The Subtext of Details

At the edge of the meadow is a fence. It has been standing a long time, so long that every post leans, often at a different angle. Between the posts barbed wire stretches and in a few places sags. When you get close enough, you can see remnants: a strand of hair, frayed string, a small piece of red cloth caught in the barbs. The details of what has passed by or what the wind has blown in held in place for us to examine.

 I have been thinking about the subtext of details. How the small things our characters pay attention to and point out to the reader can say more than the keenest dialogue. They happen below the text.

According to Wikipedia “Subtext is content underneath the spoken dialogue. Under dialogue, there can be conflict, anger, competition, pride, showing off, or other implicit ideas and emotions. Subtext is the unspoken thoughts and motives of characters—what they really think and believe.”

But subtext is also carefully selected details that make the particular universal. They focus as subtext because they are seen through our characters eyes and without the advantage of dialogue let us in on their thoughts.

Ralph Fletcher in What a Writer Needs offers wise advice. “Don’t write about senility or a man losing his ability to take care of himself. Write about lost belt loops.” How we can choose just the right detail to show what our character thinks and believes at that point in time without the character telling us? 

In the wonderful and bleak Winter’s Bone, Ree Dolly thinks about the last time she saw her father. “Walnuts were thumping to the ground in the night like stalking footsteps of some large thing that never quite came into view…”  Suppose two co- workers are arguing, a snarky "he said/ she said" kind of fight, and all the while he keeps glancing at the ticket stubs on her desk, the ones she saved from her big weekend date. 

If you could imagine the details of your scene caught in those barbs, what would they be? What would the things your character notices be shouting or whispering to the reader?

Diamonds in the Rough

by Michelle Gagnon

I love discovering books by new authors, especially when those books turn out to be part of a new series. Don't get me wrong, I usually read the hottest new releases, series like The Hunger Games that get everyone talking (speaking of which, I CANNOT WAIT for that movie! If you haven't seen the trailer yet, you need to, because it looks amazing).

But at a book fair a few weeks ago, the YA buyer handed me a copy of BLOOD RED ROAD by Moira Young, and said, "Read this. You'll love it."

For the first few pages, I had my doubts. The book is written entirely in dialect, and that's a tough thing to do well. Usually I find it gimmicky, and feel like it detracts from the narrative more than it adds to it. (Almost coincidentally, the lead in The Hunger Games movie is Jennifer Lawrence, who stared in the film adaptation of another dialect-heavy book that I loved, WINTER'S BONE.)

Not in this case, however. Wow, I loved this book. Kind of THE ROAD meets GLADIATOR, with a teenage girl fighting in the ring. I've been on kind of a post-apocalyptic binge lately anyway, and this met all my requirements. It had a strong, amazing heroine on a quest to save her twin brother; a great supporting cast of characters, including a group of other teenage girls who are all great with bows and arrows; and a really amazing love story underpinning all of it.

And best of all, the ending was satisfying, but also held the promise of more books to come.

But that leaves me with an open TBR pile, and I'm hungry for more (no pun intended). So tell me--have any of you discovered books lately that might not be on the bestsellers' lists, but deserve to be there? And what about them resonated with you?