When Henry criticizes Will for wearing a hat indoors, what is the subtext? Does he mean that you shouldn't break social conventions? Not to stick out? A hat also calls attention to the wearer because only a small percentage of men wear hats. Does he mean that he doesn't want Will to get more attention than Henry? Maybe it also means that you shouldn't be limited in your life. A hat could represent a limitation.
Laurel Yourke, in Take Your Characters to Dinner (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc., 2000), on p. 202, defines subtext as "the unwritten meaning that readers infer from what is implied rather than expressed through the dialogue or description."
Subtext is what stitches the novel together, and must work together with the exposition, dialogue, and description to reinforces its narrative drive.
If this or anything else I've written moves you, post comment.
Writing is for me entrepreurial. Check out my enterpreneurship course, www.hatman2.blogspot.com and my real estate 2.0 blog, www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Subtext
Synopsis:
Author Profile:
Tim was a market and survey research consultant from 1983 to 2000 and a smoking cessation researcher from 2000 to 2003. His consulting practice focused primarily on conducting community health needs assessment. He authored hundreds of market research reports and published a number of his assessments in Community Health Needs Assessment published by McGraw Hill in 1996 and in a revised volume published in 1999. In 2000 he joined the staff of the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention of the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he conducted smoking cessation research. He published several articles in peer-reviewed journals and spoke at national smoking cessation conferences.
In 2003 he moved to Philadelphia and earned his real estate license. He now practices real estate, works on publishing his novels, and studies and teaches entrepreneurship.Tim has written a dozen novel-length stories, a volume of short stories, and about a 3-foot stack of pages poetry. He is currently working on earning his 4th million in real estate sales, publishing his novels, and working on an entrepreneurish handbook as a support for his students.
Tim is a trained violist and an experienced string quartet player. He is an avid listener to classical music and regularly attends classical music concerts. He has two grown children by his first wife and a stepdaughter with his second wife. He likes to cook, read, write, entertain, develop relationships, and help other people. Formerly Tim used to travel frequently. He doesn't so much anymore. Now he regards the combination of real estate practice, writing and publishing, and the teaching and studying of entrepreneurship as enough of a trip.