Unspoken Dialogue
By Dave King | August 15, 2017 |
I ran into this delicious exchange in a client’s manuscript the other day. Rosemarie, a young virgin, is being seduced by the one eyed man. She distrusts him, she’s frightened, and she’s awash in guilt for the physical attraction she feels toward him.
‘No,’ said Rosemarie. ‘This isn’t right.’
‘No one’s watching,’ whispered the one eyed man.
Creating dialogue with clear, unique character voices can’t be done by rote. But it’s not magic, either. I’ve written before about techniques you can use to enhance your character’s voice and tools you can bring to bear on stiff and formal dialogue. Another way to make your dialogue more authentic and memorable by to make it less explicit. It becomes more real when you leave things out.
Consider how much character conflict is going on behind the two lines quoted above. Being seen is the least of Rosemarie’s objections to the seduction, yet that’s what the one eyed man focuses on. He ignores all of her stronger objections, replaces them with a straw man, and knocks the straw man down. Yet he knows that losing that straw man is all the encouragement Rosemarie needs to give in. He shows himself to be insightful into what’s going on in her head and selfish and manipulative enough to use it against her. And the three words that capture all of that complex characterization are sharp and memorable because so little of it is spelled out.
To one degree or another, all conversations contain subtext – conscious or unconscious assumptions, hidden agendas, or clandestine motives lying behind the speaker’s words. And if you don’t pay attention to subtext, you’ll wind up writing dialogue where all your characters have the same subtext. Readers may not be conscious of it — you may not be conscious of it — but your characters are going to feel subtly the same because, under the surface, they all want the same thing from the conversation. You’ll never see the complex conflict that exists between the one eyed man and Rosemarie because everything in your dialogue is out in the open.
It’s been said that, when he was teaching acting classes, Elia Kazan would often give a couple of students each a slip of paper describing a situation, then ask them to improvise a scene. Thing is, he gave them two different situations. As they improvised, each one seeing the world slightly differently, their dialogue took on some of the confused authenticity and sparkle of real life.
Consider this passage, taken from my favorite source for examples of quality dialogue: Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing. Mandy Hampton is a political activist used to working outside government who has been brought into the Bartlett administration as a consultant. She also used to date Josh Lyman, Bartlett’s deputy chief of staff. They’re talking about how to deal with a group of survivalists who have taken hostages. Mandy has just suggested negotiating a peaceful settlement.
Josh: This is a standoff with federal officers. A peaceful settlement is “put your guns down, you’re under arrest.”
Mandy: I think it would be wise if we demonstrated that we exhausted every possible peaceful solution before we got all Ramboed up.
Josh: I don’t think it’s unreasonably macho for the White House to be aggressive in preserving democracy.
Mandy: Let me tell you something. Ultimately, it is not the nuts that are the greatest threat to democracy. As history has shown us over and over and over again, the greatest threat to democracy is the unbridled power of the state over its citizens. Which, by the way, is always unleashed in the name of preservation.
Josh: This isn’t abstract, Mandy. This isn’t a theoretical problem. The FBI says, ‘Come out with your hands up,’ you come out with your hands up. At which point, you’re free to avail yourself of the entire justice system.
Mandy: Do you really believe that? Or are you just pissed off because I got into the game?
Note how both of them approach the problem with a very different view of what government can and should do. Josh, the insider, trusts it. Mandy, the outsider, not so much. The clash of their two different takes on the world gives the dialogue a bit more crackle. And underneath this obvious disagreement, there is also the tension that comes from their having been lovers at one time in the not too distant past, even though that isn’t referred to until the end.
So how do you teach yourself to be aware of your characters’ subtext? One way is to put yourself into each character’s head as you write. Try writing key scenes from the point of view of every major character who takes part in them. Use a lot of interior monologue to force yourself to be aware of their thinking. And pay attention to how the dialogue may change subtly as the point of view changes. That’s where the clash of subtexts lies.
Leaving some of your dialogue unspoken can also show just how well your characters know one another. In essence, old friends or even long acquaintances are aware of one another’s subtext and show this by responding to an unspoken request. Consider the following, taken from another source of excellent dialogue – Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries, in this case A Family Affair. Here, a client staying in the brownstone has just been killed by a bomb in the night. Wolfe has gone to ground in his room to avoid the police, and Archie has gone to the basement to wake Fritz Brenner, the long-time chef and housekeeper, and fill him in on the situation.
“Sorry to intrude,” I said, “but there’s a mess. A man came, and I put him in the South Room, and a bomb that he brought along went off and killed him. All the damage is in that room. Mr. Wolfe came up for a look and is now in his room with the door bolted. You may not get much more sleep, because a mob will be coming and there will be noise. When you take his breakfast up—“
“Five minutes,” he said. “You’ll be in the office?”
“No. Upstairs. South Room. When you take his breakfast, be sure you’re alone.”
“Four minutes.”
Note how Archie, in describing the situation, immediately answers the question Fritz is most likely to ask – “How much damage was done?” And Fritz, who knows Archie well enough to realize he won’t ask for help – Archie does assume Fritz will be trying to go back to sleep — volunteers without being asked. And he doesn’t even make that explicit. He simply assumes that he’s going to be there and tells Archie how long it will take him to get dressed. And Archie accepts the offer simply by telling Fritz where he’ll be. You can see the longstanding friendship between the two of them in all the dialogue that they left out.
Compare these passages with this bit of dialogue, taken from a . . . lesser literary light – E. X. Giroux’s 1986 mystery, A Death for a Doctor. Miss Sanderson is secretary and surrogate mother to Dr. Forsythe. She has just been asked by the police to go undercover to help them solve the brutal murder of an entire family, including two young boys. Baby Lucy is the sole survivor.
“Dear God,” Miss Sanderson whispered. After a time she glanced up at Forsythe. “Robby, I know you disapprove, but I’m going to Maddersley. Mrs. Sutter can take over my work.”
“And if I forbid you to go?”
“You’ll have my resignation.”
Her words dropped like stones into a pool. [Here follows two paragraphs establishing how shocking the threat is, ending with one of the policemen saying,] “Surely it won’t come to that.”
Forsythe moved forward. He took one of his secretary’s hands in both of his. Her hand was cold. He squeezed it, trying to warm it. “No,” he said. “It certainly won’t. Sandy, I’ll trust your judgement. But why? The children?”
“The child. It’s too late for Arthur or Andrew or for the unborn baby. It’s not too late for little Lucy.”
There are a fair number of things wrong here – way too much time spent establishing the shock, a slip in the point of view, referring to the narrator by her formal title. But in addition to them, note how much of this conflict between Forsythe and Miss Sanderson is explicit, despite their long friendship. I’d cut it down to:
“Dear God.” Abigale glanced up at Forsythe. “Robby, Mrs. Sutter can take over my work.”
“And if I forbid you?”
“You’ll have my resignation.”
“Surely it won’t come to that,” Sergeant Brummel said.
Forsythe moved forward, took one of her hands in both of his, warming it. “No, it won’t. But why? The children?”
“The child. It’s not too late for little Lucy.”
Note that having her assume that he will disapprove and jump straight to suggesting her replacement shows how well she knows him. And his trust in her judgement is implied in his actions. It doesn’t have to be said. Their relationship comes through more clearly by cutting things that should be obvious between two people who know each other well. Essentially, their relationship is moved into the subtext.
Of course, it’s possible to go too far. In the interest of fast pace and giving readers a sense of being in the know, writers of hard-boiled crime novels and deep-noir detective stories often produce dialogue that borders on incomprehensible. Consider this, from James Elroy’s White Jazz. A police raid has just gone south because of a rookie cop’s mistake. Dave the narrator is the lieutenant in charge of the raid, trying to clean up the mess when someone else arrives on the scene.
“You owe me eleven hundred, Counselor.”
Make the voice: Jack Woods. Mixed bag – bookie/strongarm/contract trigger.
I walked over. “Did you catch the show?”
“I was just driving up – and you should put that kid, Stemmons, on a leash.”
“His daddy’s an inspector. I’m the kid’s mentor, so I’ve got a captain’s job as a lieutenant. Did you have a bet down?”
“That’s right.”
“Slumming?”
“I’m in the business myself, so I spread my own bets around for good will. Dave, you owe me eleven hundred.”
“How do you know you won?”
“The race was fixed.”
Jabber – newsmen, the locals. “I’ll get it out of the evidence vault.”
“C’est la guerre. And by the way, how’s your sister?”
“Meg’s fine.”
“Say hi for me.”
If you’re used to this sort of thing, you can follow the conversation despite the sudden lurches from topic to topic and the need to guess at an awful lot of background in a hurry. (What bet, on what, and with whom? Why is it slumming? And is the reference to Dave’s sister an overture of friendship or a threat?) But even if you can follow the dialogue, the need to supply so much of what’s happening between the lines gets exhausting after a while. And the dialogue feels artificial, stylized. Real people simply don’t put that much work into leaving things out of their conversations.
So as you’re going over your dialogue, look for what you can cut away. If your characters know one another well, eliminate the obvious question and jump straight to the answer. Trim away the observations both sides would already be aware of – making sure your readers can still follow what’s going on. Try writing the scene from a different point of view and see how that changes things. You may find your character voices coming even more strongly to life because of what they don’t say as much as what they do.
[coffee]
So what are your favorite examples of subtext in dialogue? Remember, give us enough detail to understand why the dialogue works. And please feel free to ask me to elaborate. There’s no reason the article can’t bleed over into the comments. Those conversations are often the most fun.
Dave King has been editing for nearly 40 years now. He is co-author of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, a former contributing editor to Writer’s Digest, and has contributed more than 100 articles over the last 12 years to Writer Unboxed. He lives on 25 acres in rural Massachusetts with his business partner and wife, Ruth Julian, who also edits his work. His other day job, at least on Sundays, is as the organist at a Lutheran church in Greenfield, Mass.
Very timely post, Dave. I struggle with subtext all the time. What’s enough dialogue? What’s too much? Am I being vague? Will the reader get it? Raymond Chandler does subtext quite well in his Philip Marlowe stories—so much fun to read how he does not tell it like it is. I sometimes look to real life situations for the reality of subtext. Like when a person comments on your comment.
I say “This blouse makes me look like a tub.”
The friends says “The color is really pretty on you.”
Ah-ha!
I was tempted to go to Chandler — or even Hammett — for an example of subtext done well. But the Wolfe mystery was handy, and I was planning to use hypernoir for the negative example, so . . .
But you’re right, they are masters of it.
And I like your example.
Great advice, Dave. I often find, in both my own writing and in that of editing clients, that the delete key is hugely effective in improving a narrative. Thanks.
When in doubt, leave it out.
A year ago July, I ran an article that included some editing by Mark Twain, no less. Twain improved a passage from James Fennimore Cooper by simply cutting a third of the words.
I think that, for beginning writers, it’s a matter of confidence. You don’t trust that your character or plot points are coming through, so you tend to hit them a lot harder than you should.
Yay, now I can comment.
Dave, thanks for this. If there is one place writers can cut and cut again, it is dialogue that acts as if the two characters (a married couple maybe) don’t know each other. Narrative text should support real dialogue that TAKES OFF from the relationship that already exists on the page. But then changes with revelations as the story evolves. Dialogue reflect’s a plot twist, or as you illustrated in your post, EVENTS. Going to reread some of my dialogue.
Hi, Dave:
Once again, I thoroughly commend your use of Rex Stout as an example of fine writing. (I love that particular book, btw.)
I learned subtext in acting class from Pinter, who I think is a master, but he can be even more frustratingly enigmatic than Ellroy. But since I was acting the lines, not just reading them, I had to understand not just what was being said but what the character was trying to do. And that was the most important lesson for me — understanding that dialogue is action. Both what’s said and left unsaid is meant to accomplish something.
The screenwriter Waldo Salt always left his dialogue for last. He started with the action in the scene and the core images he felt were necessary, and only then let the characters speak.
Four of my favorites in this realm are serious writers who have flirted with genre: Robert Stone, Richard Price, Kate Atkinson, and Jess Walter. I think that the pace of genre forces one to be as spare as possible, but the literary instincts (and humor) of all four of these writers gives them the confidence to move well beyond rat-a-tat and allow the characters to speak for themselves.
One particularly favorite passage is from Atkinson’s Case Histories, when PI Jackson Brody is interviewing the two Land sisters, Julia and Amelia. Clearly, they have a long history together and assume things Jackson has no clue about, prompting him to repeatedly ask questions they find tiresome. Also, Julia is an actress and everything she says has a vaguely sexual connotation; Amelia might as well have “unhappy” written across her forehead. They bicker pointlessly right in front of Jackson and he needs to step in gently to keep the Q&A moving along.
The other examples I use in my dialogue class come from Peter Carey’s Theft, Jess Walter’s Citizen Vince, Tana French’s In the Woods (good confession scene), and Robert Stone’s Dog Soldiers. I’ve also used the opening to Richard Price’s Lush Life as an example.
In my own writing, depending on how deeply I’m into the “battle of wits” at play in the scene, I tend to write the scene freely on the first round, knowing that I’m capturing what the characters would most obviously say, free of inhibition, just so I’m clear on the information.
Then I try to be clear on what the characters are trying to do to each other — Inform? Deceive? Flirt? Misdirect? Flatter? Mock? Set up for a fall? Warn? Some combination of the foregoing?
I also think about the power dynamics — who believes he has the upper hand? Why? Is he right? That gives me a better idea of what the characters would want to withhold or shade, and why.
Finally, as you wisely advise, I go back over the scene from each character’s unique POV. This is crucial. So often flat dialogue results from seeing the scene from only one perspective.
I tell my students: Dialogue is the part of writing you’ll revise the most, because it’s the hardest to get right. It isn’t speech, but has to sound like speech. But you can also revise too much, and wind up with something forced and artificial, like the Ellroy example you provided.
Great post. Thanks.
Good advice, David, thank you.
I understand some of you have been having a hard time posting comments. Our apologies. I’m sure that the blog elves worked tirelessly behind the scenes to get the comments up and running again.
Dave–wonderful post, thank you. It demonstrates how crucial concrete illustrations are if ideas are to be made clear–for instance, dialogue.
I especially like your suggestion to not initially cast scenes through the eyes and mind of just one character. I will put this good advice to use in my current project. My main POV character has been ostracized by virtually everyone in his Florida retirement community. What has turned him into a pariah (a book of essays he wrote but never authorized to be published) isn’t really his fault. Still, the shame is so complete his wife has stayed in Michigan. They still communicate by phone, what my character ironically thinks of as an updated version of an epistolary novel. For this story to succeed, I need to do a more complete job of seeing events through the wife’s perspective. The husband feels too victimized to hear the truth in what his wife is telling him: that he has failed to understand the power of words to wound.
Thanks again.
Oh, that is a couple with the makings of real drama between them — a great class of subtexts.
Best of luck with it.
Dave, this example from Michael Connelly’s “The Late Show” sent horror and empathy all over me, as a mom receives a late-night call. There’s more subtext as the passage continues, that the police are sick pranksters and that the daughter’s boyfriend is at fault.
“This is Detective Ballard with the Los Angeles Police Department. Who am I speaking with?”
“No, I called Cindy. What is going on there?”
It was a woman’s voice, already choked with desperation and fear.
“Mrs Haddel?”
“Yes, who is this? Where is Cindy?”
“Mrs. Haddel, is your husband with you?”
“Just tell me, is she all right?”
Ballard looked over at Jenkins. She hated this.
“Mrs. Haddel,” she said. “I’m very sorry to tell you that your daughter has been killed in a shooting at the club where she worked in Los Angeles.
There was a loud scream over the line, followed by another, and then the sound of the phone clattering to the floor.
“Mrs. Haddel?”
A gruff voice came on the line.
“Who is this?”
I love this new novel from Mike Connelly, and I think he’s launched an impressive new series and heroine.