Is there a name for layers of subtext?
For each line of dialog, I have three pieces of text: the dialog itself, and two things I call Subtext1 and Subtext2 for now.
Dialog: Self-explanatory, the only thing actually "visible" to the reader
Subtext1: Shows what I want the reader to think or what I expect them to think
Subtext2: Shows what the scene really is about, with info the reader isn't supposed to know yet.
Example:
Dialog: (Pirate) Where is my other boot?!
Subtext1: He seems awfully concerned for a useless boot. What, does he plan to put it on his peg-leg?
Subtext2: He fears someone might have found his super secret treasure map in the small pouch on the side of the boot.
So my question is, is this already a "thing"? Like, is there a technique of sorts that works like this already? What names would be more fitting for Subtext1 and Subtext2?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/31303. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
Your subtext2 is what is generally called foreshadowing. That is, it hints at something important that is yet to be revealed: the clouds on the horizon that hint at rain. It is not really a form of subtext. Subtext is a very loose term (and, frankly, I think we would be better off without it) but it generally seems to refer to text that says one thing and means another. There is no secondary meaning in your pirate wanting his boot. He wants it for one and only one reason. We just don't know what it is yet. This introduces mystery, and perhaps tension, but not a secondary meaning.
Your subtext1 is not necessarily a subtext either. It is simply the impression you wish the passage to convey; your intent. Part of your intent may be to suggest one meaning on the surface and another meaning beneath that surface. That deeper meaning would be a subtext, but there is no deeper meaning in your priate example, merely a motivation, on the surface level of the main story, that has not been revealed.
The belief in subtexts has become pervasive and insidious in our literary culture. Authors like Tolkien and Flannery O'Connor have railed against it. I think the obsession with subtext undervalues story as story, suggesting that a story is of little value in itself and must exist in order to covertly convey some declarative point.
I think this is bosh. A story is an experiences. We do learn from experience, of course. But what we learn from experience is more profoundly learned than anything we learn from reading declarative propositions. But experience has a value beyond what it teaches. What we value in life comes from our experiences. A story, then, is a higher thing than any philosophical proposition. It is an experience and it needs be no more than an experience, even if that leaves literary critics with much less to talk about.
Leave subtext to the imagination of the critics, therefore, and focus on making the story you are writing the most vivid and moving experience it can be.
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