Crouching Tiger, Hidden Meaning

In what may become a regular feature here at Un:Bound, I'm going to write about aspects of storytelling. There will be no tigers. Sorry.

Now I've crushed your hopes, let's get started.

“Good morning, Jeff,” said Roger. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” replied Jeff. “Thank you for asking.”

What’s wrong with that scene?

I’ll give you a minute to think about it.

...

I’m not sure why I’m giving you a minute, because I’ve no way of telling when a minute has passed for you and I’ll remain utterly ignorant of whatever answer you come back with, but, y’know, let’s just go with it.

...

Tum-te-tum.

...

Okay, one minute’s up. If you read that scene and thought: ‘well, there’s nothing really wrong with it. Two guys exchanging pleasantries is a bit dull, but the writing’s perfectly serviceable’, then you’d be right. And wrong.

Dull is wrong. Dull is bad. Dull is boring*.

Why is it dull?

The last thing Mindy said to Jeff before he walked out the door was, “I’m leaving you.”

Jeff walked to his car. His neighbour hailed him.

“Good morning, Jeff,” said Roger. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” replied Jeff. “Thank you for asking.”

Placed into this new context, the scene takes on new meaning. First time round, you had to take Jeff saying “I’m fine” at face value. This time round, he’s saying “I’m fine” moments after hearing his wife announce she was leaving. Is he trying to hide his pain? Is he still in shock? Does he not care?

Jeff’s words haven’t changed, but they have become more interesting, because they’re no longer just text – they have subtext.

Now let’s make it even more interesting by adding two extra words.

The last thing Mindy said to Jeff before he walked out the door was, “I’m leaving you… for Roger.”

Jeff walked to his car. His neighbour hailed him.

“Good morning, Jeff,” said Roger. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” replied Jeff. “Thank you for asking.”

We originally gave Jeff some subtext, but Roger’s dialogue remained flat. Now their exchange suggests a duel hidden behind their words. Is Roger mocking Jeff by asking him how he is? Is Jeff playing it cool to show he won’t rise to the subtle taunt?

In my experience, this isn’t only more interesting to read, it’s also a hell of a lot easier to write.

The subtext here is all character-based. It’s about suggesting motivations hidden beneath surface behaviour. But we can go further than that. We can add in a big dollop of cheese at the end.

The last thing Mindy said to Jeff before he walked out the door was, “I’m leaving you… for Roger.”

Jeff walked to his car. His neighbour hailed him.

“Good morning, Jeff,” said Roger. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” replied Jeff. “Thank you for asking.”

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

Of course, we all know that a bit of thunder rumbling in the distance means a storm’s coming. In the real world, that means we might just get drenched walking home. It means something different in a book, because what we’re probably dealing with is a metaphor. The impending storm isn’t some clouds doing that precipitating thing they do, it’s probably foreshadowing Jeff going loony tunes and hacking up Roger and Mindy with a cheese grater.

This he now does. We rejoin the action some time later.

The prison psychiatrist laid out his papers on the table and studied them for a moment. While he did so, his breath could be seen swirling from his lips, made visible by the chill trapped within the old stone building.

Eventually, he looked up and studied the inmate seated opposite him. The other man’s features were frozen in an impassive mask.

“Good morning, Jeff,” said the prison psychiatrist. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” replied Jeff. “Thank you for asking.”

We’re doing two things here. First, we’re echoing the words spoken earlier between Roger and Jeff, recalling that earlier event. If those two scenes were separated by a hundred pages, the reader might not notice this echo consciously, but the odds are good that their unconscious will pick up on it and appreciate the parallel.

Subtext is more about speaking to the unconscious than the conscious. It works in the same way as body language. We’re all pretty adept at reading it, but most of us don’t pay conscious attention to it. We’ll just get a strong feeling that this girl is fed up of talking to us, instead of explicitly noticing that her arms are folded, she won’t make eye contact and when she speaks, her sentences are short and curt.

The second thing this last scene does is attempt to externalise Jeff’s state of mind through description; the room is cold, Jeff’s features are ‘frozen in an impassive mask’. Mention of prison, being trapped, it all suggests that when Jeff says “I’m fine”, it’s because he’s locked away his emotions and become cold and dispassionate to the world.

Again, the reader shouldn't be saying to themselves 'oh yes, bit of externalising the psyche going on there'. Subtext is the mechanics behind a magician's trick. You want the audience left astounded by the effect, not muttering that they caught a glimpse of wire while you were levitating your beautiful assistant.

Okay, one last example and it takes us back to the original scene.

“Good morning, Jeff,” said Roger. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” replied Jeff. “Thank you for asking.”

Jeff continued on to his car, mind still on Mindy’s last words. As he opened the car door, a noise caused him to look up. An albatross was taking to the air from a tree across the way.

In this case, the albatross taking flight is supposed to signify Jeff's release from the burden of marriage.

Except it’s not that simple.

If you’re familiar with the ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (which I am, thanks to my brother playing a lot of Iron Maiden when we shared a bedroom), the albatross may indeed work well as a symbol of wearisome burden. If you’re a bird-fancier however, you might instead question the plausibility of an albatross being in nondescript suburb, while if you’re more into golf, your thoughts could turn instead to that time you almost shot a three under-par, only to be scuppered by your five-iron getting struck by lightning.

This is the perennial problem of subtext. It uses context and metaphor to imbue a simple description of events with layers of meaning, but that meaning can be utterly missed if the context doesn't resonate with the reader or the metaphors don't make sense within their understanding of the world. Alternatively, when filtered through a reader's viewpoint, the intended subtext can be transformed into something else.

Take the ‘Silence of the Lambs’ as an example. Is it a straight thriller about good triumphing over evil, or is it about how evil is actually far cooler and smarter than good? What was Thomas Harris’s intention?

Make no mistake, whether you consciously write subtext or not (and I’m sure most writers do it extremely effectively without actively thinking about it), it’s there in every story, because every story is essentially a metaphor. It could be very simple – e.g. good always triumphs over evil – or it could be more complex, with the techniques described above used to add layer upon layer of meaning to each scene.

And also know that all this good work will go unnoticed by most. All they’ll know is that when they reach the end and close the book, they’ll be sure they preferred:

The last thing Mindy said to Jeff before he walked out the door was, “I’m leaving you… for Roger.”

Jeff walked to his car. His neighbour hailed him.

“Good morning, Jeff,” said Roger. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” replied Jeff. “Thank you for asking.”

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

To:

“Good morning, Jeff,” said Roger. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” replied Jeff. “Thank you for asking.”

Unless they're weird and have an irrepressible imagination that grafts all sorts of subtext of their own onto what they've read. Critics of the Freudian school often do this and the subtext usually involves sexual dysfunction. It's also the only explanation I can think of for why some people appreciate modern art.

* - Though in some cases, dull is a valid pacing technique, but I'll leave discussion of that for another time.