Adding Subtext to Dialogue

As readers and writers of fiction, we are quite familiar with the use of dialogue to enhance character development, impart information, and enliven story. But inserting subtext into dialogue adds another dimension, an underlying layer of communication beyond the obvious.

Here are three examples of adding that extra layer of irony, counterpoint, or dissociation to dialogue drawn from my novel A Bit of Sun:

Irony:

Protagonist Britt MacFarlane, a young Australian architect trying to make his way up the career ladder by means of his design skills, has run afoul of wealthy, young, manipulative Lisa Farnsworth, who has set her sights on him and does not appreciate rejection. Britt has entered his drawings in a competition to design a library for the sight-impaired in Sydney, and his design has been selected by the judging committee—but only if he makes major changes. Britt considers the changes to be unnecessary, economically infeasible, and harmful to the library’s patrons, never mind downright ugly. He refuses to make the changes, which have been demanded by an anonymous wealthy recluse who will otherwise withdraw her financial support from the project. Consequently, Britt has just lost his job at the most prestigious architectural firm in the city. Now, he is back in the drafting room, gathering his belongings in preparation for leaving the firm:

“Congratulations,” she said.

The honey-coated knife wedged itself purposefully between his shoulder blades. Britt straightened and turned to face her.

“Hello, Lisa.” He turned back to the files he was putting in order. “And for what, may I ask, am I being congratulated?”

“For getting the library project, what else?”

“Good news does travel fast,” he said. “Or have you already talked to ‘Uncle’ Jack?”

“Neither, actually.”

“Then how did you hear?”

“I’m on the committee, of course. Didn’t you know?”

“No,” he said as the drawer slammed shut on his finger, “but I should have guessed.”

“Well, it was a positively super design. Everyone just loved it.”

“Everyone but the little old lady recluse, you mean.”

“Oh, her.” Lisa shrugged. “Well, there’s just no accounting for taste, is there?”

“Too right.”

“What have you been doing with yourself, anyway?” she asked. “You look terrible. Have you been ill? I feel like it’s been eons since I last saw you.”

“Well, you’ve been a bit of a recluse yourself lately, haven’t you?”

Anyone overhearing his calling Lisa a “recluse” would simply assume that Britt means Lisa has been spending less time on the social scene than usual, but we readers—and Britt—know better.

Counterpoint:

Thanks to Lisa’s intervention in his career, Britt leaves Australia and takes the long route to France, via the Americas, to reunite with his long-lost girlfriend, Nikki. While in Brazil, Britt finds himself in an even worse position after accepting a ride from a rich older woman who then invites him to stay on her estate for a few days. When he decides to leave early, things get ugly:

Mercifully, he was out for several hours this time. In fact, it took Walter’s throwing a bucket of cold water on his face to rouse him. Britt came to, coughing, and sat up. It was only then that he realized he’d been lying down. Oh, he was still manacled and chained, but at least the weight had been off his arms while he was unconscious, and the pressure off his hands.

Britt noticed the sunlight in the room and figured it must be about eight in the morning. He shook his head to get the water out of his ear, then looked at Lenore. She was dressed in black riding pants and boots and a long-sleeved white blouse, open at the throat.

“I’ve ordered breakfast up for you,” she said. “Steak and eggs with biscuits, juice, milk, and coffee. I hope you will find it to your liking.”

Are you kidding? / Forget it, lady.

Britt kept his silence.

Lenore extended an open box of cigarettes toward him.

“Cigarette?” she offered.

Oh, God, yes! / Why don’t you stick it up your arse, Lenore?

She shrugged and lit one for herself just as a bell sounded over on the right-hand wall.

“Ah, there’s your breakfast now,” she said, and nodded to Walter, who retrieved the tray from the dumbwaiter and set it on the floor where she indicated, in front of Britt.

Britt looked up at Lenore, who was standing a few feet in front of him. She smiled. He looked down at the tray again as the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted toward his nostrils.

Geez, that smells good.

He reached his hands back to scratch his foot. If the chain was slack enough for him to touch his foot, it was slack enough for him to reach the goodies on the tray. It was.

Don’t even think about it.

“The way I was brought up,” he told Lenore, “a man always wears a shirt to the dinner table.”

“But this is only breakfast,” she reminded him. “And it’s hardly being served at the dinner table.”

Britt pursed his lips and shook his head.

“Same principle,” he said.

“Oh! Is that what we have here? A man of principle?”

I’m not so sure it was a good idea to bring up this thing about principles, mate. People have died for principles, you know. / Yeah, we should be so noble.

This type of inner dialogue can be used to illustrate conflict within a character and thus produce tension and suspense.

Dissociation:

Back to Lisa again after Britt finally makes it to Europe, reignites his romantic relationship with Nikki, and moves them to Australia as a married couple. Britt finds a good job at another architectural firm in Sydney, and all is going well until he is let go due to the influence of one of the country’s major banks where Lisa’s father is the president. Now all architectural doors in Sydney are closed to Britt, and he is reduced to working as a laborer on a construction site while awaiting the birth of his and Nikki’s first child. One day, Lisa shows up at the construction site while Britt is eating lunch. It’s the first time he’s seen her since she congratulated him for getting the library project a few years prior:

“I’m sorry,” Lisa said. “About your job, I mean.”

“Well, it was just one of those things, you know. Had a helluva time finding another though. Damn lucky to get this one.”

“I just wanted you to know that I was in Europe when it happened,” she said. “I didn’t know anything about it, really. I wouldn’t have let him do it if I’d known.”

“Actually, I can’t complain,” Britt said as he poked around in the tucker box for more goodies. “I’m getting a great tan, and I can drink twice the beer I used to and still not gain weight.”

Lisa looked at the slim, muscular midriff above his work shorts and glanced away again.

“I only got back a few days ago,” she told him. “I just found out where you’re working.”

“Well, it was nice of you to stop by. Too bad Nikki isn’t here to meet you. She usually comes out at lunchtime and brings some outrageous concoction for the crew to munch, but she had to go to the doctor for her checkup today. The baby is due next week, you know.”

Britt finished off his seed cake, which he always ate before his sandwiches in the unlikely event he should feel full before he was through with his meal, and continued.

“Really, I don’t know what I’d have done without her on this job. The blokes are all crazy about her. They think she’s my only saving grace. If it weren’t for her having married me, they’d never believe I’m full quid.”

“He had his reasons, you know,” Lisa said quietly.

Britt opened each of his sandwiches in turn and looked at the fillings.

“Oh, I hate it when she does that,” he said. “I mean, I don’t mind eating tuna fish now and then, it’s just such a downer when all three sandwiches are the same. She usually shows more imagination than that.”

“He’s not a cruel man,” Lisa persisted. “It’s just that he’s a father. Maybe someday you’ll be able to understand that.”

“There was a time,” Britt said between chomps, “when I couldn’t even look at this stuff without retching. That was after I spent a summer working in a tuna factory. I came home one weekend because Mum was in hospital, and my sister had to do the cooking. Do you know what she served me? Tuna fish casserole. I got it as far as my tongue and got so sick I had to spend the rest of the hour in the loo. When I came out again, I must have looked green as a gum leaf. Meggen was screaming and crying and yelling at the both of us, and Dad was just sitting there laughing. I’d never seen him laugh so hard in my life.”

“That day,” she said, “when I saw you at the office and you were supposed to meet me for lunch…”

“But this is pretty good go,” he added, “if you like tuna.”

“When you didn’t come, I went to your place and waited.”

“Want one?” He extended the third sandwich in her direction.

“I waited all night and on through the next day, but you never showed up.”

“How about a dill pickle?” he offered.

“So I went home. I thought maybe you would call me that night, or even come over.”

“They’re good, really,” Britt told her.

“But you didn’t, of course.”

“Sure you don’t want one?”

“So, I took a warm bath and slit my wrists.”

“It’s funny,” he said. “You just can’t get an Aussie to eat a dill pickle.”

This type of dissonant conversation creates emotional impact on the reader, just what we fiction writers are trying to achieve, so why not give it a try?

Add one or all of these techniques to your writing toolbox and kick your dialogue up a notch. Your readers will love it.