Please Welcome our Guest Winnie Griggs

SUBTEXT

By Winnie Griggs 

Hello everyone.  I’m just tickled pink to be back here in Seekerville!  I always have such a fun with you folks.

Today I want to talk about Subtext.  And let’s start by discussing what subtext is and what it does for your story.  Subtext is an impression or conclusion conveyed by the author to the reader through inference rather than explicit communication.

Subtext is what the character is saying or thinking between the lines on the page, so to speak.  Often characters aren’t willing to be direct, aren’t fully aware themselves, or aren’t articulate enough to express these underlying messages.  However, if the author does her job properly, they will be apparent, consciously or subconsciously, to the reader.

Subtext is the writer’s friend because if every character said exactly what they mean and displayed all of their emotions openly, we wouldn’t have a very interesting story.  In fact it would feel flat and clichéd.   It’s when the characters try to hide something from the others around them that things get oh so interesting.  Subtext goes beyond what your characters say or do in order to reveal what they feel.

As for the mechanics, there are several ways to deliver subtext, some more subtle than others.  Today I want to discuss a few of them.

The Words Are At Odds With The Tone And/Or The Actions

This is one of the easiest forms of subtext to portray.  If you show a child sullenly saying “I’m sorry” when caught misbehaving,  or get an “I’m fine” response from someone who then storms from the room, then the reader understands the character isn’t feeling the same emotion as the one they are expressing verbally.

Consider this example from my book Something More

Set up:  The heroine Elthia has just arrived at her destination via stagecoach and is about to disembark.

She picked up the basket that served as Poppy’s carrier, tightened her hold on her parasol, and shifted forward.  Moving to the door as if it were heaven’s gate itself, she barely avoided a tumble when the coach lurched and then stilled again.

“Ooof!”

She turned to apologize to the passenger she’d inadvertently jabbed with her parasol.  “Mr. Jenkins, I’m so–-”

“Watch out!”

Elthia pivoted, this time carefully pointing her parasol toward the floor.  “Oh dear, Miss Simms, I didn’t mean–-”

The matronly woman gave her a tight smile as she straightened her tipsily-angled hat.  “That’s all right, dear.  This is your stop, isn’t it?  You just go on now.  Don’t want to keep whoever’s meeting you waiting.”

“But–-”

“No, really, just go on.”

Elthia looked around.  Several other passengers were (enthusiastically) nodding agreement.  Really, this was (just) the nicest group of people.  Especially considering the fuss Poppy had made with his yipping eagerness to get to know the other passengers this past hour.

She gave them all a big smile, then stepped through the coach door, ready to begin her new life. 

In this snippet, Elthia obviously thinks everyone is just being friendly and is clueless to the undercurrents.  But by observing the words and actions of the other passengers, the reader can clearly recognize from the subtext that they are glad to see the last of her and her troublesome dog.

Actions Without Dialogue

A lingering look, an over-attentiveness, a sudden hyper-awareness can signal the attraction of one character to another without the author ever overtly referring to the emotion.  In the same way a flinch, a abrupt exit, a stiffening can signify one character’s fear of another.

Staging Through Word Choice

This is subtext that is purely a dialog between author and reader.  As an author, the word choices we use can set a particular mood and/or set expectations. 

Consider this bit of description:

The heat of the day was softened by dappled shade of the woods.  She and Toby were off to enjoy  an afternoon of picnicking and berry picking.  Lucy stepped over a knobby root and paused while Toby studied a shiny beetle lumbering up the side of a hickory tree. They’d been strolling along this leaf-carpeted trail for about thirty minutes now, and the creek crossing was just past the bit of brush up ahead.  Some of the choicest blackberries in the county grew there.

Now contrast that with:

The hot summer sun stabbed unevenly through the ghostly shadows of the woods.  She and Toby were on a quest to gather the desperately needed berries that grew near the old creek.  Lucy stepped over a twisted root and paused impatiently while Toby tried and failed to catch a large beetle fleeing up the side of a hickory tree. They’d been picking their way along this narrow, bramble-infested trail for nearly thirty minutes now, and the creek crossing was just past that clump of dead brush up ahead.  That’s where they would find the potent and highly coveted berries.

Though on the surface these are two views of the same scene, just by the word choices, I’ve given the reader two very different moods and expectations.  And even though there is no dialog and no introspection in either scene, the reader will make deductions about what is going on and what the characters are probably feeling.  

 Weaving In Elements That Support Your Message or Theme Throughout Your Story

If your story is about loss, then there should be subtle references to various kinds of loss and the effect they have on the character all through your story.  These can be almost invisible to the reader on the surface - a minor reference to misplaced keys, a ripped piece of clothing that must be thrown out, losing a place in line - snippets that have small individual weight but that will have a subconscious cumulative affect on your reader.

There are other ways to insert subtext, of course, but these are the primary ones.

Remember, subtext lends emotional depth and increases reader engagement with your work.  It’s what elevates your work from product to art.

So, do you have any additional pointers on subtext that I left out?  Or perhaps some favorite examples?

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And to celebrate the recent release of Book 2 in my Texas Grooms series, The Bride Next Door,  I’m going to be giving a copy away to TWO folks who leave a comment on this post.

Love Thy Neighbor? 

After years of wandering, Daisy Johnson hopes to settle in Turnabout, Texas, open a restaurant, perhaps find a husband. Of course, she'd envisioned a man who actually likes her. Not someone who offers a marriage of convenience to avoid scandal.

Turnabout is just a temporary stop for newspaper reporter Everett Fulton. Thanks to one pesky connecting door and a local gossip, he's suddenly married, but his dreams of leaving haven't changed. What Daisy wants - home, family, tenderness - he can't provide. Yet big-city plans are starting to pale beside small-town warmth...

~~~~~~

Winnie Griggs grew up in south Louisiana in an undeveloped area her friends thought of as the back of beyond.  She and her two younger siblings spent many an hour exploring the overgrown land around her home, cutting jungle trails, building forts and frontier camps, and looking for pirate ships on the nearby bayou.   Once she ‘grew up’ she found other outlets for dealing with all those wonderful, adventurous imaginary friends by filling notebooks with their stories. 

Eventually she found her own Prince Charming, a rancher whose white steed takes the form of a tractor and whose kingdom is situated in a small rural community that she loves to call home, and together they’ve built their own storybook happily-ever-after that  includes four now grown children, two of whom are twins.

Now a multi-published, award winning author, Winnie feels blessed to be able to share her stories with readers through her writings for Love Inspired Historical books.  You can learn more about Winnie at www.winniegriggs.com.