It’s not about the fish

If it’s not about the fish, what is it about?

After years of working as a facilitator and coach, my old friend Johnnie Moore has turned his attention to helping people develop the skills they need to have difficult conversations. When I saw him post this video on LinkedIn, though, I didn’t immediately think about its implications for real world conversations, although it certainly strikes a chord. Rather, I realised that Johnnie has encapsulated one of the most important but least examined parts of writing fiction.

Subtext.

Let’s face it, we human beings can be a bit shit at saying what we mean. We dress up hard truths in soft words, we obfuscate answers and hope that our body language, facial expressions or tone of voice convey what we really feel, and occasionally we outright lie in order to avoid a difficult conversation. Sometimes, we know we’re doing it. Sometimes, it’s entirely subconscious as we obscure the truth from ourselves as well as our interlocutors. 

These layers of unspoken meaning are subtext. 

When Johnnie says it’s not about the fish, he’s pointing out that there’s important information hidden away in a seemingly mundane argument about dinner. When Johnnie’s client’s brother, whom I’ll call Todd, blurts out that he hates fish, he’s not just saying that he hates fish. He’s also saying that he feels hurt that his brother, whom I’ll call James, has never noticed that he hates fish, has never paid enough attention to internalise that tiny nugget of information. 

Todd is saying that he feel overlooked by James, he feels belittled, demeaned and infantilised. He’s saying that he expects more from his older brother, whom he probably looks up to. He wants to know that his likes and dislikes matter to James, that his happiness matters to James. If James really cares, he is saying, he would know that Todd hates fish.

Ultimately, we all want to feel seen, especially by those people in our lives who are important to us. We want our parents, our brothers and sisters, our partners, our closest friends and even eventually our children, to really see us. To pay attention, to understand, and to remember the things about us that make us us. 

That includes a lifelong hatred of fish. 

And, as real people do, so do fictional characters. They frequently don’t say what they mean, for all the same reasons that we don’t always say what we mean. 

When we put words in our characters’ mouths it is all too easy to have them say what is at the very front of their minds, because that is what is at the front of ours. We need them to convey specific items information to other characters and to the audience, and it’s painfully easy to make them do that by being obvious. They can become blunt, even trite. Their speech becomes too ‘on the nose’. 

In a first draft, that’s fine, it’s part of getting everything out of your head and onto paper or onto the screen. It’s not called a vomit draft for nothing. But as you rewrite, you have the chance to look for opportunities to rethink how your characters speak. 

Do you have someone who is particularly bad at articulating their own thoughts? Do they constantly talk around the issue instead of confronting it head-on? 

Do you have someone who relies on white lies to smooth their interactions with other people? 

Perhaps one character is scared of saying what they think, so they bottle it all up until they reach breaking point. Like Todd. 

This is, to no small extent, about character. How people talk, how they interact with and respond to others, is a fundamental part of their personality. So when you’re thinking about who your characters are, it’s worth including communication style amongst their traits and behaviours. 

Then, when you’re doing your rewrite, look for moments where your characters are being too honest and make them a little more reticent. Where can you change a line of dialogue into a look, a gesture or body language? Is there a way to have a character say something other than what they mean? Who has got to the point where they would rather die than eat another forkful of fish? 

Subtext is important not just because it makes characters more believable, but because it’s all about emotion. Emotions are what drive characters to make decisions, and decisions drive plot. 

Is a character not saying what they think because they are fearful? Because it would give too much away? Because they are in love and tongue-tied? Because they are so divorced from their own emotions that they don’t even know what it is that they want to say? And how does that then affect how the engine of plot runs? 

If Todd has built up a head of resentment because James has been ignoring him, what else does that lead him to do? Does his outburst result in a bigger argument that leads to something more important than a dislike of fish coming to light? Does he say something he regrets? Does that then makes James cut contact with him? How does that affect the rest of the family? Their friends? How differently do they behave towards the brothers now? And how does Todd feel about himself? Proud? Embarrassed? Satisfied? Dismayed? And what does that then lead him to do?

The challenge for writers is that we’re so used to subtext in our everyday life that we often don’t notice it. That makes it even harder to spot it in our own writing. But making a focused pass where you are only looking for instances of subtext will help you see areas where you can improve. 

Now, if only there was a ‘convert to subtext’ button in Scrivener.