Writing 201: Subtext
Greetings all and solvents! DAMN IT! Well, I am back! Your beloved favourite Alien Limax, Vivian! Today we will be discussing Subtext in writing and naturally, Lady Verbosa (Anne Winchell) takes the charge of it. Go Anne Go!
Disclaimer: This was written by Anne so quality may vary.
(Anne:) That may be one limax’s opinion, but I will add that it’s written by me, so quantity is going to be a lot! Quality guaranteed!
What the FUCK is subtext?
Subtext is a fun and complicated topic. The way that I define it is as follows:
Subtext is the way that context and an audience’s underlying understanding about the world, the story, the characters, and the scene add an unstated meaning, often indicated through inclusion and exclusion of words, actions, and other explicit indications.
While this isn’t perfect, and some may disagree, that’s about how I would summarize it. The audience needs to be an active participant for subtext to work, and it sometimes takes effort to put things together depending on the situation and creator. (Vivian: Are you reading this? THIS IS EDUCATIONAL!) Because of this, subtext often gets forgotten as creators assume readers won’t pick up on it. Another reason to leave it out, though, is if you genuinely don’t know how to do it well, so you don’t even try! Adding these underlying and unstated meanings will help all of your worldbuilding and creating, regardless of what type of media you use to create.
Normally in these posts, I’ll build up a scene by starting with an absolutely atrocious scene and then fixing it according to recommended steps until it’s pretty decent. For this one, let’s mix it up! Otherwise, it sort of defeats the whole purpose. So let’s take a scene, and to make it fun, I’m going to use a draft of a scene from Dance of the Empire, the fourth book in my Imperial Saga series. You’ll get a preview of what happens, plus see my writing process and what goes on behind the scenes! Okay, so here’s the final version (well, it’s still a rough draft!), and then I’ll mess it up as much as possible and show how to get back here. This is told in close third person from Ari’s point of view.
The police formed a barricade to prevent the boy from going further. Good. The boy rammed into them, and one raised her baton to strike him. The familiar sight of crimson blood splashing on the ebony boots of a police officer brought back memories of his own childhood. Only this time, the police were acting in his interest. It helped having dragon knights at his side.
Ari squeezed his hands into fists until his fingernails pierced the skin, heart clenching. Angry murmurs rose from the crowd, sapphire faces of the Krendi creasing with a rage reflected in their coiled stances and dagger glares. Ari flinched when the first shoved against the line of police, expecting more brutality. Instead, another Krendi shoved forward, and another. They were fighting back? The police grabbed the boy and yanked him forward as they retreated to the safety of a nearby building.
The police officer snatched the sphere from the boy with a gloved hand and passed it to Ari. It gleamed in the sunlight, amber specks swirling in the dark stone’s interior like stars in an endless night. The other police cited the charges of theft they would be bringing against him. A theft charge, deserved maybe, but there was no way the punishment would fit the crime.
Ben touched his arm. "Okay?"
Ari shook his head stiffly, but didn't dare say more.
When you don’t have subtext
Have you ever read or watched a scene where everything felt obvious or spoonfed to you? Ever heard a joke that gets explained afterwards, ruining the humor? That’s usually because the creator didn’t use subtext (or didn’t rely on it enough). One place you might see this is where there are multiple meanings or interpretations, but the creator comes out and tells you which one is correct. A little mystery is good! Plus, then the audience can try to piece together what the character or scene actually meant. It keeps the audience actively engaged in your story and can add some fun subtexts (underlying meanings) for the audience to consider.
Sample Scene Development
Okay, remember that (absolutely gorgeous) scene above? Well, here’s what could be a rough draft of the scene. I hope you enjoyed thinking about it earlier, because I’m about to remove all of the subtext and spell out everything in it so that you can clearly see the difference. You’ll notice that it’s longer, and that’s because it takes more space to tell the audience what you mean.
The police formed a barricade to prevent the boy from going further, and Ari was grateful. Good. He looked at the boy ram into them, the one raised her baton to strike him. Ari stared in horror. Crimson blood splashed against the ebony boots of the police as the boy fell from her blow. Her hand tightened on the baton in her hand. She didn’t strike again, just stood there. Ari had seen this so many times before. Nothing about it was new. The line of police, the harsh blow, the blood. The boy, sobbing on the ground. Ari’s whole life, he worried that he would be in that situation for no cause at all. But this wasn’t his home, and the police here were actually acting on his behalf because of the dragon knights at his side. Dragon knights were respected in the Empire. It was only in his home continent that they were hated. Now, on Krendia, a different continent run by different rules, everything was entirely different. Ari was angry, but he couldn’t do anything. Then, unexpectedly, the crowd moved forward as one, their angry blue faces shouting in a different language. The police grabbed the boy and yanked him forward as they retreated to the safety of a nearby building. Once inside, the police snatched the sphere from the boy’s hand. It gleamed in the sunlight, amber specks swirling in the dark stone’s interior like stars in an endless night. Ari stifled a gasp. The sphere was made with fire magically embedded in it and would burn anyone not immune to fire. He was immune because he was a phoenix guardian, but if anyone knew what he was, he would be killed. Luckily, the police all wore gloves. He sighed in relief and accepted the sphere, then looked at the boy again. The police hauled him up, citing the charges of theft they would be bringing against him. They were charging him with petty theft. There was no way he would get a fair sentence, but he had stolen the sphere from Ari. He deserved some punishment because he had stolen, but if the police here were anything like in his home, they would be brutal. Innocent people weren’t treated well by police.
“What is your current state?” Ben asked. “You cannot show emotion here.”
“I felt worry for him in this situation,” Ari said robotically
As you can see, that’s… not great writing. It’s not terrible per se, and a lot of writers actually do this, but that first version was so much better. Let’s walk through the ways to improve this, focusing on subtext in descriptions, story, dialogue, narrator, and worldbuilding.
(Vivian: Do not read “One for Sorrow, Two for Joy”–it is worse than this in terms of narration and style.)
Subtext in descriptions
Descriptions in a story refer to the way that you describe the various elements, from scenery to actions. You always want to have vivid descriptions with active verbs and well-chosen nouns, but with subtext, you also want to leave some things out. What you don’t mention is just as important as what you do!
When you’re trying to figure out what to include and what to leave out, you’ll first want to consider your point of view and how close you are to your characters. I tend to write in very close third person, so when I leave things out, it means a character doesn’t notice them. That’s great to indicate what exactly a character would or wouldn’t notice. If something is perfectly ordinary in their experience, they won’t notice it. If it’s unusual, they will. Based on that, we can understand something about their perception of the world.
I like highlighting this with a story from my first year teaching. I was in the office of the department chair (my boss), just chatting. We were from the same city on the other side of the United States and had a lot in common. Something caught my eye in the window, and I stopped mid sentence. A vibrant crimson bird perched on the sturdy oak branch, brown leaves drooping enough to show off the blood-red feathers perfectly. Had someone lost their parrot?
Note how most of that paragraph was just me summarizing, but I took time to carefully detail the bird? Doesn’t that just scream for the reader to pay attention? It was so utterly alien and out of place that I couldn’t even talk, and in a story, it would signal something quite strongly to the reader. Now, I shook myself and continued, but my chair laughed because he knew exactly what had happened. In the state we’re both from, there aren’t colorful birds. Like, at all. Crows are black, and everything else is some variation of brown. Colorful birds were on television or in zoos. The sight of a cardinal in the wild was utterly foreign to me, but there was no need to say anything, and in a story, just showing my sudden preoccupation and spending time detailing it clearly says that it’s outside of my normal experience. My chair, having lived in Texas for decades, didn’t even register the bird.
So if there’s something in your world that contradicts your character’s expectations or experiences, absolutely spend time describing it. Use vivid language! Make it stand out! However, and this is key, if it's something totally normal, don’t spend the same amount of effort. If you have extremely poetic prose, you’ll probably do a great job describing the world using all five senses, but even then, the amount of detail you should devote to unusual things should be significantly more. By doing this, you show an underlying understanding that the character has, and it adds meaning to a scene.
Sample Scene Development
Let’s look at the description in that really long overly explained paragraph above. There are two lines that give detailed description of the scene:
Crimson blood splashed against the ebony boots of the police as the boy fell from her blow.
It gleamed in the sunlight, amber specks swirling in the dark stone’s interior like stars in an endless night.
Now, both of these are visual, and you want to include all five senses, but these lines on their own are good. Solid descriptions of a visual image. We have good colors and a strong action verb in the first one, and a nice metaphor in the second. However, they’re both describing things that the character already knows. Should you take them out? Maybe, maybe not. Let’s look at the rest of the description, which gets into character. It’s a description of what the character knows, and interior monologue like that gets boring. One early story I wrote had large sections of interior monologue like this, and my readers called it boring and said it made them hate the character. One reader said, and I quote, “I spent every page hoping someone killed him.” Not what I was going for!
Looking at the dialogue, we see that he’s very familiar with this violence. Ari talks about it at length, actually, and relates it to his own youth. This is far too explanatory and can be done better through description. Instead of the pretty description of blood etc. followed by the long passage where he says he’s seen it before, why not combine and simplify?
The familiar sight of crimson blood splashing on the ebony boots of a police officer brought back memories of his own childhood. Only this time, the police were acting in his interest. It helped having dragon knights at his side.
That keeps the pretty part but cuts the rest down to a few lines. We don’t need to know what exactly happened in his childhood because the reader can safely infer it–subtext! And we don’t need to know details about the dragon knights, just their presence. The rest can be inferred for worldbuilding reasons, which I’ll get to at the end.
The violence is familiar, the sphere is familiar, but look at the word “unexpectedly” in that paragraph. He’s never seen a crowd push back against the police before and make them retreat. However, it’s only briefly mentioned.
Then, unexpectedly, the crowd moved forward as one, their angry blue faces shouting in a different language.
That’s a place you want to pause and emphasize. Right now, aside from the word “unexpectedly,” there’s no indication that this is out of the ordinary at all. How might one change that?
Angry murmurs rose from the crowd, sapphire faces of the Krendi creasing with a rage reflected in their coiled stances and dagger glares. Ari flinched when the first shoved against the line of police, expecting more brutality. Instead, another Krendi shoved forward, and another. They were fighting back?
That shortens it quite a bit and puts a lot of things in context while leaving more to the imagination. Subtext! We can infer that this is unusual from Ari flinching and his expectations, in addition to the question that indicates disbelief. And, while this comes later, this is also a great way to show that Krendia is different without spelling that out.
Those are the two most obvious places where you can alter, remove, or add description to reduce the explanations and heighten the subtexts that make reading more enjoyable for the reader.
One last thing about descriptions: NEVER say “he looked.” Just describe what he sees (or whatever the equivalent pronoun or noun is in your story). This is such basic subtext, but so many writers use this. I know in my first drafts I’ll do this. Before I hand my finished drafts off to my editor, I have a list of words I search for and delete or replace. “Looked” is on that list (along with “saw,” though that one sometimes works). Looked, and the also popular “felt,” are called “filter words” because they filter a character’s experience, and you want to eliminate them. Don’t say that he looked. We know he’s looking because you’re describing what he’s seeing. It’s obvious he’s looking. Don’t say that he felt. Describe what he feels and let us infer the emotion. Now, the occasional filter word is fine (though please try to eliminate all!) But use subtext, because too many filter words alienates readers from your characters.
Subtext in story
Okay, so that’s subtext in the writing itself. What about the overall story? There’s a bit of overlap here, because often what people explicitly say is stuff that is implied by the story. By story here I’m referring to the plot and dramatic structure. I wrote a wonderful blogpost about dramatic structure, and plot is the causally related events that happen in a story. Now, I’m differing a bit from the traditional definition, and honestly, I’m using story and plot fairly interchangeably. E.M. Forster has what’s considered the classic definitions between the two when he writes:
The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died, and then the queen died of grief is a plot.
Yeah, that’s not how I use the terms. But you should probably know them if you want to talk about story and plot to anyone besides me! 😅 I define story as the overall dramatic structure and overarching, well, story. Plot, to me, is the sequence of events (yes, including things like dying of grief). So I guess we both see plot the same, just differ on story.
Anyway, using my clearly superior definition of story, there are things you want to imply and not say outright. On a basic level, unless you’re writing a children’s book or doing something highly stylized, you don’t really want to announce where in the story you are. Like, “Now the story reaches its midpoint” or something. That also gets into narrator, which I’ll get to. You just tell the story and the reader figures out how the tension is getting mapped. That’s an obvious example. You probably want to watch out for subtler forms.
The passage of time is a good one to imply. You generally want your reader to know how much time has passed, but you don’t need to write out every single minute of every single day, nor do you need to spell it out directly as in “one week later.” Don’t get me wrong, if the fact that it’s a week (or day, or year) is significant, you want to say it. And sometimes timing really does matter. (Vivian: I write times and dates just so I can keep an eye on the timeline; in the second draft it is all removed, or third!) Dating things at the beginning of a chapter is actually a strategy some books use, especially time travel books where the year might be important. I also tend not to use it, though I have it in my notes. In my Imperial Saga, I do have things happening almost every day, and they happen on two plotlines, since my characters are doing different things. Because my characters are sending each other messages back and forth and the timing needs to be clear, I tend to be a little more explicit. But rather than constantly giving the day, I’ll just describe sunrises, for example, or if the same event happens every day (one of my characters is in classes that meet every day), I make it clear this is a different day than the last scene.
Those strategies are far better than spelling it out. Give cues from nature. You might do the position of the moon if you’re doing longer periods of time, or ages/stages of life if a really really long time is passing. If doing time travel, things like environment play a role–is this the futuristic city or the jungle where dinosaurs roam? You don’t need to say more than that.
Along the same lines, events can get implied. Just like with time, you don’t have to actually write every single thing that happens, especially if it’s a repeated event or insignificant. Sometimes even if it's significant, you can just refer back to it occasionally. One of my favorite episodes of the show Community is about the group joining glee club. Throughout, they reference events that happened the last year when they also joined, but there wasn’t an episode about it the previous season. It’s an entirely fictional background even though it’s significant. Just like with backstory, you can summarize things (though watch out for infodumping!), and you can let your reader infer what happened in the past without going into detail. Don’t restate everything that happened, just give tantalizing hints and let your audience put the pieces together.
Sample Scene Development
There are a couple of places where this is relevant in the terrible example given above. We don’t really get a passage of time, but we do get some past events! Here’s a line from the terrible version:
Ari’s whole life, he worried that he would be in that situation for no cause at all.
Here’s some backstory that we don’t really need. At this point in the series (book four!), we know what his life was like, including his life in the first three books where this was the case. The reader doesn’t need it spelled out. As we saw with the description, you can imply this by showing that it’s familiar and move on.
Another place:
The sphere was made with fire magically embedded in it and would burn anyone not immune to fire. He was immune because he was a phoenix guardian, but if anyone knew what he was, he would be killed. Luckily, the police all wore gloves.
Here’s some infodumping, and again information that the reader already has at this point. Do we really need it spelled out this explicitly? Nope. Not at all. Let’s try simplifying:
The police officer snatched the sphere from the boy with a gloved hand and passed it to Ari.
We honestly don’t need more.
And finally:
They were charging him with theft. There was no way he would get a fair sentence, but he had stolen the sphere from Ari. He deserved some punishment because he had stolen, but if the police here were anything like in his home, they would be brutal.
Now, you can probably infer that the sphere was stolen in the initial version of this just from the numerous clues throughout, but you also would have gotten it in the story because it actually shows the theft taking place. So… we really don’t need this. Let’s just do:
A theft charge, deserved maybe, but there was no way the punishment would fit the crime.
And let’s call it a day for story!
Subtext in dialogue
If you want a lot more on this topic, check out my other blogpost on Dialogue! This one really bothers Vivian, so I’m going to let zhim start off!
(Vivian:) Geeze thanks you lazy bjbkeosabrbko!
I am saddened and made depressed by your actions.
Look at that tiny example of dialogue; is this how people generally speak? No, it feels wrong, detached, and like someone has way more control over their emotions than they do. Sure, there are SOME people like this, but nigh all humans are not. You talk in indirect ways that leave out certain important aspects because it is either already well understood, it is implied, or simply because the person cannot articulate it in their current state.
Every time you do it… I don’t know, it is like something should be boiling inside me but there is nothing… and I cry.
A quick example based on the one above. Notice how likenesses are used? How things are not directly stated? Sure, it is stated that the actions of the person are doing something, but at the same time, the speaker cannot quite place their finger on what they are feeling. This is subtext from an emotional angle in dialogue. The leaving out of information because the character cannot figure it out themselves.
Another aspect to the subtext here is, of course, what is said itself. It shows the focus of the character, what they think is important. In the example above, the fact they state “should be boiling” says that the person thinks there should be something, something to feel. Something, however, is making it not so, and then they cry. All together paint a picture through subtext that invites the audience to speculate what is really going on. What is it that they might want to feel but don’t? What is preventing it? If this is their partner… are they falling out of love maybe?
(Anne:) Such a great example, and you can go even farther in written mediums by incorporating dialogue tags and action beats (I’m a bigger fan of action beats). So you might write:
“Every time you do it…” His fists clenched. “I don’t know, it’s like something should be boiling up, but there’s nothing. And I–” He whirled from her, hiding the tears in his eyes.
So, very similar, just moving some of it from the dialogue itself to the action. It’s your choice as to which you prefer! If you have long strings of dialogue, add some action beats, but if it’s just a single line, go ahead and keep it all in dialogue!
One final note: sometimes it is fine to include flat statements of emotion depending on the character type, genre, and writing style. If you have an antagonist turning to a lackey and saying, “You’ve made me very angry,” it can totally work in some circumstances.
(Vivian:) “I don’t get mad, I get stabby.” 🔪
(Anne:) Another great example! One of my favorites, actually. Or a conversation between two people where one demands, “What’s wrong with you?” and gets the answer, “I’m sad, you idiot!” So there are exceptions.
(Vivian:) No exception! Except the exception, otherwise no exceptions!
Sample Scene Development
(Anne:) Now, you probably noticed two lines of dialogue in the atrocious version of the scene at the beginning of this post.
“What is your current state?” Ben asked. “You cannot show emotion here.”
“I felt worry for him in this situation,” Ari said robotically.
So robotic! Not just the adverb, but the language itself! No one talks like this. Hell, even robots don’t talk like this most of the time! Current state? (Vivian: Except for the comical Major in the military. WHAT IS YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION!?) Also, no contraction on cannot? Not to hate on Vivian, but zhi leaves out contractions all the time.
Continuing the ruthless evisceration of the dialogue: I felt worry? (Even “I felt worried” would be marginally better!) Nope, nope, nope. I like action beats, so I’m going to rely heavily on them and significantly reduce the dialogue. Why? Because Ben says he can’t show emotion, so it’s probably also not safe to talk (it’s not, by the way). Let’s try this instead:
Ben touched his arm. "Okay?"
Ari shook his head stiffly, but didn't dare say more.
All the same content, none of the bad dialogue. Ben touching his arm and the single word of “okay” are equivalent to asking his current state while also signaling discretion. Instead of being able to fully articulate his emotions, Ari is only able to shake his head. Instead of robotically (there are no robots in this fantasy novel), he shakes his head stiffly. The same, but infinitely better. Vivian, does that get your seal of approval?
Subtext by narrator
This one is a little different, because it involves the voice of the creator infiltrating the work. This can be done on a minor or major level. On a minor level, it’s similar to what happened in dialogue, except in the narrative. The creator is directly telling the audience how a character feels instead of showing it. This usually takes the form of “So-and-so was [emotion].” Just like with dialogue. And again, you want to show it, not tell it. (First rule of creative writing: show, don’t tell!). Filter words fit here too. The creator is directly telling things (“they felt,” “they saw”. But there’s also larger picture things.
A lot of times, creators have a message or theme they want to get across, or they’re trying to make some point, or they want to make sure the audience figures something out. To make this crystal clear to the audience, they’ll drop hints. But not good, subtext-y hints. Big, blaring, obvious hints. Sometimes this works. Usually it doesn’t. For example, if you were trying to show the power of love to overcome all obstacles, but you didn’t use subtext, you might say:
Jonathan held her close and felt his heart begin to heal. Love really could overcome all obstacles.
This combines a filter word (“felt”) and a flat out statement of the theme. Also, side note, if you’re making a list of words to search for and delete in your draft, do “begin” (and variations). You almost never need to say that things begin to happen. Just say they happen. We know they begin. It’s implied. Subtext! Anyway, you could just as easily say:
Jonathan held her close, his heart healing.
See? Presumably the theme is obvious by the events of the story and the character development and conflicts and all of that good stuff. Now, occasionally it can be impactful to actually state the theme–especially if the title of the book is part of the theme!--but in general, it’s over the top, explanatory, and doesn’t allow the audience to draw their own conclusions about what the story means to them.
Sample Scene Development
There are two clear places where the narrator overstepped their bounds (me, since I’m the narrator in this case! Keep in mind though that I was trying to be terrible! Judge me by the finished version, and also remember this is a first draft). First, we have a minor overstep:
Ari was angry, but he couldn’t do anything.
This tells the audience what Ari feels and his situation, but that’s not the best way to present the information. Instead of the narrator popping in to narrate things directly, it’s best to show a little more and imply Ari’s feelings and situation.
Ari squeezed his hands into fists until his fingernails pierced the skin, heart clenching.
That lets the audience draw the conclusion that he’s angry (fists drawing blood), and helpless (heart clenching). It’s better described, more vivid, overall better.
The other example falls into the broader, more thematic example:
Innocent people weren’t treated well by police.
This is… pretty obvious. We don’t need the narrator saying this. Look at your writing for sentences that summarize a situation and put it in thematic terms or make a point. This has both, since it’s a theme of the books and also a way for the narrator to make sure the audience understands this. It’s absolutely not needed; just delete.
Subtext in worldbuilding
(Vivian:) Imma hijack this for a weebit comradurus! As I am the Mastress of Worldbuilding 🫡 Anyway, a tip I can give here that I and many good worldbuilders often use is to softly describe a scene, or show it. Through gentle casual explaining of a scene, you can tell how a setting is, and through that, the world, using many tricks aforementioned.
Anne rode along the road on her mount. Each step the bird took was getting heavier as she drank from the water bottle and gave the bird some. As they kept marching, there were abandoned vehicles. Wheels removed, empty engines, some even rested in the large holes in the ground on their sides as she looked at them.
From this, we can definitely see something has happened, but what? Something big because people abandoned large vehicles. It might be a war, it might be a natural disaster. But the fact that no one has really come to reclaim all the metal and things in of itself tells a lot. Why would anyone just leave free metal? There are only two answers: because it is dangerous or not worth it. If you are in a world where metals are precious, it becomes only a war that is currently raging. If metal is abundant, it can be either/or. But this tells a lot. You can tell history by just showing the scene and gently describing it, and that is important. It is more engaging leaving some of these clues than telling us what happened.
(Anne:) Thanks for that, Vivian! I’m going to take a quick step back to descriptions, and a word to avoid. In the last sentence, that very last phrase, notice something I warned not to do? Vivian actually does this a lot, which is perfectly fine for first drafts, which this is. The character “looked at them.” …We know she’s looking at them because they’re being described. (Vivian: 🙄) That can be deleted to strengthen it!
Softly describing scenes is a great strategy. You don’t want to explicitly state things about the world. Hint at them. My favorite part of Vivian’s example is that Anne is riding a bird. Just casually thrown in and a clear indicator that this is not Earth as we know it. That’s what you want to do.
Sample Scene Development
There’s one clear, obvious example of the world being told explicitly instead of being softly described or implied using subtext. Well, there are a couple, but I’ve addressed them above. The remaining one is pretty obvious.
Dragon knights were respected in the Empire. It was only in his home continent that they were hated. Now, on Krendia, a different continent run by different rules, everything was entirely different.
This is just a flat out description of the world, and it doesn’t work for two reasons. First, just looking at this scene, is it really necessary? It’s a bit of an infodump. If it’s really important here to show all of this, there are ways to hint at it without just saying it like this. Second, this is the fourth book in the series, and this is towards the middle of the book. Do you seriously think this hasn’t come up before? Ari traveled to Krendia, so he obviously knows it’s a different continent, he’s traveling with dragon knights, so he knows how they’re treated in the Empire versus his home continent (that’s also a major part of the plot and conflict in book two). There’s absolutely no reason to state this unless you think the audience is too stupid to remember anything. I’ll get back to stupidity in a second, but in each of your chapters, scenes, whatever, just look for places where you say things about the world rather than hint at them, and for when you give information the audience already knows. People are forgetful, but not that forgetful.
Summa Summarum
Okay, it’s been ages since the beginning of this blogpost, so let’s look back at that original version so you can see how everything fits together!
The police formed a barricade to prevent the boy from going further. Good. The boy rammed into them, and one raised her baton to strike him. The familiar sight of crimson blood splashing on the ebony boots of a police officer brought back memories of his own childhood. Only this time, the police were acting in his interest. It helped having dragon knights at his side.
Ari squeezed his hands into fists until his fingernails pierced the skin, heart clenching. Angry murmurs rose from the crowd, sapphire faces of the Krendi creasing with a rage reflected in their coiled stances and dagger glares. Ari flinched when the first shoved against the line of police, expecting more brutality. Instead, another Krendi shoved forward, and another. They were fighting back? The police grabbed the boy and yanked him forward as they retreated to the safety of a nearby building.
The police officer snatched the sphere from the boy with a gloved hand and passed it to Ari. It gleamed in the sunlight, amber specks swirling in the dark stone’s interior like stars in an endless night. The other police cited the charges of theft they would be bringing against him. A theft charge, deserved maybe, but there was no way the punishment would fit the crime.
Ben touched his arm. "Okay?"
Ari shook his head stiffly, but didn't dare say more.
So overall, subtext is a way to add underlying meanings to your writing so that you can hint at things without explicitly saying them. Even though you might worry that your audience might misunderstand your story if you don’t lead them in the right direction, well, there’s a difference between leading through subtle cues and grabbing someone and shoving them along your chosen path. And really, if your audience gets something out of your writing that you didn’t put there? That’s awesome! It’s now meaningful to them. If the audience can suddenly put clues together to understand something about your story, it can make them feel clever, which is great! It flatters your audience and engages them. If you don’t use subtext and insist on telling everything, you’re basically saying that you think your audience is too stupid to follow or figure out what’s going on. Don’t demean your audience, especially in fiction for adults. Trust readers, and they’ll trust you.
(Vivian:) And trust mur- no wait, no admission here! Anne lived a happy life ever after!
Do you have any topics you struggle with or that you would like to suggest for a future blogpost? We’re open to suggestions!
Copyright ©️ 2023 Anne Winchell. Original ideas belong to the respective authors. Generic concepts such as the ways to improve subtext are copyrighted under Creative Commons with attribution, and any derivatives must also be Creative Commons. However, specific ideas such as everything in all examples from characters, places, situations, and ideas, and all language or exact phrasing are individually copyrighted by the respective authors. Contact them for information on usage and questions if uncertain what falls under Creative Commons. We’re almost always happy to give permission. Please contact the authors through this website’s contact page.
