The importance of including a subtext in your story
Subtext is the ‘untold’ or ‘underlying’ story that the principle storyline should be told within. Without a subtext, you will be left without a story. All very well and good, but how exactly do you create this subtext that is so crucial to the success of your fictional masterpiece?
Subtexts result from what is known as a ‘knowledge gap’. When you build into your story a difference in the knowledge held by the various characters in the story, you create a knowledge gap – and thus at the same time you simultaneously create both intrigue and engagement. Similarly, you can create a subtext by creating a knowledge gap between the level of information held by the audience (aka the reader) and the level of information known by the characters within the story. There are thus two basic forms of subtext; where characters themselves hold varying levels of knowledge or information within a story, and where there is a difference in the level of knowledge a reader has and the characters within the story themselves hold.
So knowledge gaps are the key. But as a writer, how do you introduce these knowledge gaps into your story? There are a number of popular ways:
- Through promise
- Through questions
- Through the introduction of a subplot
- Through allowing preconceptions to occur
Let’s look at them each in turn.
Through promise: When a reader begins to become absorbed in a book, they do so with the expectation that the writer will play by the rules so to speak. That is to say that if the author spends time discussing a particular character, there will be a good reason for this. So, if a character is introduced to a reader, and that character does something that seems a little bizarre (let’s say they go shopping and purchase 17 baguettes), the reader assumes that these baguettes are going to be in some way meaningful to the rest of the story. However the reader doesn’t know why they will be meaningful yet, and so an intriguing knowledge gap is formed.
Through questions: Any form of question will lead to the creation of a knowledge gap. Questions such as will the heroine get her man, will the young boy be rescued etc all instantly embed a knowledge gap into a story.
Through the introduction of a subplot: When a subplot is introduced, the reader usually assumes that it has been brought into play as a means of answering some of the questions we have formed due to the knowledge gap created. So, having purchased his 17 baguettes, if our lead character is then spotted eying up vacant bakeries, we may make the assumption that he is potentially going to have a career change towards the catering industry. But this may not actually be the case. It is simply an assumption we have made because we assume the subtext will be played out in the subplot. So the knowledge gap is still there.
Through allowing preconceptions to occur: Good writers will fill the reader with information that ultimately tricks them into thinking that they have filled a knowledge gap, when really the information the reader has learnt isn’t directly related to the question they have in their head at all.