Subtext is an especially powerful tool for children’s authors. It allows us to say something without really saying it. It’s the opposite of lecturing (a deadly sin when writing for kids!), because it gives readers an opportunity to reach their own conclusions. They’re not being told what to think or feel; they’re thinking and feeling for themselves.
First things first, though. What is subtext? Put simply, it’s saying something without really saying it. An underlying message that is not implicit on the page.
Pick up any picture book, and you’ll encounter subtext through analogy. Most picture books are nothing but subtext.
But it is often used in longer works to great effect.
One of my favorite examples is the following scene from The Many Masks of Andy Zhou by Jack Cheng.
The kids ahead of me turn onto side streets and go into their houses. By the time I’m a couple of blocks from home, I’m the only one left. No one in front and no one behind.
A memory bubbles up. In fourth grade, I saw this repair guy fixing the vending machine in our cafeteria. When the machine’s cover was open, he told me how it worked—how coins went down the rails and got read by magnets and tiny lights and sorted into their right places—the quarters with the quarters, the dimes with the dimes. How it could tell if you put in something that was the wrong size or weight, even by a little.
Then he dug a Canadian quarter out of his pocket. He dropped it into the machine, and I watched it roll down the rails, past all the different coin holes without so much as a hiccup, and clack into the return slot, rejected.
This is where the scene ends.
Notice that Cheng trusts his young reader enough to understand the subtext without saying it outright. This allowance, this opportunity for the reader to draw their own emotional conclusion, allows them to connect to the story on a much deeper level.
Here’s an excerpt from Creep by Lygia Day Peñaflor. In this scene, the narrator is working in the front desk at their high school when Nico and Laney—a couple the narrator is obsessed with—come in. Nico and Laney claim they’re late because they were taking a driving text. They ask the narrator for tardy slips.
Their eyes—hers, dark brown, and his, shiny bright hazel—hang on my answer. “Did you guys pass the test?”
“No. Neither of us passed,” Nico says, avoiding eye contact.
“I’m sorry.” I stand as still as can be. I don’t want to let Laney Villanueva and Nico Fiore go.
“We’re terrible drivers,” Nico says, looking sweetly at Laney, as if he’s proud of how terrible they are.
“It was the parallel parking,” Laney unfolds her hands to place them parallel. Her nails are trim and manicured with clear polish. “I didn’t know what I was doing.” Nico watches as Laney skews her hands perpendicular.
“That’s okay. Neither did I.” Nico and Laney lock eyes — dark and dark to hazel and hazel.
Suddenly, I disappear. I’m invisible to them.
“I hear that’s always the killer ...,” I say, although I no longer exist. “The, uh, parallel parking.”
It’s just him and her now, and the flyaway hairs that Nico is tucking behind Laney’s ear. He’s savoring the task, as if each strand is a reason he loves her. “It’s all right, though,” he says softly. “It was only our first time.”
Laney leans on her elbows and tilts her head to look up at him. She’s gone now, she’s lost in him.
He gazes back at her. “We’ll get it right. Don’t worry.”
She closes her eyes slowly, she inhales, her body rises.
Nico traces the outline of her face with his thumb.
“We just have to retake it, right?” he’s whispering to her now. As I watch them, I slip deep inside the folds of a secret. “We’ll have to do it a bunch of times.”
Clearly, they aren’t talking about driving. The subtext isn’t very subtle, but the dialogue still gestures off the page to a shared secret. The narrator and reader, together, come to understand what’s truly being said.
For an astonishing piece of flash fiction told through subtextual imagery, read “Failure to Thrive” by Sara Hills. Notice the images and metaphors she uses. The meaning is very clear, though it’s never implicitly stated. Pay attention to how this influences how you interact with the text.
Subtext makes space for the reader. It draws them closer to the page. It gives them an opportunity to make their own discoveries, mine their own experiences, feel their own emotions. No need to spoon feed; it’s better if they walk up to the table themselves.
Yes! Subtext pulls readers in and lets them make their own discoveries. It’s amazing how much depth a story gains when you trust the reader to fill in the gaps.
I feel like this is the best writing to read and the hardest to write! Trusting the reader to connect the dots is a little scary but it is so empowering!