When thinking about the ideas of contrast and affinity, I first began to think of this principle in terms of characters in a story. One way to emphasize the main character in your story is to introduce another character with opposing traits. The opposing traits that are chosen and emphasized serve to bring out certain aspects of the main character and help to show who that character really is by putting him or her under pressure. After showing this character with opposing traits, another character can be introduced with similar traits as the main character has. This similar character can, in some way, be very separated from the main character, so that instead of the similar character blending into the main character, only the similar traits are emphasized. In this way, using the technique of contrast and affinity, the message of the story that you are trying to get across to the reader will come through more clearly.

Another thought that comes to my mind when thinking about this is the idea of the emotional tone of a piece. You can start with a character and introduce him or her to the audience in a way that they grow fond of that character and begin to care about what happens to him or her in the future. Then the conflict comes and that charcter begins to fall more and more into their own darkness and despair. This darkness lasts long enough, with hints of hope along the way to keep the audience following along, so that the affinity of the darkness begins to become painfully familiar. At the climax, light suddenly bursts forth into the darkness, blinding the audience with such contrast that they cheer for the main character who went through such turmoil.