In an article for Writer’s Digest, Zeeva Bukai shares five storytelling elements that have helped her add subtext and dramatic tension to her writing. “In acting, the interior life and the character’s objective often remain unspoken, revealed as subtext in the undercurrent of what isn’t being said,” she notes. While the reader sees the protagonist’s interior life on the page, fiction still needs subtext. “Subtext is the silent longing that adds depth and richness to a story,” Bukai writes.
She shares five storytelling elements that she uses to create dramatic tension through subtext, including:
- Motivation. “Motivation and objective are the important engines that propel a character (and story) forward,” Bukai writes. Ask yourself, what does my character want? What is her external conflict versus her internal conflict?”
- Dialogue. “Embedding the subtext in the dialogue comes down to what a character is hiding, or what they’re trying to find out,” Bukai says. “Just as in creating subtext in the character (external conflict versus internal conflict), in dialogue it is what isn’t said, but remains lurking under the surface.”
- Behavior. Sometimes, a person may not know what they want or feel, but will subconsciously take steps toward that goal anyway. Someone who is nervous may not acknowledge it, but take a drink or argue instead. A character pushed towards an undesirable goal may self-sabotage.
- Setting. “When staging a scene, we position the characters just so, create the time of day, the place, and the mood,” Bukai notes. Setting can help create expectations or undermine them. A detail that seems out of place will signal the reader that something is off, creating tension.
- Prose. Description can – and should – convey time, character, setting, mood, and tone. The style of your prose can also set the tone, again signaling to your reader how they are supposed to feel about the story. Long, languid paragraphs can create a sense of ease or melancholy, while short punchy sentences can suggest danger.
