Buzz
by John Wolf
- The Art of Subtext - Beyond Plot - Charles Baxter
What Charlie is trying to describe in this book is the elusive elements of story telling that propels the reader into the realm of what haunts the imagination. It's the implied, the half-visible, and the unspoken - as he says.
He talks about staging scenes like in a play. The characters are confined to a space created by the author that they can't get away from. The story talks about things outside this space. The reader is taken beyond the plot and has to ride the authors words into this ether.
This doesn't mean the scene is surreal, it means characters and things from somewhere else influence the story like a dead father's words that drive a son into some action that he wouldn't otherwise do. The story is moved by that that is not directly tangible to the characters. This adds an incredible depth to the story and embellishes the plot. This is the art of subtexting.
Subtexting provides the author with a powerful tool to build any level of complexity into the plot that would otherwise be extremely difficult to narrate.
Just listen to the chapter headings:
- The Art of Staging
- Digging the Subterranean
- Unheard Melodies
- Inflection and the Breath of Life
- Creating a Scene
- Loss of Face
Click on this: next column
Sound interesting? I thought so. You can really heap a lot of excitement and drama into your stories using this thought process. Charlie helps you understand his perspective by illustrating various famous authors who used this technique expertly.
He lists some 56 books that exemplify this skill in the back of his book. Even the simplest scene can come alive with meaning and draw the reader in by casting a shadow of influence from another time or place. Maybe the worry of things to come. The future is not exempt.
In my story "Benny Plays the Blues" one of the uses of subtext that I plan for the storyline concerns Benny and his father's estrangement after Benny's mom dies. He thought his father lost interest in him and he was a burden, so he leaves as a young man for Las Vegas to make it on his own only to discover, after his father dies, that during the ten years Benny has been gone, his father devoted his life to write music for Benny's saxophone. When Benny goes back to New York to tend to his fathers affairs, he finds the music. Benny is a composer himself, but his work never made it, but when he plays his father's music he becomes famous.
You can't narrate that. It has to playout in the thoughts and haunts of Benny's mind as he discovers his father's love. I get chills everytime of think about this. That's subtexting.
I hope you pick up this book and the many others Mr. Baxter has written that describes ways to become a better writer.
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John Wolf keeps the kennels clean at the Fox&Quill Hunting Club |
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