynamic tool intended to help amp up the conflict in your story by making the most of your side characters.

As we’ve discussed before, conflict is key to good story. Four corner opposition provides a simple visual device for you to really dig into the essence of why you are writing the story. The themes, the philosophical stakes, the changes that need to occur.

Are we being vague? Let’s get technical. And if you’re reading this before you’ve listened, keep reading, because it’s easier to grasp with a visual.

At the start of The Hunger Games (which is slowly becoming this season’s Twilight), Katniss is determined to make sure her family survives. And that means staying out of trouble. She has no interest in dismantling the oppressive system. Any rule she breaks (like climbing through the fence) is for survival. We can summarize her quiet belief at the start of the book as “staying in line keeps us safe.”

Enter four corner opposition.

Gale is already feeling quite rebellious at the start of the book. He talks about running away and beating the system, of craving change. As seen above, this is a direct attack on Katniss’s belief that staying in line keeps them safe, as Gale is arguing they’d be safer if they never had to participate in the reaping or risk their names being called for the Hunger Games.

A less extreme version of Gale is Peeta (yes, this is a bit of a stretch but stay with us a moment). He is far from talking about rebellion, and he looks pretty defeated when his name gets called. But—as he steps forward, Katniss flashes back to a time he burnt bread on purpose and snuck it to her, even though he got punished for it. He fed her when she was hungry, thus breaking the rules and risking his own neck for someone else’s survival. And sure, Katniss is willing to break the rules, but until now, it’s only for the survival of her family. Not others. His kindness and self-sacrifice attacks her belief that she doesn’t have space to look after anyone else. Now she’s wondering if she’ll have to kill the nice guy who stuck his neck out for her, and that doesn’t sit well with her.

And lastly, taking Katniss’s view and making it as extreme as possible is Effie, who has wholeheartedly bought into the capitol’s propaganda. She agrees with Katniss. The rules are not only important for survival, but they’re wonderful! She celebrates the Hunger Games and believes the gruesome annual death of children provides actual peace for their nation. Her enthusiasm for the rules provides an indirect attack on Katniss’s much milder inclination to stay in line. Because if Katniss continues on the path Effie has set forth, she’ll end up walking willingly into her own slaughter.

We go through countless examples, but it boils down to a few rules:

The rules of Four Corner Opposition:

1. Each opponent should use a different way to attack the other corners’ weaknesses.

2. Directly compare their beliefs on the page.

3. Put the values of all four (give or take) characters in conflict

4. Push the characters to the extreme. Don’t sell your characters’ beliefs short!

3. resources

• Four Corner Opposition comes from John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story.

• Anna references examples utilized in this blog post explaining Four Corner Opposition. It also contains examples of what goes wrong when you don’t have clear conflict embedded in your plot.

• Anna also uses this Jacob Tyler Mowery YouTube video, which is absolutely worth a watch.

4. next week…

…is Lyssa’s turn to surprise Anna with a craft topic. Stay tuned, #teamcuriosity!