Fiction Like White Elephants: Subtext in Your Stories

Let's talk about subtext, you know, that stuff that's hidden subtly in your stories even though it never really leaves a footprint.

Dialog. How important is the stuff your characters don't say or avoid saying to each other in your work?

Terrance Layhew: Creating subtext in conversation is necessary. It immediately gives an inner world to the characters and a larger world at play. What people avoid saying directly or indirectly raises stakes, but done too much makes the story a melodrama.

Elizabeth Donald: If my characters are as close to living, breathing humans as I can make them, the things they don’t say are wildly important - just as they are for us allegedly-real people. When a married couple sits at the dinner table and says nothing but “pass the salt,” that tells us a great deal about their relationship, their thoughts and feelings, the comfort level they have reached (or not) between them. There are many times when we feel spurred to speak and do not, either for fear of social or professional consequences, adherence to behavior norms in society, or our own personal tendencies; a person who is generally conflict-avoidant may remain silent when insulted, even as they are burning to speak - or shout - on the inside. All of these should come to play in our characters, if we are to make them real. The worst thing you can do is an “As you know, Bob…” where a character explains the blatantly obvious to a person who already knows this information. A little subtlety goes a long way.

Sheela Leyh: From my own experiences, the subtext and context both matter. What is said is often just as important as what isn't said. It can and does affect your readers, as well as how your communication is received and does affect meaning.

It is important in mine as I hear dialog early in the writing process, even before the plot unfolds fully. What isn't said is often left for the reader to piece together as part of my thisness layer, as well as to help hold the reader's interest. For context, thisness is an older writing technique that helps make a place more real to a reader without jarring the reader out of the reading experience. The Oxford Writer channel on YouTube does one of the best explanations on the thisness concept that I've seen so far. By trusting the reader to fill in some gaps by leaving out only what needs to be left out, it helps build that relationship with the readers.

Jessica Nettles: Dialog: Silence is a lot like white space on a page. It gives room for the reader to breathe and feel and think thoughts about what ought to happen. With dialog it also give space for things to grow between characters. Kate and Shadow have a LOT of unspoken stuff between them. For instance, neither of them have to say, “I respect you.” They say it in the way they work. There are readers who have picked up something more between them—and maybe it’s there. Shadow certainly won’t say what he feels about Kate, mostly because he isn’t sure what to do with that feeling. He files it under respect, but he would defend her until he faded away. She sees him as her equal, which is once again, never spoken.

Bobby Nash: Sure. Those moments of silence can sometimes be louder than what is actually said. If you can have your reader screaming “Just tell her!” then you’ve made the point.

Sean Taylor: I probably learned too much from Hemingway and Carver in this department. I rely on what is not said as much as I do on what is actually said. I love to see the topics my characters will go out of their way to avoid and to see the things they will talk around but not about. This can become a detriment in my more straightforward stories, like the pulp tales that are supposed to be more direct. But it's a thing inside me I just can't turn off. 

Characterization. How often do you use the uncharacteristic action or thought in your characters to hint about something deeper in their character? Feel free to include examples from your work. 

Sheela Leyh: I rarely use the uncharacteristic actions for my characters, based on how the characters are. I only make an exception if the character truly feels that way, and even then, it has some limits due to the concept of suspended belief that you do see in the theatre world. A story and character have to be believable at the end of the day to maintain that suspended belief.

Jessica Nettles: Characterization: When someone does something out of the usual for them, they are either being pushed to their limits or are hiding something. I have this happen in Kudzu Ridge with Tish, the ‘Squatch chief. She starts out pretty harsh and rough, but some things push her into a spot where she shifts out of that mode. I think people do this too.

Bobby Nash: When a character is acting out of character it means I’m either making them do something they don’t want to do or it means there is an in-story reason for it. The trick is doing it in a way that doesn’t make the other characters seem stupid for not noticing the change in behavior. We all have off days, bad mood days, where we act a little different than normal. Why shouldn’t our characters have those moments as well?

Elizabeth Donald: First you need to establish a character’s personality before something can seem uncharacteristic. Breaking those characteristics should be done judiciously. If everyone treats your character as an unflappable badass, and we see her go through situation after situation without breaking a sweat, it raises the stakes significantly when she finally faces a moment where she falters, and emotion stops her even for a moment. Likewise if you have a panicky character who cannot get himself together, who freaks out at the slightest moment, then you can give him a moment of bravery that becomes more profound for being unexpected. This has to make sense, however: having a character act wildly uncharacteristic can read as false to your reader. You need to give it context and show us why your heroine falters at that critical moment, or else they throw the book across the room and shout, “She wouldn’t do that!” And there needs to be a consequence to that uncharacteristic action, to underscore its importance. That can be an external consequence levied from other characters, or internal, in a subtle shift within the character’s personality and mindset. A character who is not changed by the end of the story is a flat paper doll. 

Sean Taylor: I love uncharacteristic actions because they show me something new about my characters. I also rather enjoy watching what they absolutely refuse to do. That's also a lot of fun for me as a writer.

Terrance Layhew: I use this regularly. The thing people avoid says much about who they are. A recent example is my pilot character, Mitch Mayhew avoids talking about the girl of the stories injuries because it reminds him too much of the battlefield experience in WWI.

In general, do you consider your writing to be dependent on subtext or do you prefer to just "put it all out there" and not make readers work too hard to dig into your theme, characters, etc.?

Elizabeth Donald: I think subtext naturally grows out of a story, if it’s told well. Fiction is essentially a cooperation between writer and reader, and everything I write is going to be filtered through my readers’ viewpoints and emotions. Thus if I put all my energies into THIS IS AN ALLEGORY FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE IN THE UNITED STATES, it’s going to be too obvious and the reader is going to be bored. “But where’s the story?” he asks. Sometimes the subtext is less subtle than others, and then you have five generations of college students debating what the hills really mean in classrooms across the country. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, either - that gets back to that cooperation, and how readers will see what you’ve written in different way. I’m not sure that really answers the question, but that’s because “It depends” isn’t a very satisfying answer. All art has meaning, even if it actively tries to avoid meaning; whether it is an intentional allegory by the writer or an accidental reflection of the culture that created it, all art carries its subtext, if only we are awake enough to see it. 

Bobby Nash: A little of both. Subtext is a wonderful thing, but you have to make sure that you give enough that the audience gets it. As writers, we have to remember that not everyone shares the same experiences or understands the same pop culture references or the same local idioms.

Terrance Layhew: I usually write the first draft with everything on the table and decide what needs to be buried as I go through my edits.

Sheela Leyh: I don't rely on the subtext nor do I rely on putting it all out there. I trust my readers to get through the layers to make it work and the themes, etc. become apparent pretty quickly.

Jessica Nettles: I like playing with subtext. It’s fun to see if readers pick up on things. I am also big on Easter eggs. I put stuff in for friends and family to see. Example: Don the Knife is actually my dad. He really makes knives. I have no doubt in a fantasy setting, he really could forge a knife sharp enough to cut an Eldritch being and make them cry. I also mention giant spiders on Kennesaw Mountain. Those spiders are a nod to my children believing there were giant spiders on the mountain when they were kids (I used to remind them that Gandalf warned to stay on the path when we walked up there—-exposed them to The Hobbit way too early).

Sean Taylor: Subtext is such a huge part of my way of writing. I guess it was because I grew up on more literary works and heavier sci-fi and action tales like those of H.G. Wells and Alexandre Dumas, where literary technique was as important as the plot itself. And then I got enamored with literary short stories, particularly those of the 1900s American Lit authors like the aforementioned Hemingway and Carver.