Writing Excuses Transcripts

 

From https://writingexcuses.com/20-29-authorial-intent

 

Key Points: Authorial Intent, or Why am I writing this? Message versus content. Features inform, benefits sell. Execution. Macro level versus micro level. Area of intention. What do I want to achieve? Theme and meaning are often heady cerebral things, but why is very visceral. Sit down and do more writing. The intention that you have when you start a book does not have to be the intention that you have when you later. Make sure authorial intention and character intention are lined up. Make sure you know why those scenes are in the form (genre, etc.) that you are working in. 

 

[Season 20, Episode 29]

 

[Mary Robinette] This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.

 

[Season 20, Episode 29]

 

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[Howard] Authorial Intent. 

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Howard] I'm Howard.

[Dan] And I'm Dan.

 

[Howard] And we are gonna talk to you about this particular did this little aspect of the lens of Why called authorial intent. AKA Why are you writing this book? Or this thing? Or this scene, this chapter, this screen play, this whatever? 

[Mary Robinette] Line of dialogue.

[Howard] This line of dialogue.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] I want to start with an example from my marketing background. And the example is message versus content in advertising. The message for an auto ad is like this car will make you sexy. But they can't just come out and say that. That's their intent. This car will make you sexy. Their intent is for you to buy the car. The content has to say it subtly. How do you intend a book and then not heavy-handedly just stamp Authorial Intent all the way through it on every page? 

[Chuckles]

[Howard] How do you do better than the auto advertiser does?

[Dan] Well, you're talking about advertising now which is reminding me of my old advertising days. And one of the advertising maxims that gets shared around a lot is features inform, but benefits sell. Like, you can talk about all the things the car does, that's not going to sell the car. But what will the car do for you? That's what will sell the car. And now I'm thinking about that with stories that we tell. I can absolutely think to myself about what the theme is, what the meaning is, what the structure is, all of the stuff that I have put into it. That is not going to make you as a reader enjoy the thing. That is not going to sell the book to you. Whereas the execution of it all absolutely will. And so for me author intent has a lot of different meanings. Because some of it is what have I put into this, what am I trying to say with this? But a lot of it is also just I haven't explored this type of character before, and it is my intention to give this very different type of character or setting… It is my intent to explore this kind of magic or this kind of conflict. Those are more of the benefits. That's the execution, and that's what I think is going to grab readers.

 

[Mary Robinette] I… I find myself that when I'm thinking about like grabbing readers or something like that… But I often do not think about the why of the book. Like, why on a macro level. Because honestly most of the time my why is Cool! I love this idea.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Like, that's my why for writing it.

[Howard] I get to write another book?

[Mary Robinette] Great! It's like Dragons! Yay! That's my intention. Like, I just want to play… Spend a couple of months playing with dragons. That's my why.

[Howard] Can we just put another pin in that and say that's absolutely valid?

[Mary Robinette] I hope so.

[Laughter]

[Howard] That is enough why for me.

[Mary Robinette] Right. But when I get into the book, for me, when I'm thinking about why, that's where I start thinking about how I'm engaging with the reader. And I'm thinking about something that Jane [Espenson?] Calls the area of intention. Which is the… She was talking about this when you were… With jokes. Why… What am I trying to do with this joke? Why is the character doing this? And I find that this idea with the area of intention helps me make decisions on a line by line basis on why this scene is in the book. And what I often in thinking about is, for my why is, what effect do I want to have on the reader? What conversation do I want to engage with? If I think about why on a macro scale, it is that what conversation do I want to have, what question am I asking? But most of the time, when I am using why personally, it is not on the big project level. Because most of the time that upper-level intention really is just Nifty!

 

[Howard] Dan?

[Dan] Yes?

[Chuckles]

[Howard] Why?

[Dan] Why? Well, so the project that I'm working on right now… Middle grade fantasy. The intention behind there, the why of the book, why am I writing this book… We've talked about theme and meaning before, and there is theme there that I've got something that I'm trying to say with the book and we don't need to go into that because I think that those discussions where they get into the very strict details, are kind of boring for readers. They're English class kind of stuff. Whereas why am I telling the story in this particular way…

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[Dan] Well, because I got very excited about it. I was reading a… Some kind of peripheral material to Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion and talking about the land of Eriador, which is the land west of the Misty Mountains and how it is basically a vast unpopulated wasteland that used to be a huge kingdom, that used to be two huge kingdoms. And now there's basically Rivendell and the Shire and the Grey Havens and nothing else, of any particular import. And that, for whatever reason, the idea of this vast lonely land completely captured my imagination. And so why am I telling this story in the way I'm telling it? Because I wanted to capture that almost post-apocalyptic fantasy kind of idea. The idea that this takes place not in a bustling kingdom, not in an enchanted forest, but in this huge empty wasteland where there's just a couple of little villages here and there and very little else. And capturing that feeling, capturing that tone, that is absolutely my intention for the book.

 

[Mary Robinette] And I think that that's… Like, when you're talking about that… What you made me think of are some of the things we talked about when we were in our Who module. That in many ways, we're talking about the author's motivation, the author's stakes and goals. Your goal is to explore this, the Rivendell, and so the why, for me, as an author, is, like, what do I want to achieve? Why am I making these decisions? And it usually goes back to this… To a core idea of some sort. For me, it was the Thin Man in space with the Spare Man.

[Dan] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] There's a mood that I want to evoke for the reader. There's… Which will be talking about when we get to tone. But there's something at the core of it, and experience that I want to have and that I want to share with the reader. And, for me, that is often the why, is about the experience. Where is theme and meaning is about the heady cerebral things.

[Howard] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] But the why for me is often very visceral.

[Dan] And that's such a… That's why I was going back to this old advertising maxim. Features inform and benefits sell. How fast can this car go is a very different question from what does it feel like to drive this car. What does it feel like to go that fast? What does it feel like when the windows are rolled down and you're on that twisting highway and the radio is on your favorite station? That is such a visceral experential thing, and that's what people are looking for. Beyond just the boring numbers or the high level engineering that goes into it.

[Howard] Let's take a break for a moment, and when we come back, I'm going to say a thing.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] Why, Howard? Why?

[Laughter]

[Howard] That's a keeper.

 

[Howard] Earlier, Dan, you said discussions like in English class are just boring. And it occurred to me that if in my English classes in high school, we had discussions with the answer to authorial intent was the author wanted to write this book so that they could sell the book and make money… That never one time, never even one time, came up. My intent, in many cases, when I sit down to write something is, I intend to write anything that will give someone an experience, just when they pick it up and read the back cover, that leads to them buying it, that leads to them reading it, and enjoying it, that then plants a hook within them that will get them to buy other things that I write. And that's a pretty deep-seated intent, and that's not something that I would ordinarily state openly in any of my marketing copy, because it sounds a little insidious. And yet, it's a valid intent. It's every bit as valid as dragons are cool. And the Shire exists in the wasteland, and I want to explore a wasteland. My question now is what are the weird intents we would never talk about in English class, but that are perfectly valid? What are our motivations to write that are just out there?

[Mary Robinette] I mean… I guess… So here's the thing for me. On a certain level, I don't know how useful it is, because, like, I can tell you, like, that my intention is dragons are cool. I had a dream. This is the why of it. The Ghost Talkers. Why? Why does Ghost Talkers exist? I had a dream, and then I was like, oh, I think there may be a story there. And I teased it out, and other parts of Ghost Talkers are there because I put a Doctor Who cameo in every novel, and that's why. Like, why is it there? Because I needed a chuckle. But, so, for me, I think the why can be so personal to the reader. And the question that I'm interested in, and that I hope that we can kind of play with some with this intention is how are you using that intention? You've got an intention, but how are you using it? How do you use it to make decisions when you're measuring against the choice of making it feel like Rivendell versus in space, how do you measure that?

[Howard] At some level for me, the decision that… The authorial intent needs to lead to a decision on the author's part to sit down to and do more writing and I want to have... I want my intent to be compelling enough to me that it keeps me moving. And I feel like being able to… And I guess this is my intent for at least this segment of the episode… I want our listeners to evaluate their intents and to realize, one, hey, that's a valid intention, and two, I'm allowed to keep going back to that well if that's what gets me into my chair to keep writing.

 

[Mary Robinette] So with that in mind, here's the thing that I think is really important. The intention that you have when you begin the story does not have to be the intention that you have later in the book. One of the problems that I think happens to writers over and over again, especially those of us with ADHD, is that it gets boring after a while.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] And I am not the same person today that I was yesterday. Yesterday I was extremely fatigued. I had had to do a bunch of teaching that I had not planned on doing. I was… I had been out in the sun, and the things that were interesting to me, the things that motivated me, were very different from today. So, for me, when… If you're talking about that kind of author… That's… For me, that's not authorial intention, that's authorial motivation. Like, what's going to get me to sit down in a chair. That, for me, I think every day you can ask yourself, why is this story important to me today? And it doesn't have to be why it was important to you yesterday. If I am trying to write a story… Here's an extremely personal example, Martian Contingency came out this year. I started writing that book and had ideas for it. And in the course of writing it, my mother who had Parkinson, went into hospice. As I was finishing that book. My authorial intention at that point became I have to finish this before mom dies or I will not pick it up again. That is not a sustainable authorial intention. When I finished writing it, it was months before I did revisions on it. I'm a completely different person. I was the one who's grieving. I was the one who's recovering. And that is a different person who is going through it. So this is why I feel like when we're talking about these big broad level authorial intentions, it's good to think about it and I think that you can use it to say why am I sitting down to write today. But the reader can't tell when that book comes out that that was my intention. So, for me, the thing… That's why I keep saying I find that thinking about it on a micro level of why do I have this sentence, why do I have this paragraph, why do I have this chapter? That is dealing with the person who is in the chair in that moment.

[Howard] Yeah. I actually have a spreadsheet to track those things. My authorial intent for this scene, this scene, this scene. What is this supposed to do? What is my intention for these things? But, yeah, you're right, at some level, it's authorial motivation for me to sit down in front of the spreadsheet and look at today's list of intentions for what needs to be written.

[Dan] Um… We're recording this on the cruise, the Writing Excuses cruise, and I just taught a class yesterday about fight scenes and why I think they're terrible.

[Mary Robinette] I really enjoyed that class. FYI.

[Dan] Thank you very much.

[Mary Robinette] And I have like… I, like, was taking notes and I'm very excited to talk to you more about that… But carry on. Please.

[Dan] So, one of the things that we talk about in there is why are you putting this fight scene…

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[Dan] Into your story? Why are you putting this action scene into your story? And one of the comments that we got… Several of the comments that we got where exactly what I expected, which is, well, I've read better books before, and there were fight scenes at this part of it. Or I watched movies that I love and there's a fight scene at this part of the story. And I feel like, so often, that is our intention, and that is a very shallow intention. When we get to that level of thinking, why is this scene in the book, why is this chapter in the book, and if your answer is because I think it probably ought to be… I mean, yes, you might be right, but that's a terrible way to start. And that's not a helpful way to go into this scene. If you're writing it out of obligation, without a specific purpose, if the purpose is on… If it's purely tautological. This scene exists because I know that it should exist. You need something more than that. There needs to be some kind of question that you are asking or answering, there needs to be some kind of exploration of who the characters are or a revelation about the setting or the technology or the magic or something. There needs to be a specific intention beyond, well, I've read other books and they have this kind of scene at this point in the story, so I'm putting one in.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. And I find that there's the authorial intention and then there's the character intention. And often, when a story is falling flat, it's because the authorial intention… The author is, like, I need the character to do this. I need the character to have this fight right now. And the character… Like, there is no sensible reason that they would do that. Their intention is to try to… Based on everything that you the author have set up to that point, has them pointed in a different direction, but you force them to do it without providing them sufficient motivation, sufficient intention, all of the things we're talking about before with character. So, for me, again, it's like with the author, what is my goal for the story? That is the why that I'm interested in. What is my goal for the story? What is my goal in this moment?

 

[Howard] One of the things that you brought up, Dan, is the importance of understanding the why of the form in which we are working. Why are there action scenes in movies? Why are there fight scenes in other books? Why are there… Why are any of these things… Why are there happily ever after's in romance? And if you don't understand some of those whys, if you don't understand some of the intent of the authors who have come before you, the intent to ape what they have done by making your own book follow the same pattern is going to be broken. Because it's not what you mean. It's not…

[Dan] Yeah.

[Howard] You don't understand why this was done and so you're doing it. I mean, I don't want to suggest that you're writing your book for the wrong reasons, but you might be writing that part of the book in the wrong way because of wrong reasons.

[Dan] Well, and that's often why someone says that a story feels formulaic is because the formula has become more important to the author than the characters, than the plot. Because we are following this because we know we're supposed to and not because the characters would naturally do these kinds of things.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah, and that's why one of the things that we're doing this season is a little unusual, that we are… We're doing a lot of really, really deep dives and we're going to do this whole extremely deep dive into structure in season 21, where we're talking about the what and the how of our big questions. And it is hard to evaluate something when you don't know why it exists.

 

[Howard] And I think that might be a good place for the homework. You ready for the homework? Take your work in progress, and in two sentences, describe to yourself why you are writing this. It might be a scene, it might be a chapter, it might be the whole book, it might be a screenplay. Two sentences. Why you are writing this? And then, for bonus points, one sentence. Why is that the reason that you're writing this?

 

[Howard] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

 

 

From https://writingexcuses.com/2022/08/21/17-34-developing-subtext/

 

Key points: Text, subtext, and context. The words on the page, the layer of meaning underneath that, and what's going on around the words. How do you provide the clues to let the reader get the subtext? Body language, character interpretation. The emotional charge in what's being said. On the nose!

 

[Season 17, Episode 34]

 

[Dan] This is Writing Excuses, Dialogue Masterclass Episode Seven, Developing Subtext.

[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.

[Maurice] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're between the lines.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Maurice] I'm Maurice.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

 

[Dan] Awesome. So. We are going to talk about subtext today. I think the very first question I want to ask you, Maurice, is what is subtext?

[Maurice] So, subtext. So, when I think about subtext, so… I'm going to try a math analogy here, so bear with me. So dialogue operates in three dimensions. There is text, subtext, and context. So the way I think about it is text is like the words on the page, subtext is the layer of meaning underneath the words on the page, and context is what's going on around those words. So when I think about subtext… I mean, we all intuitively understand subtext, because if I come home and my wife is on the couch watching TV and I go, "Hey. Is anything wrong?" And she says, "No! Everything's fine!" Like, my Spidey senses are going to go off. Just on an intuitive level. I know something's going on, but the words on the page were "No, everything's fine." Yet I know, because of context and subtext, yeah, maybe everything is not fine. So that's what I think about… That's one way I think about subtext.

[Dan] Yeah. Subtext is very useful in a lot of different ways. There's a lot of things that you can accomplish with it. You can say things without coming right out and saying them. You can have the characters inferring and implying things. You can even get around various censors, is some of the ways that I've used subtext in the past as well. So it's a useful dialogue tool because if you can pack something with a subtext, you can… It becomes very information rich. Right? The same things are being said, but we understand much more than just the words that are being said. So I guess the question is how do you do that? How do you imbue something with this extra hidden meaning?

[Mary Robinette] So I want to use what… The framework that Maurice has already set up, which is that there is the text, subtext, and context. Subtext, and this is important, exists between the text and the context. You cannot have subtext without having context to compare it to. So here's an example which I think I have used before. So I come from the American South, which is what is called a high context region. So high context culturally means that in order to participate in the conversation, you have to have a lot of context, because so much of it happens subtextually. So these are examples like the American South, large parts of Asia, Brazil as I understand it, will have big parts of the conversation that everybody understands, but is not actually said out loud. So, my husband, by contrast, comes from a low context culture which is you just say things directly without much subtext. So here's the actual conversation. My mom says, "There's a bag of apples on the counter in the kitchen." I reply, "Oh, okay, I can have a pie made for dinner tomorrow night." My husband's like, "Wait a minute. Where did the pie come from?" I'm like, "Well, she just said that there's a bag of apples on the counter in the kitchen." Because to me, contextually, this is very clear based on the relationship my mom and I have. All of the subtext in there is "I bought a bag of apples. If you have time to make a pie, it would be really great, but I don't want to put you out." I'm like, "Oh, making a pie sounds awesome. I don't have time or energy tonight, but I could do it tomorrow night." But you only get the pieces of dialogue on either end of that. "There's a bag of apples on the counter in the kitchen." "Great, I can have a pie for tomorrow night." My husband is like, "Wouldn't… Don't you think she was just offering you an apple?" I'm like, "No. Because then she would have said do you want an apple, or, more likely because high context society, she would have just brought me apples to avoid the other conversation which is would you like an apple? No, thank you, I couldn't. Really, they're very fresh. No, seriously, I just can't take an apple. But these are apples that were picked at my grandmother's farm. Oh, well, in that case, of course I'd love to try an apple." So when you're thinking about this, this subtext, you have to think about the context that goes around it. Because… This is the other fun thing, people will read the subtext based on their cultural understanding of how subtext works. They will bring their own context to the conversation. So if I said to my husband there's a bag of apples on the counter in the kitchen, and he didn't… Well, actually, I would never say that to him because I know that he… Let's be clear, I know that he does not have the context. But, if I were writing a novel and I wanted to make things awkward, then my character would just say that, and then my character would get mad because he didn't read the subtext. Which would be very clear to everyone there. So, thinking about the subtext as the unspoken part that is kind of held in suspension between text and context.

 

[Dan] Okay. So let me follow this up. Let's say that you were going to put into a book that conversation with your mother. How would you provide the right contextual clues to let a non-Southern audience understand what was really going on?

[Mary Robinette] So this is where you have to use the non-spoken… The other pieces of dialogue. So we've been talking about dialogue as the lines that are said out loud. But there's also all of the other pieces. There's body language, and then there's the character's interpretation of the line that is said. So this is where you would deploy something like free indirect speech where the character interprets it as part of the narrative or… So that my character might think, "Oh, I know that mom really wants a pie. So that's why she's mentioning the apples." Or, actually, if it's free indirect, "She knew that her mother really wanted a pie. She didn't have the energy to do it that night. So she made a counter offer. I could have a pie ready tomorrow night."

[Dan] Awesome.

[Howard] Yeah. In thinking about the pie thing, it occurred to me that the way the apples are described tells you whether or not they are pie apples or eating apples.

[Mary Robinette] In a bag.

[Howard] There's a bag of apples on the counter is pie apples.

[Mary Robinette] In the kitchen.

[Howard] I've… In the kitchen on the counter. Yeah, I've… Bag of apples in the kitchen. I put apples and the fruit basket on the counter is I found some apples that I think you will love and I have set them in this basket and I would love for you to try one because we have this thing about artisanal apples and eating them and whatever. It's the difference between the bag in the basket.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Context.

 

[Dan] Okay. Let's pause for the book of the week, which, Maurice, this is you this time.

[Maurice] Yeah. So, it's a book… It's not out yet. I believe it comes out early 2023. It's called The Lies of the Ajungo. It's by Moses Ose Utomi. So, it's a novella. I've read this novella twice already. I really love it. I'm just going to read the back cover copy for you real quick. "In the City of Lies, they cut out your tongue when you turn 13 to appease the terrifying Ajungo empire and make sure it continues sending water. Tutu will be 13 in three days, but his parched mother won't last that long. So Tutu goes to his oba and makes a deal. She provides water for his mother, and in exchange, he'll travel out to the desert and bring back water for the city. Thus he begins his quest for salvation for his mother, his city, and himself." The great thing I love about this book is this book moves at the speed of fable. If that makes sense. Moses has a way of just weaving magic into his… All the lines in this book. So, like everything has a certain weight to it, on top of just the lush language that he uses. So I've really enjoyed this book, obviously, twice. It's just I love the magic that it just… This book is just imbued with.

[Dan] Cool. That is The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ose Utomi. That'll be out next year, in 2023. So look for it then.

 

[Dan] Okay. So, let's talk some more about subtext. Howard, how are you able to put subtext into the work that you do?

[Howard] In comics, it's actually pretty easy. Because you can have a dialogue bubble whose words disagree with, at least on the surface, the facial expression, the body language, of the character. I didn't have to use words to describe how the character was standing. I can just communicate all of the body language with the dialogue, and the subtext is right there. In prose, it's something that I've had to learn, and it's something that I've actually had to back off of a little bit because I can see… When I'm writing, I can see the way people are talking, the way they're… The things their faces are doing, the things they're doing with their hands, and I have to decide which of it is important and which of it is not. Because I'm capable of describing all of it, but it really slows down a scene when I do that. So, for me, subtext is an exercise in… It's like an exercise in risk reward management. Which of these little bits of body language can I describe for the most impact, and which do I just need to let slide because there isn't enough page.

[Mary Robinette] The other thing that you just said that I want to keep up to this is body language and seeing them interact. But sometimes what the subtext is is not a specific line that I just didn't say out loud. Sometimes the subtext is just a mood. That the subtext is this character is annoyed all the way through this scene. Because there's what's called direct versus indirect communication. I referred to this earlier, direct is, "Will you pass the salt?," indirect is, "Is there salt?". Even more indirect is, "Oh, this soup is a little bland." Although…

[Howard] Oh, that's direct.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah, that is direct.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Actually, that's… Scratch that. Those are fighting words. Unless you're [garbled]. But thinking about, when you're crafting that subtext, thinking about your character's emotional state is also going to really express… Really help you guide how that happens.

[Maurice] Yeah. So I think…

[Dan] Uh… Oh, okay, go ahead Maurice.

 

[Maurice] One of the ways I think about subtext is, just like Mary Robinette said, it's like subtext is the emotional charge underneath what's being said. Right? A lot of times, as you're seeing the scene, the characters, they're going to betray what they're really feeling in some subtly different ways. Right? What… Again, I'm a TV junkie, but one of the shows I watch, one of the police procedural's I watch which really helped me out a lot in this was a show called… It only lasted like three seasons… Called Lie to Me. It was based on a book by Paul Ekman. I think he wrote a book called Telling Lies. But it's all about micro-expressions. Right? So, just watching how they would explain how micro-expressions work, all of a sudden I'm just like, "Oh. Hang on." So now I am getting to see just the direct correlation between what the body betrays about what a person's really feeling and now I'm able to convey that in the text. So for us as writers, it's like oh, I don't need as many dialogue tags if I'm writing their physical reaction to something. What was their physical reaction? What was their facial expression? What other kind of body language are they betraying with what's being said in the moment? So that's one of the things that helped a lot.

[Mary Robinette] So, while we're talking about this, I actually want to talk about the opposite of subtext, which is on the nose. Because one of the flaws that you'll see sometimes with early career writers or published writers to is that you'll read something and be like, "Wow, that's really on the nose dialogue." What that means is that the character is saying exactly what they're thinking in the moment without any subtext at all. It is exactly serving the plot in that moment. There's no tension, there is no… It's just statements…

[Howard] There's nothing to unpack.

[Mary Robinette] That are not… There's nothing to unpack at all. It's fine for a character to do that occasionally. But if you have a string of it, where everyone is doing that, that's where you wind up with on the nose dialogue.

[Dan] Yeah. The… Both on the nose dialogue and subtext can be very useful tools culturally. So for… A good example of on the nose being very good, I just watched a movie from India called RRR. It's about two guys, two revolutionaries in the early 1900s in India who end up meeting each other. Then there's a song, because it's an Indian movie and they have songs. They have a whole song where the lyrics are as on the nose as it could be. These two guys just met each other, now they're best friends. Even though one of them is secretly working against the other one and doesn't realize it. Like it's… The whole plot of the movie just described to you by a guy singing a song. Culturally, that's really valuable, because I don't… I'm not a part of that culture. There are nuances to their interaction into their relationship that I would have missed without that song to say, "Hey. Gringo who's watching this, let me explain some stuff to you." At the same time, subtext can be really useful for cultural reasons as well. Some of the write-for-hire stuff that I have written… In one, for example, I wanted to make two of the characters gay and they did not let me for corporate reasons. They're like, "No. We will not allow that. We're not going to have gay characters." So I was able to make them clearly gay in subtext so that someone looking for it will be able to see it and someone who doesn't want that in their fiction doesn't have it. That kind of stuff is so useful as a way of giving your audience the kind of stuff that they need. The ability to see yourself in fiction, especially for marginalized groups, often comes through subtext because we can't say it out loud.

[Mary Robinette] Just, again, to underline what Dan is talking about, the thing is that those clues are there for someone who has the right context, and is looking for it.

[Dan] Absolutely.

[Mary Robinette] But for someone who does not live in that context, they aren't there. Also, I think that we should all acknowledge that the corporate overlords are in the wrong in that particular case.

[Dan] Absolutely. That was the subtext of my statement. Yes.

[Mary Robinette] Yes. I was saying the quiet part out loud for you.

[Dan] Thank you very much.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] Very on the nose.

 

[Mary Robinette] Yes. So. Let's slide into our homework. I want you to… We're going to force you to develop subtext. I want you to take a work in progress… If you want to grab that transcript that we had earlier, that's also fine. But grab a scene with dialogue where you understand what's going on in that scene. As a writing exercise, I want you to just delete every third line, regardless of who's saying it, regardless of how important it is. I just want you to delete every third line. Then go back and try to use nonverbal cues to make the dialogue still make sense.

[Dan] This is Writing Excuses. You are out of excuses. Now go write.