subtext: a definition and exploration
expressing subtext through words: character information and backstory
techniques for expressing subtext through words
expressing subtext through gestures and action
creating subtext through images and metaphors
expressing subtext through the genre
writer alvin sargent ruminates about subtext
Thank you to my readers, who gave me invaluable feedback: Dr. Rachel Ballon, Devorah Cutler-Rubenstein, Cathleen Loeser, Elona Malterre, Kim Peterson, Ellen Sandler, Treva Silverman, and Pamela Jaye Smith.
Thank you to Lucinda Zeising for feedback on Chapter Three.
To my researcher, Lynn Brown Rosenberg, for all of her excellent help.
To Aaron Graham and Alvin Shim – film buffs who helped me with examples and other extras.
To my assistant, Sarah Callbeck, who keeps me organized and always adds a gentle presence to my office.
Thank you to the Michael Wiese team for all their good work – to Michael Wiese and Ken Lee for making it so easy to write, to Annalisa Zox-Weaver for her excellent editing, and to Gina Mansfield, layout artist, for making everything look beautiful.
subtext:
a definition and exploration
In drama, more than any other art form, people don’t say what they mean. It isn’t always a lie. It isn’t always fudging or denying the truth. Sometimes characters think they’re telling the truth. Sometimes they don’t know the truth. Sometimes they don’t feel comfortable expressing the truth. In great drama, there are the words themselves and the truth beneath the words. There is the text and the subtext. They are not the same. They’re not supposed to be.
WHAT IS TEXT AND SUBTEXT?
Text is the words and gestures that we see. Sometimes they suggest other meanings, and sometimes they just say it like it is. If I asked you, “How do I get from San Francisco to Chicago?” you might answer very clearly, with no subtext: “You take 80 east, and then exit onto Michigan Avenue when you get to Chicago and you’ll end up in downtown Chicago.” No underlying meanings there – a nice, straight answer.
But if the question were asked of a cute blonde tart and she answered with a wink, “Why do you want to go to Chicago when there’s so much fun to be had here!?” we would know that’s not a straight answer. Many other meanings lie beneath the surface. She’s promising a good time. She has something else in mind. If you catch her drift, you’ll either say, “No, thank you,” or decide to stay a while.
We encounter subtext all the time in daily life. People have a habit of not always saying what they mean; or, sometimes they realize that it’s not good form, or polite, or acceptable to speak the subtext, so they cover it up with text and let the real meaning simmer beneath the surface. Sometimes they want the other person to understand the real meaning. Sometimes not.
In The Big Sleep (1946, by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman), most of the female characters flirt with Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart). They insinuate, imply, and suggest. Even the female taxi driver has something else in mind besides taking Marlowe to his destination. After she drops him off, she gives him her business card, communicating subtext through her comments.
TAXI DRIVER
If you can use me again sometime, call this number.
MARLOWE
Day and night?
TAXI DRIVER
Night’s better. I work during the day.
Clearly she isn’t giving him her card for another taxi ride. Like the cute tart from San Francisco, she has other things on her mind.
Subtext is the true meaning simmering underneath the words and actions. It’s the real, unadulterated truth. The text is the tip of the iceberg, but the subtext is everything underneath that bubbles up and informs the text. It’s the implicit meaning, rather than the explicit meaning. Great writing and great drama are subterranean. Subtext points to other meanings. The words we hear are meant to lead us to other layers. Conflict exists at this intersection of text and subtext. Great drama dwells beneath the words.
When writers write dialogue that is obvious, we say they’re “on-the-nose.” Characters say exactly what they mean in neat, logical, sentences. It’s dull. It’s bland. It sounds like a lecture or a sermon or treatise or a resume. The dialogue is not emotionally alive. The words don’t resonate with other meanings. Instead, characters give information, recite backstory and exposition, and comment on unimportant things. They chat, and chat some more.
In obvious dialogue, characters are direct. They are all-knowing and understand everything well enough to explain it all to us. They tell us about their psychological problems – and have self-knowledge and insight and can tell us exactly what’s going on. They tell us exactly why they’re the way they are, and what childhood forces caused their psychological problems. Nothing is hidden. Like the writer, this character is all-knowing and the writer is determined to have him tell it all.
Or, consider this scene: Two characters meet, and are clearly attracted to each other. They talk about their attraction, about their hopes for the future. They have it all figured out. Everything is out there, without any of the uncertainties or nuances that occur in real life.
When everything is in the text, everything going on is in the lines, not between the lines, as it should be in great writing. It’s all there. But what’s missing is the important part – the motives and thoughts, emotions and human truths that resonate with