Here’s a fact of life: People don’t always
say exactly what they mean. We might say “I’m fine,” when we really
mean “I’m having a crappy day, but I don’t want to burden you with that.” We use euphemisms to soften the blow when
we fire someone or break up with someone. Communication often involves this kind of
subtext, a term Gotham Writers defines as “the meaning beneath the dialogue; what
the speaker really means, even though he’s not saying it directly.” In fiction, not every conversation needs a
second layer of meaning, but if you ever get feedback that your dialogue feels unnatural
or too on the nose, it likely relates to a lack of subtext. The remedy to this can be found in the words
of Janet Burroway: “…if you're aware as you're writing that
both characters have their own desires and conflicting emotions, if you allow them to
reveal some of their feelings and hide others, they will become authentic and believable.” Now, let’s look at specific ways to create
nuanced conversations between characters. A contradiction between a character’s words
and body language can provide a glimpse into hidden thoughts. A liar might say, “I dunno,” but the way
she licks her dry lips suggests she knows more than she’s letting on. Flirting also entails nonverbal cues and dropping
hints to see if another person reciprocates our feelings. We might stand a little closer or invite someone
over to our house as a way of expressing romantic interest. We can see body language subtext in action
in the historical drama Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. This scene features the story’s two main
characters: the flirtatious Scarlett O’Hara and the charming Rhett Butler. Rhett has just given Scarlett a new bonnet
as a gift. Right before they exchange dialogue, there’s
a passage describing Scarlett’s internal musings. She notices Rhett staring at her lips, and
she assumes he’s going to try and kiss her. She debates about whether or not she wants
him to, but ultimately decides she’ll allow it because it would be exciting and entertaining
for him to fall in love with her. Here’s the dialogue that follows:
But he made no move to kiss her. She gave him a sidelong glance from under
her lashes and murmured encouragingly. “So you always get paid, do you? And what do you expect to get from me?” “That remains to be seen.” “Well, if you think I’ll marry you to
pay for the bonnet, I won’t,” she said daringly and gave her head a saucy flirt that
set the plume to bobbing. His white teeth gleamed under his little mustache. “Madam, you flatter yourself. I do not want to marry you or anyone else. I am not a marrying man.” “Indeed!” she cried, taken aback and now
determined that he should take some liberty. “I don’t even intend to kiss you, either.” “Then why is your mouth all pursed up in
that ridiculous way?” “Oh!” she cried as she caught a glimpse
of herself and saw that her red lips were indeed in the proper pose for a kiss. “Oh!” she cried again, losing her temper
and stamping her foot. “You are the horridest man I have ever seen
and I don’t care if I never lay eyes on you again!” The subtext here for Scarlett is “Kiss me,”
and she’s trying to trick Rhett into it, but he sees through her charade and calls
her out on her body language. The subtext of his dialogue is “I know you’re
trying to manipulate me.” Scarlett’s last line is obviously overdramatic
and untrue. She’s frustrated about having been found
out, so she says something she doesn’t actually mean. Her words, her actions, and even her thoughts
are at odds with one another. Sometimes, seemingly trivial reactions can
mask a deeper, secondary emotion. A sister could refuse to let her brother borrow
her car because she says he’ll wreck it, but in reality, she’s mad because he wants
to use it to take her best friend out on a date. So, the character’s reaction to a smaller
issue is actually about a larger problem. F. Scott Fitzgerald achieves this type of
subtext in The Great Gatsby, when Daisy visits Gatsby’s mansion and sees his collection
of expensive shirts: He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing
them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which
lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray. While we admired he brought more and the soft
rich heap mounted higher—shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green
and lavender and faint orange, with monograms of Indian blue. Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent
her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily. “They’re such beautiful shirts,” she
sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen
such—such beautiful shirts before.” Daisy’s tears have more to do with her and
Gatsby’s relationship than his clothes. She’s lamenting lost love and opportunity. She says, “They’re such beautiful shirts,”
when she really means, “I’m heartbroken because now that we can finally be together
without any class barriers, we can’t, because I’m already married.” This scene shows up again and again in articles
that discuss subtext—and the reason it’s such a memorable moment is because there’s
a second conversation hidden beneath the surface-level dialogue. Some people might sugarcoat the truth to play
by the rules of social etiquette. If your friend asks what you think of her
mom, it’s more acceptable to say she’s kind of “eccentric” or “unique” rather
than “weird” or “crazy.” We often skirt the truth to avoid hurting
our loved one’s feelings, such as when we ask our spouses if they liked our novel, and
they say, “It was good! I mean, great.” Fiction writers can learn a lot about conveying
subtext through words alone from stage plays. Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman provides
a model for how characters beat around the bush. The salesman is Willy, and in this scene,
he’s trying to ask his young boss, Howard, if he can stop traveling for work:
WILLY: Well, tell you the truth, Howard. I’ve come to the decision that I’d rather
not travel anymore. HOWARD: Not travel! Well, what’ll you do? WILLY: Remember, Christmas time, when you
had the party here? You said you’d try to think of some spot
for me here in town. HOWARD: With us? WILLY: Well, sure. HOWARD: Oh, yeah, yeah. I remember. Well, I couldn’t think of anything for you,
Willy. WILLY: I tell ya, Howard. The kids are all grown up, y’know. I don’t need much anymore. If I could take home—well, sixty-five dollars
a week, I could swing it. HOWARD: Yeah, but Willy, see I—
WILLY: I tell ya why. Howard. Speaking frankly and between the two of us,
y’know—I’m just a little tired. HOWARD: Oh, I could understand that, Willy. But you’re a road man, Willy, and we do
a road business. We’ve only got a half-dozen salesmen on
the floor here. WILLY: God knows, Howard. I never asked a favor of any man. But I was with the firm when your father used
to carry you in here in his arms. HOWARD: I know that, Willy, but—
WILLY: Your father came to me the day you were born and asked me what I thought of the
name of Howard, may he rest in peace. HOWARD: I appreciate that, Willy, but there
just is no spot here for you. If I had a spot I’d slam you right in, but
I just don’t have a single solitary spot. The subtext of Willy’s dialogue is a desperate
plea: “I want an office job, and you should pity me because I’ve been here a long time
and I knew your father.” Howard’s replies, meanwhile, are all variations
of “no,” with the implication that Willy isn’t good enough of an employee for a non-traveling
position. The characters clash because they have conflicting
motivations. They interrupt, avoid giving direct answers,
and overuse each other’s names in an attempt at politeness, creating a strong subtext. In interrogation scenes and arguments between
lovers, it’s common to see implied accusations. If a police officer asks you, “What were
you doing last Saturday, huh?”, you can be pretty sure they’re insinuating you were
somehow involved in the crime. This type of implied accusation is used in
Harlan Coben’s thriller novel Tell No One. The first-person narrator, Dr. David Beck,
is taken in for questioning about his wife’s murder. His interrogators are special agents Nick
Carlson and Tom Stone. Carlson and Stone exchanged a quick glance. “The name Sarah Goodhart has surfaced in
connection with an ongoing investigation,” Carlson said. “What investigation?” I asked. “We’d rather not say.” “I don’t understand. How am I connected into this?” Carlson let loose a sigh, taking his time
on the exhale. He looked over at his rotund partner and suddenly
all smiles were gone. “Am I asking a complicated question here,
Tom?” “No, Nick, I don’t think so.” “Me neither.” Carlson turned his eyes back at me. “Maybe you object to the form of the question, Doc. That it?” The literal version of the conversation might
go: “Stop lying. You obviously know something about this case.” The protagonist catches on to their accusatory
attitude and tries to further evade their questions. This leads to greater tension, as the reader
wonders if the interrogators will arrest the narrator as a suspect in his wife’s murder. Most of us have been on the receiving end
of passive aggressiveness or sarcasm. A mother might guilt trip her rebellious teenager
by saying, “Go ahead. Ignore me. It’s not like I spent 12 hours in labor
with you or anything.” Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills
Like White Elephants” drips with passive-aggressive dialogue. A couple sits outside a building at a train
station in Spain, having drinks. The elephant in the room is the fact that
the girl is pregnant, and her lover wants her to get an abortion during a time when
it is very much illegal, and she’s not sure what she wants to do —yet the word “abortion”
is not used once in the story. We can feel the crackling tension between
the couple even when they’re making idle conversation about the scenery:
“They look like white elephants,” she said. “I’ve never seen one,” the man drank
his beer. “No, you wouldn’t have.” “I might have,” the man said. “Just because you say I wouldn’t have
doesn’t prove anything.” They both seem to be overreacting to a simple
comment, hinting at a deeper issue between them. The girl’s frustration isn’t really about
her lover failing to acknowledge her white elephants comment but about a larger problem
in their relationship: he no longer shows affection toward her, now that she’s pregnant. As their conversation goes on, we get the
sense that she feels their relationship is doomed, even if she does get an abortion:
“But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants,
and you’ll like it?” In real life, we rely on this type of subtext
to broach difficult conversations. Here, the white elephants are a vehicle the
characters use to indirectly discuss their relationship problems, without having to face
the pain of confronting hard questions directly. Hemingway is known for his minimalistic style,
and you probably noticed that this story reads more like a stage play or a screenplay. His style adheres to his Iceberg Theory of
writing, also known as the theory of omission. He once stated:
“If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things
that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling
of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is
due to only one-eighth of it being above water.” Essentially, this means that sometimes less is more. Hemingway gives his readers little context,
allowing his dialogue to speak for itself, putting the responsibility of dissecting its
meaning into the reader’s hands. Vague references to a “simple operation”
enables the author to talk about a taboo subject like abortion. Similar types of euphemisms can be used for
other touchy topics. In any given scene, a character might hold
back their true emotions to avoid hurting another person, embarrassing themselves, showing
vulnerability, or facing a hard truth. We rely on subtext when we have something
to lose, like our pride, safety, comfort, or happiness. However, we might misinterpret someone’s
intentions and assume they’re angry at us when they’re only frustrated at the situation. We might mine for a subtext that doesn’t
exist in asking our partners what they meant when they said nothing was wrong. We might miscommunicate our own feelings,
making someone think we dislike them, when in fact we’re just tired. Sometimes, we’re unaware of our own feelings,
yet others can still sense our true emotions through the words we choose and our nonverbal
cues. That’s the beauty of subtext—it creates
conflict, which makes for an engaging story. When characters skirt around a tough conversation,
it puts readers on the edge of their seats with anticipation as they wait for the truth
to bubble to the surface. We itch to know how the exchange will play
out and what consequences the characters will face. During a first draft, it’s okay to have
placeholders that state the characters’ direct meaning. But when you go back to revise highly emotional
scenes, try to have the characters convey their thoughts without explicitly stating
them. Your readers will pick up on the subtext and
be more engaged as a result—you’re giving the audience a puzzle to solve and adding
realism. As a writing exercise, imagine a conversation
between two characters. Determine their initial relationship—are
they a married couple, a boss and an employee, a suspect and an interrogator? Then, have them argue about something. You can identify the literal feelings you
want to convey first, before thinking about how the character would actually present this
information, given the social norms or their relationship with the other character. Imply those feelings through dialogue and
actions. For instance, a character’s literal meaning
might be “I’m pissed off because you didn’t let me buy a labradoodle, and you claim that
owning a dog would be ‘too expensive,’ but you’re a hypocrite about spending money.” In actual dialogue, that might be translated
to “How much was that drone toy thing you never use? Two grand? You’re always buying useless crap.” Think about how the characters want to present
themselves. What reaction are they trying to evoke or
avoid from the other person? Is this conversation actually about something
else they’re not openly discussing? Let tension arise from miscommunication. What are your favorite examples of subtext
in dialogue? I’d love to hear them in the comments. Whatever you do, keep writing. <3
