{"id":1046,"date":"2013-10-27T06:08:59","date_gmt":"2013-10-27T10:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=1046"},"modified":"2013-10-20T11:29:05","modified_gmt":"2013-10-20T15:29:05","slug":"what-lies-beneath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=1046","title":{"rendered":"What Lies Beneath"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Last week I wrote about the interview with Charles Baxter<\/a> and his thoughts on story endings. I recognized his name at once as the author of a wonderful book\u2014and if you are a writer of any kind whatsoever, you should phone your local independent book store immediately and order it\u2014The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot<\/a><\/i>. It\u2019s part of the Graywolf Press \u201cThe Art of . . .\u201d series, which Baxter edits.<\/p>\n

Baxter calls subtext \u201cthe realm of what haunts the imagination: the implied, the half-visible, and the unspoken.\u201d It takes a great deal of \u201csurface bric-a-brac,\u201d Baxter says, to indicate what is not<\/i> being explicitly shown. Perhaps it\u2019s counterintuitive, but hyperdetailing provides the revelation, not the invocation of great abstractions. He describes how this can be accomplished\u2014infinitely easier to read about than to achieve, I assure you\u2014in the book\u2019s six essays. Readers, too, will find a lot to think about. In my case, in the \u201cwhat all have I been missing?!\u201d category.<\/p>\n

The first essay is about staging\u2014where people are \u201cin the set.\u201d Like actors on stage, a lot is revealed by who is sitting close to whom, who is listening, who reaches out a protective hand, who looks away. Body language. When characters speak, we may learn as much from how a line is delivered as from the words themselves. Literary fiction pays attention to all this and provides the reader a rich human experience; what I think of as \u201cairport novels\u201d don\u2019t bother, and people who write four novels a year can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Another essay talks about the unheard. People in real life often simply do not hear<\/i> information that is threatening or stress-inducing. Or they don\u2019t pay attention to others\u2019 conversation because they are listening to their own interior dialog. Such non- or semi-listening may cause a character\u2019s response to seem off point. It never is. It\u2019s just a different point. And sometimes a character may want to steer the conversation elsewhere. And for a reason.<\/p>\n

I have a post-it on my computer that reads \u201cNo Tennis Matches!\u201d Writing dialog isn\u2019t just about lobbing the conversational ball back and forth. Realistic conversation has digressions, slips of the tongue, interruptions, unexpected associations.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a conversation from Witness<\/i>,* in which the two speakers\u2014Matchmaker Marisa and Reluctant Genie\u2014deliberately pursue separate agendas. Like two sides playing tug-of-war, each becomes increasingly insistent on controlling the contest. Genie\u2019s final comment suggests she was listening all along. (Wally is her editor.)<\/p>\n

\u201cLeo should be here any minute.\u201d Marisa gave Genie a sideways glance, accompanied by a sly smile.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cTell me about this restaurant Riccardo is taking you to.\u201d <\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a shame the two of you cannot join us.\u201d Marisa came and sat on the low white-leather sofa across from her friend.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cIt opened recently, he said. Read any reviews?\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cLeo is a very special man.\u201d Marisa studied her manicure. \u201cRiccardo says he\u2019s been lonely.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you like the place, take notes, and I\u2019ll add it to my article.\u201d Genie\u2019s laugh was pitched a few notes higher than usual. The door buzzer sounded. \u201cAnd here he is, with news of the world.\u201d <\/i><\/p>\n

Other essays in this engaging collection describe how to bring subtext to the surface, moving into the metaphorical, using facial expressions to show what\u2019s going on inside, and \u201ccreating a scene,\u201d in which he says, \u201cIn fiction we want to have characters create scenes that in real life we would typically avoid.\u201d Every time I read Baxter\u2019s book (at least three times now) I see new ways his insights could deepen my own writing and reading experience. Highly recommended!<\/p>\n

*Witness<\/i> is my unpublished suspense novel out looking for an agent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I wrote about the interview with Charles Baxter and his thoughts on story endings. I recognized his name at once as the author of a wonderful book\u2014and if you are a writer of any kind whatsoever, you should … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,74,40,4,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-emotions","category-fiction","category-readers","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-gS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1046"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1048,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046\/revisions\/1048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}