Roles
Teacher – Karen Barr
Student – Joy Manné
Teacher
WELCOME TO WEEK 8 OF SUBTEXT.
There is no word count, but the challenge is to get all ten types of subtext in as few words as possible. Here they are:
Show don’t Tell:Using emotions and motivations indirectly and concisely, either by behaviors, body language, suggestive dialogue, internal thoughts or setting clues. The 2. Unspeakable:A complex set of desires and fears that can’t be efficiently described, a pileup of emotions that resists easy articulation. 3. Mania: An emotional overinvestment in any object that can’t possibly give back what the individual wants from it. 4. Wrecked by success: What if wishes and fantasies turn out more powerful than their real-life satisfactions? 5. Unthinkable thought: A thought that threatens a character’s entire existence, it is subversive and is thought of, but gets pushed out of the mind. You can think anything you wish, but you can’t always say aloud what you really crave or desire, sometimes for whatever reason, it’s just unmentionable. 6. Denial: A chaotic way of not hearing dangerous or intolerable information. 7. Indifference-Unhearing: It is not a form of denial but a kind of psychic impermeability, a mode where nothing gets through—an unattended switchboard. In this mode, the pain of others becomes bothersome, an annoyance. 8. Filtering: In the era of multi-tasking, people probably talk more and listen less than they ever did. Talk is cheap and has been for some time, but now it has become recreational (Think cell-phone mania) in a way that listening has not. 9. Inflection of Tone: Sometimes it’s not what you say, but how you say it. 10. Creating a Scene: Inner-most desire made manifest via bad manners, confrontations and/or unpalatable behavior.
Student’s work
REAL LIFE by Joy Manné
[SHOW DON’T TELL – all of it]
‘MANIA,’ a voice shouted.
It was followed by a horrible sound, like a crocodile clacking its teeth.
‘I have to warn you,’ Jania said, pushing thick glasses more firmly onto her nose. ‘I have a mania for subtext. I cannot speak a sentence without it having many meanings. Every word I utter is layered like a club sandwich. You may put it down to my profession – I’m an etymologist.’
‘THE UNSPEAKABLE.’
The teeth clacked again, decisively.
He wiped the mayonnaise oozing down his chin against the sleeve of his denim jacket. ‘Denim’s good for that.’ His grin was wide as the ocean. ‘It has great absorption, is easy to wash and doesn’t need ironing. As soon as you tell me my sleeve is smelly, into the washing machine it goes. Speaking for myself, I like the smell. I don’t wash it until someone tells me I must. You may put that down to my profession – I’m developing self-cleaning denim sleeves.’
‘INFLEXION OF TONE.’
Clack.
‘Next time,’ she said in her husky-dog, Marlene Dietrich voice, ‘let me lick the mayonnaise off your chin. It tastes delicious when mixed with sweat, and you are dripping with it.’ She looked at him, her eyes wide open, her mouth wide too.
‘With mayonnaise or sweat, honey?’ he asked, taking another bite.
‘UNTHINKABLE THOUGHT.’
Clack.
‘I knew I could trust you. Ever since adolescence I’ve longed to do this but never dared to ask.’
She leaned over. A breast pressed against his chest as she stuck out her bright pink tongue and slurped away the yellow ooze under his lips.
‘Hellman’s,’ she said.
He was working his brain and working his jaws, and trying to work out her subtext, but all his mind could think was, It’s time for a work-out.
‘Do that again, darling,’ she said, her mouth watering.
‘And again.’
‘WRECKED BY SUCCESS.’
Clack.
‘You are everything I have ever wanted in a woman,’ he said. ‘You have sparkling large brown eyes, lush lips, ears like pearls, and you are five feet five inches exactly. Moreover, you have large boobs and know how to jiggle them. I have been searching for you all my life, and now, at last I have found you. But I am seventy-three. Sadly, you have come into my life too late.’
‘UNSPEAKABLE AGAIN.’
Clack.
Her eyes left his, slid down his nose, down over his chin, down his neck. Before she began on his shirt buttons she asked, ‘Are you appreciating my fifty shades of down?’
‘You’re looking down to size me up?’ he said.
‘I like big feet on a man,’ she growled in her Eartha Kitt voice, as she stuck her head under the table to get a better view.
He heard a long sigh reverberating through the wood of table and wondered if she had spit something out.
She hadn’t, but then she did. ‘Sorry, man,’ she said. ‘Your feet’s too big.’
‘Is that a no?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘DENIAL.’
Clack.
‘Donald Trump says when a woman says no she means yes.’
She glanced around with another jiggle. ‘Don’t try anything, man. Barack Obama is sitting at the next table, with his security guards.
‘CREATING A SCENE’
Clack.
‘Cut,’ yelled a voice from behind the projector.
‘We need one more take on that scene.
How many times have I asked you actors to [7. INDIFFERENCE, UNHEARING]….
Before you say …. [8. FILTERING]
Why do you ignore me? Is it because I am not Woody Allen.’
‘Actually,’ she said, ‘in her best Beyoncé voice, your feet are exactly the right size. Her voice was muffled as her head was still under the table.
THE END
Teacher
While it's always fun trying to decipher the Subtext in these pieces, I appreciate you labelling yours. It gives me a greater insight into your thought process.
I have mentioned the same thing to everyone this week: While there may be a number of different kinds of subtext here, as facilitator I am bound to stick to the lesson parameters so I will comment only on the subtext outlined in the text book. (Otherwise I’ll end up marking her entire document)
‘SHOW DON’T TELL – all of it’
(See? Exactly my point)
‘INFLEXION OF TONE.’
‘With mayonnaise or sweat, honey?’ he asked, taking another bite.
(Where does she come up with this stuff?)
‘MAKING A SCENE’ Uh, yeah, I think the entire story is "making a scene."
A very enjoyable read, Joy. And a classic example of your humor and wit.
(As if we needed another example, Joy’s stories always leave me laughing or crying)
Thank you for sharing. ♥
Joy Manné’s flash fiction flashes in print (Lakeview Literary, 100 Voices, Sleep is a Beautiful Colour, the UK National Flash Fiction Day collection 2017) and online (Pygmy Giant, Cafe Aphra, Chicago Literati). Joy won the Writer’s Forum first Flash Fiction competition and the Geneva Writers Group 2015 prize for Memoir. (50 words)
Karen’s short stories have appeared in various online literary magazines in the U.S. and the UK. (The teacher has less publishing experience than the student) Karen has developed a number of MFA courses and classes for Writer’s Village University where she is currently working on her 3-year MFA and serves as Administrative Assistant and Staff Adviser.
