Ways to Use Subtext

Missy and her mom in honor of Mother's Day

Ways to Use Subtext

Missy Tippens

I’ve always considered subtext to be the thoughts in a character’s head while he/she is saying something else. Which can be fun to read. But after digging through a couple of my how-to books, I’ve learned that subtext is much more.  And I’ll only have the space to touch on it a bit today.

First, let me list the two reference books I used for this post:

Story Physics: Harnessing the Underlying Forces of Storytelling by Larry Brooks

Between the Lines: Master the Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing by Jessica Page Morrell.

Morrell quotes Linda Seger (Unforgettable Characters) as saying subtext is “what the character is really saying beneath and between the lines.” If you think about how people relate to each other, this happens because:

  --they (hopefully!) act polite even if their thoughts aren’t polite

  --they sometimes can’t bring themselves to say what they mean or feel

  --they aren’t ready to acknowledge their true feelings

This can be really useful in working with our characters. Morrell suggests using subtext in places where our characters are in denial or feeling confused or vulnerable. You can do this with dialogue and internal thoughts. Also with actions. And subtext can inform scene choices.

One thing that’s important to remember is that often the character won’t understand herself or be ready to admit feelings, yet the reader will know! So it’s fun for the reader to watch her in denial. Or it makes the reader cheer her on, hoping she’ll figure it out soon. This is especially useful in romance novels.

This technique is also a great way to create humor. It can be funny to watch a hero smile and nod while inside he’s about to grind his teeth to dust. Or to see his fear when he realizes he’s falling in love, yet he’s still acting as if everything is the same as always.

So use subtext to tell your story in a layer deeper than just what the character says or does. Let the reader inside to know the true story.

In Story Physics, Brooks talks about subtext a little differently. He says: “In fiction, subtext is the offspring of setting, characterization, backstory, and dramatic exposition.” Then he goes on to say, “…subtext is always available as a layer to make your story richer, deeper, and more compelling.”

I found it interesting that Brooks talks about subtext as pretty much anything that informs the story, such as social values of your characters, the time period you set it in, and the place where you set it. He says, “Subtext is the universe within which your story unfolds.”

Some examples to help you think about subtext in this way: Brooks shares the example of the movie Witness, set in the Amish belief system. He also uses the example of The Help, set within the prejudice and social norms of the day. But subtext can be more than religious or social barriers.

Brooks goes on to talk about theme in relation to subtext. He says: “Subtext often equates to and facilitates theme.” But I won’t have time to go into that in this post. I may actually do a Part 2 down the road.

Still, I hope I’ve given you a taste of how to use subtext. I’d love to hear how you use it or have seen it used.

Today, I’ll be giving away two copies (e-book or print) of my new release from Love Inspired, The Doctor’s Second Chance. Please let me know in the comments if you’d like to be entered! Winners announced in the Weekend Edition.

www.missytippens.com

The Doctor’s Second Chance

The Bachelor's Baby 

Jake West's troubled cousin leaves him with a most unusual parting gift—her newborn baby girl! And now the small-town contractor is forced to seek help from the very woman he resents—the new big-city pediatrician who practically stole his uncle's practice, Violet Crenshaw. Violet knows she shouldn't be consorting with the enemy. But she can't resist the adorable baby and her handsome new caretaker. Violet traded her chance at motherhood for her career years ago. But raising a family with Jake could be everything she's ever wanted.

4 Stars from RT Book Reviews Magazine

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.  

I Hear What You’re Saying but I Know What You’re Thinking with guest Jane Myers Perrine

The politician stands before the television cameras, confessing to a secret affair and asking forgiveness from those he represents. Next to him stands his wife.  

He exudes contrition and confidence.

She stands at least a foot from him. When he turns toward her, she doesn’t make eye contact.  When he gestures in her direction, she takes a step away from him.

What does she exude? Oh, she’s there, showing support like the good political wife, standing by her man but she’s hurt by his cheating and angry that he expects her to support him and furious that he wants her to display her wounds to the public so that the unfaithful jerk can keep his career.

How do we know that?   

 

  
But you’ll say, “That’s just showing.”  And I’ll agree, but what makes this subtext is that what you’re showing is different from or contrary to or beneath the surface of the presumed context of the scene. The basic definition for subtext is the art of saying or writing or doing one thing but meaning something else.   

 The scene, on the surface, is a loving wife standing by her husband, supporting him because she loves him, forgiving him to keep the family together.  What’s really happening is that she can’t even stand close to the cheating husband because she’s seething inside.

You and I use subtext in all the time, to protect ourselves and others.  When I get my hair cut, I know when my friends say, “Oh, you got your hair cut” they really mean, “Looks awful.  She really scalped you this time.”  That’s subtext.   We use it in life.  Experienced writers uses this in their books.  It adds texture and depth to the plot and the characters.  

In novels, subtext is like rocks at the bottom of a shallow, fast running creek. The boulders are the plot points that stick up and cause the water to flow around them. Subtext is barely visible and below the surface.  It, too, changes the flow of the river or story in less obvious ways--but it still adds at least a ripple to the course of the story.

I’m going to use a number of examples because subtext may be hard to define. Actually, the definition isn’t hard but explaining how subtext is used is. With friends and family, we recognize the anger in a cold silence or a chilled tone of voice or a glare even when the words are polite. 
Has your child ever been lost, wandered away from you in a store for a period of time?  What’s the first thing you said to him when he turns up?  Probably something like,  “Don’t you ever do that again,” in a frantic and angry voice.  The tone and words say one thing but they mean, “I love you and was so worried.”

Nancy Levine wrote The Lady in Red,  a short, short story I loved. The heroine, obviously, was wearing a red velvet dress at a party.  Subtext: sexy lady. But during the party, the nap of the velvet fell off and left a trail of fluff on the carpet and sofa. This made me think, “She’s like me!” and linked to embarrassing moments in my life.  Now, you may not have picked up on that connection.  I don’t even know if Ms. Levine meant that—which points out  another problem with subtext.  Because  readers come to books from varied  backgrounds, each may pick up on something else, maybe even a feeling the writer didn’t intend.   

I once sent a friend an article about communication that I thought was hilarious. My friend called me and angrily demanded, “How dare you make fun of me by sending something that points out the problems in my marriage.”  I had no idea she’d go off like that.    

What makes it so hard to discuss subtext is that it’s nebulous and ill-defined, a blur hovering on the edge of reality and just out of reach. Subtleness and the lack of clarity makes teaching about it, even recognizing it incredibly difficult.   

A popular scene which has now become a cliché is when the heroine doesn’t know the hero cares about her until a friend says, “He loves you.  Can’t you see the way he looks at you?”

To me the subtext here is, “Good heavens, you’re dumb.  Why didn’t you notice?”

How would you use subtext to show the heroine’s recognition that the hero does love her?   Subtext is much more effective than a friend telling her.   Perhaps the heroine notices a quick glance or a light touch or he leans toward her or defers to her opinion or brings her a cookie, her favorite, of course, or goes to see Twilight with her.  
  
Another example.  Many women complain when their mother-in-laws clean their daughter-in-laws’ houses.  I really appreciated when my mother-in-law did this for me.   I never knew why other women hated this because I wasn’t looking at subtext.  What message is Annie’s  mother-in-law Barb sending with her actions?   What is Annie communicating with her response?  

Pause for explanation:  When I talked to Tina about the topic for this blog, she suggested something on craft.  I chose subtext because I know very little about it but wanted to explore, to clarify my thinking.  When I began three weeks ago—because I’m neurotic about meeting deadlines--I thought I’d finish in a day or two.  Didn’t happen. I’m on my sixth or seventh rewrite.  Didn’t realize until November 19 why I was having so much trouble. 

  This topic is incredibly complicated.   It’s a technique which cannot easily be explained to a beginning writer and depends on well-defined characters with set goals, motivations, and conflicts.  It doesn’t happen as you write a novel usually, but is usually layered on after you know your characters.

In order to understand the subtext in the scene about the mother-in-law cleaning the house, the reader has to know more about Annie and Barbara.  That leads back to characterization which leads back to goal, motivation, and conflict.   Entire books could be written on these topics.  To understand the scene with the mother-in-law, we need to understand her goal, motivation, and conflict as well as Annie’s.

Returning to that example:   Barb’s goal might be to suggest her son is living in a pig sty, her motivation could be to show Annie that Mommy is still in change;  the conflict is that Barb and Annie don’t agree on what “clean” means.  In addition, the internal conflict is Barb wants her son to be in a happy marriage and Annie’s not about to let herself be dominated.   The section is not about cleaning.  It’s about power and struggle.    


Subtext looks beneath the surface to discover motivation, to show Barb’s goals and character—and to create conflict.  Barb doesn’t say, “I’m afraid I’m losing my son.”  No, she shows Annie she’s superior and stronger and Annie will never measure up.

 Subtext.  It’s a top layer that rests on so many assumptions and presupposes the writer has the foundation of building characters and knows about goals and all that other writer-y stuff.  It’s not just one thing.   It’s many and it’s  complicated.  Of course, it’s also your choice not to use subtext—but I bet it will turn up anyway because if we know our characters well, subtext happens.  That man in love can’t help but smiling goofily at his girl even at a business meeting.  Couples in love can’t help but glow or emit sexual tension zinging back and forth between them even at dinner with their spouses.  Try as we do to hide emotions, they show.

Here’s another example and several possible ways to interpret subtext.  

J.D. loves to play football. When his coach pulls him off the bench to go in for an injured player, he says, “Yes. Coach,” grabs his helmet and heads in. Let’s look at the subtext for that scene.
If J.D. doesn’t hesitate, the subtext is, 

1.    “Finally I get to show my stuff” 

2.    “I’ll do anything Coach says.”  

3.    “I don’t care about my friend because I want to get in the game.”

If J.D. pauses for a second before leaping off the bench, the subtext is:

1.    “I don’t know if I can do this” or

2.    “My best friend has just been injured and

    a.    I’m afraid I’ll be injured.”

    b.    I’m worried about him.”

3.    Add your own here.

But, you may wonder, how does the reader know?  Because subtext is not used in a vacuum.  If you’ve created a believable and deep character, the reader remembers background and thoughts.  Did his mother ever sob, “Your brother died playing football”?  Did he ever tell a friend, “There’s nothing more important in my life than getting a football scholarship to college”?  If you’ve set it up, the subtext is clear.

Still, there are lots options and a great deal of set up. That’s what makes subtext both tough and intentional.   

EXERCISE:   I’m going to give a few sentences for you to build as subtext.  Or, probably more useful, scan your WIP and find a place you could add subtext.   Take a risk.  Find numerous possibilities. Play with them.   Here are some sentences you can practice with.

1.    After tossing her dark hair back, Aphrodisia (yes, character names can be subtext) tilted her head and purred, “You’re wrong, Mr. Bond.”

Take Two:   After blinking, Maryanne leaned forward and stated, “You’re wrong, Mr. Bond.”

Can these both have the same subtext?  Of course they can—you’re the writer.  You decide.

2.    “Oh, sure.”  (So many possibilities)

3.    Wink

I feel as if I’ve been fighting this topic for weeks and can only hope you will accept the offering I lay before you.   I hope this blog—as torn and patched together  as it is--has been helpful to you, has illuminated the subject and challenged you to leap into the fray armed with subtext and thrust it into your latest book.    

I'd love to hear some of your favorite examples of subtext as well.

Happy writing!

 

Award-winning writer Jane Myers Perrine has worked as a Spanish teacher, minister, cook, rifle instructor, program director in a state hospital, and been an active volunteer but she always wanted to write.   Finally, she found time and has published books with  Avalon Books, Steeple Hill Love Inspired, and FaithWords, a division of Hachette Book Group.  Her short pieces have appeared in the Houston Chronicle and Woman’s World magazine.    

Jane’s Butternut Creek series is about a young minister serving in the beautiful Hill Country of Texas and is filled with affection and humor.  The Welcome Committee of Butternut Creek, the first book in the series, was published in April, 2012.  The Matchmakers of Butternut Creek will be available in November 20, 2012.  The third book, The Wedding Planners of Butternut Creek will be available in late 2013.

With her minister husband George, Jane lives north of Austin where their lives are controlled by two incredibly spoiled tuxedo cats. 

 

The Matchmakers of Butternut Creek

Undaunted,  the Widows of Butternut Creek continue their search to find a bride for Pastor Adam in The Matchmakers of Butternut Creek, the second of the Butternut Creek series.
    For once, Adam and the Widows—the elderly ladies who run the church Adam serves--agree on something.  Gussie Milton is the perfect woman for him.  But Gussie is skittish after a traumatic experience in college.  Oh, sure, she'd like a relationship but has trouble trusting and throws herself into caring for her aging parents, running her photography business, and serving the church.   As Adam court Gussie, the Widows push and Gussie shies away.   Can the Widows' meddling change the couple's lives forever?  Here’s a hint:  the third book in the series has the title The Wedding Planners of Butternut Creek.

And...Jane is generously giving away one of her Butternut Creek books to one lucky winner (winner's choice). Comment today for your opportunity. Winner announced in the Weekend Edition.