Creating Subtext in Deep Point-of-View Narrative
Take a few minutes to check out this article from Lisa Hall-Wilson about deepening characterization and establishing a stronger connection between readers and the story's emotional context ("How to Use Perception to Create Subtext in Deep POV").
Deep POV is the promise of emotional immersion. It's also a continuous work in progress: How do craft invigorating drama without being too explicit, too over the top, or too literal? Hall-Wilson offers six points:
1. Don't Narrate/Summarize Thoughts and Feelings
Typically, people communicate through broken and incomplete arguments, or through stuttering and fragmented thought-patterns. Writing this authenticity into character interactions will lend authenticity to those in-between moments that matter: what isn't said, what's almost said, what they were supposed to say. Then, follow up with a reaction, but keep it authentic: what's the focus, what's avoided, what's dismissed?
A character's worldview and lived experience inform their view and interpretation of the story's events. But crafting good subtext is about more than that. Meaningful and effective subtext arrives when readers can identify repeat presumptions, warped or overconfident intuitions, or misunderstandings that rely on further misunderstandings. Instead of telling readers the how and why of each perspective or conflict, give readers the opportunity to piece it all together, however ugly the final picture may be.
3. Priorities Become a Filter
"Show what the character is fixated on or misses completely and let the reader assemble the meaning." (Hall-Wilson)
In short, characters have their own wants and needs, whether as a part of or in spite of the demands of the central narrative. The writer, then, has an opportunity to examine the risks or heighten the stakes by offering readers the opportunity to see something the character's don't. A character's priorities will influence or dominate their emotional reactions, which could boost (or spell doom) for their goals.
4. The Reader as Interpreter
Don't explain everything. Once readers make a connection with a character, they're invested in each shift of subsequent emotional or behavioral value. Allow readers to absorb the "raw information" of a scene and intuit the meaning. Sensory information. Verbal tics. Seemingly random gestures. These things have meaning, and sometimes, leaving their explanation up to readers can make for a more compelling encounter.
5. Emotional Truth Is Rarely Simple
Know when to apply detail and know when to pull back. Deep point of view encourages simplicity and a simultaneity of engagement. But sometimes, this specificity can get in the way of exploring the truth of the scene. Why? Becomes complexity often requires context. Be specific, but also be adaptable. Leave room for emotional truths that don't have a name. Don't let exactness become the enemy of instinct:
"Don't label the cocktail. Show the body caught between impulses — fingers reaching then curling back, voice bright while gut knots." (Hall-Wilson)
In the same way that subtext can emerge when characters are written such that their speech patterns or thought patterns mimic how real-world conversations or arguments persist, authors can also build subtext by venturing beyond obvious emotions and focusing on the conflict behind the conflict. Not fear, but a fear of being found out. Not anger, but anger at being ignored. Not arrogance, but an arrogance that comes from being regularly misinterpreted.
How different is the story the characters are trying to dictate, apart from the story from the novel's events appear to be telling? How do characters use setting, conflict, and circumstance to weave to form an impression of the greater narrative that differs from what readers expect or read as true?
