Subtext

Subtext is the meaning a scene carries underneath its surface — what the characters actually want and feel, running beneath what they are ostensibly discussing.

The Fantasy Fiction Formula locates it precisely: in scenes where characters are at cross purposes, the surface discussion is not what the true conflict is about. Two people argue about a parking space and the argument is about ten years of resentment; neither of them mentions the ten years, and both of them mean it.

An object will often carry what the dialogue cannot. In James Baldwin's story Sonny's Blues, a man tries to say something about what he has done to himself, and the line breaks apart: "I — went crazy — I did terrible things to me, I was terrible for me." While he speaks, he is pressing a beer can between his hands, and the narrator watches the metal begin to give. Nothing is stated. The can does it.

That is the practical route into subtext for most scenes: give the characters something to do with their hands, and let the prop take the load the words will not.

The opposite is on-the-nose dialogue, where the surface and the meaning are identical and there is nothing underneath. Subtext is not obscurity — the reader should always know what is really happening. They should simply not have been told.