Over the years there is one area that I’ve personally never been great with when it comes to writing, however I’m brilliant at reading and noticing it. And that is subtext. It’s particularly important in crafting brilliant romance novels, but can be just as effective and important in really any genre.
I’m more likely to just have two characters kiss rather than beat around putting them in moments where they seem like they might, but then don’t. It might be from my time of playing with fan fiction, turning all that build up between the two characters into a final release. And unfortunately writing in subtext is not exactly something you can learn. Even if you don’t purposely put in subtext, there will always be readers who notice something you hadn’t.
Much like pacing is something you just develop over time by writing, subtext falls into the same area. It’s not something you can just go out and learn by practicing it, or learn by other people teaching it to you. It just happens with the more you learn to write and the more you consume media in our world.
As a person who has consumed a lot of lesbian media in particular, I’m very acquainted with subtext. It’s often all we get in the mainstream media, unless it’s two girls kissing on-screen for the pleasure of a man. However that has changed more and more lately. It’s not all subtext anymore. We have shows like Dracula, Orange is the New Black, and hell… come to think of it most shows lately have had a lesbian character appearing. Two and Half Men added one which is brilliant (even though the show is still incredibly sexist)
We still see heavy subtext though shows like with Once Upon a Time and Two Broke Girls.
Unfortunately we don’t see this transferred to books. Lesbian books are still lesbian books. And straight books are still straight books. There’s no variation there, or having a lesbian character that matters. We do see books like Cassandra Clare’s series that have gay men, but certainly not gay women. And it’s not like there isn’t an audience for having a little variation with your characters, just look at fan fiction for the proof. There isn’t a mainstream media alive that doesn’t have gay and lesbian romance twists thrown in from fan fiction.
And that was my biggest problem with deciding to say my book is a lesbian fiction. We keep all the lesbian books with the other lesbian books and all the straight people books with the straight books. You’re not allowed to have variation, or surprise people with diverse character sets. We have book segregation going on and it’s an awful thing to see, but at the same time, how else do you let people know which books they might enjoy just based on the genre they can look up?
Regardless subtext in books, while not stressed upon by the tumblr or fan fiction community, can definitely be seen quite heavily. We have books like Amy Good’s own Rooted where there is countless subtext between Rebecca and Chloe, as well as books like in the House of Night universe with characters who are clearly in a relationship like two of the boys, and then two girls who are almost all subtext when determining if they are actually involved with each other.
It gets even better when you introduce the Yuri community from Manga and Anime. Authors of Yuri (Literal: Lily) and Shoujo Ai (Literal: Young Girl Love) are actually told when they first start to create their series that they need to be all about the subtle and the subtext, because it’s all about subtext when it comes to lesbians or girls who love girls in fiction. I often wonder if this means that people are told the same thing in Hollywood and by Publishers when they submit works that aren’t so much about the subtext.
There really is no right or wrong in this case though. Some people enjoy the subtext, and it’s been a staple for work with lesbians in them that we’ve often gotten used to it if we regularly consume it. But every once in a while, it’s nice to step out of the subtext, and right into the forefront. Keep that in mind with all subtext, because as much as your readers are going to keep delving into different relationships and subtext that you didn’t notice or specifically write in, they’ll take to heart the relationships made by the writer just as much.
Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.