: Where in the writing process do you work in subtext? In the BBC Sherlock fandom there are many lively discussions about how a lot of the story takes place in subtext: Person C is a "mirror"

I would like to try an answer that overlooks the contentious term 'subtext'. Regardless of its meaning (or meanings) in literary theory, the truth is most amateur writers (in the sense of writers who write for the love of it and discover the techniques as they go in order to perfect their craft) misunderstand a lot of literary terms. I studied literature and remember quite a few terms which were difficult to grasp correctly even with the teachers explaining them and correcting faulty interpretations.

So when writing a story, at what point do you plan for these items [mirrors, symbols, and subtext]?

Do you have a separate thread in your mindmap or outline alongside the main thread in the outline form?

Write the whole thing and work in the subtext in the third draft? Is there a particular point in the process when it's easier?

IMHO, it depends. If you're writing literature (with the elitistic capital L), it should be mostly already part of the plot, with the characters representing something bigger than them and every word and action being carefully thought out to create the right impression. I'll assume that is not what you're doing.

So you have a story with the plot, subplots and characters fleshed out and ready to navigate the action. But you want to make all this deeper; you want to shine a subtle light on a less visible personality trait (because the villain is tragically in love and refuses to acknowledge it while the hero is hiding from the reader and the narrator how dark his heart truly is).

You have two ways to go about it:

if you're a planner, go back to the plot and decide where you can drop little hints and what is the nature of those hints.

Do you want the plot to represent politics, moral values, human growth? If so, make sure the plot conveys these ideas without contradiction (unless that is the point of your tale) and perhaps not too obviously. If you want your hero to be the spiritual saviour of a community, don't have him die on a cross in order to do so. Subtlety is the key word here.

Do you want to jab a criticism somewhere along the story but not have the story be all about that criticism? Work it into a subplot.

Do you want to use universal symbols (e.g. the red rose as symbol of love) or do you want to create your own symbols, which will stand as such only for this text (e.g. the oak leaf as a symbol of love because it reminds the character of when he met/lost/whatever the love of his life)? If the latter, decide how that symbol came into existence within the tale.

Do you want to use a wealth of these items and create a highly symbolic, metaphorical tale? Be careful. Personally, I find that works better in extremely well crafted Literary works. If that is not what you want, then, again, plan how many of those items will be used per chapter on average and balance their levels of subtlety. Be particularly careful to not use these items as themselves but weave them into the plot and actions in a way that they will almost be invisible.

If you are not a planner, play it by ear. That's mostly my case. I have a generally vague plan and then discover these things as I go. If, say, I notice that my subplot could be used to criticise whatever, then I may stop to revise it and make sure it fits with the criticism I'm aiming for.

May I give an example of a historical novel (a telling of real people and events which have a lot of unknown gaps in the history books) I'm working on with examples for 'non-planners'?

The scene: There is one high-noble woman that is dealing with the fact her marriage has been annuled and she's now a hostage locked in her chamber. She is thinking of her father, condemned as a traitor, and wondering what fate will the daughter of a traitor have.

The thought process: Traitor! Who is the biggest traitor of all? Let's have her sit by a tapestry which is a tryptic with the crucification in the middle and Judas hanged on one lateral. Ah! At the time, the crucification scene showed the Virgin Mary fainting by the cross. So let's have the character sit at the feet of Christ (because she is the pawn whose father will sacrifice quite a few times to reach his goals) and let's have her think of the scene while praying for Christ's and his mother's intersection. In later chapters we can now learn the character's mother (who had a long attested history of depression associated to health problems) did die shortly after this blow to her daughter.

The plot points:
1. the noblewoman goes out with a hunting party to hunt water fowls to advance a certain plot point.
2. the nobleowoman will later have her husband be involved with a court lady nicknamed 'egret neck' (it sounds much nicer in the original language)
3. the noblewoman's maid will try to avenge her cheated lady

The thought process:
They're out hunting egrets already! Let's have a subplot where the maid kills an egret to avenge a slight towards her lady (it killed the lady's hawk; egret's were known to do that). This will foreshadow the 'egret neck' lady (who, spoiler ahead, does end up being killed) and show the reader how this maid is so loyal to her lady that she will avenge her even when petty slights are involved.

Attention:
This approach is messy and can require going back and forth to introduce, change or cross out items and scenes.

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As someone who is a big fan of subtext, I find it can be a trap for me, in that I get too obsessed with it, to the point where it hurts the surface text. And I agree with what that a lot of the subtext in good writing enters organically, without the writer's conscious effort.

But with that said, adding a judicious amount of subtext can be a great way to expand the depth of a piece of writing. Here are a couple ways I've seen it used effectively:

To explore or reveal parts of a character's mental state, particularly when the character is not conscious of those things. For instance, subtext in dialog and/or description can be used to foreshadow a love affair, or build sexual tension. This is especially helpful when you don't want to be too "on the nose" as Goldman said. In real life, people are often unaware of these things, or circumspect about referring to them, so it's realistic for your characters to be as well. I saw a great example of this recently in the HBO show "Insecure." Several of the show's main characters went to see a hip-hop gospel play called "The Last Suppa." The show-within-a-show was played for laughs, and very entertaining, but the theme of Judas betraying Christ doubled as a callback to the main character's guilt about having cheated on her boyfriend. The subtext was all in her reactions to the material.
Subtext can also ground your story in a larger context. For instance, Cabaret is the story of a young man living in a foreign country, falling in love with an actress, and exploring his sexuality. But the context is that the foreign country is Germany just prior to WWII. The main story stands on its own, but the subtext adds depth and significance.

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I think a lot of subtext inserted into fiction is when it represents something that the writer wishes to portray, but cannot.

In one of the examples of Sherlock, like the phone of Irene Adler representing her heart, she is shown throughout the episode to be incredibly heartless and unemotional. She works for Moriarty, and targets indiscriminately using her 'talents' in order to gain money and power.

However, had she truly been this way, then the ending would not nearly have worked so well (or even made sense at all), with the reveal that

she was in love with Sherlock.

Removing the representation removes the significant subtext needed to show the difference between what the characters believe is happening, and what is really trying to be portrayed in the story.

So with having to represent her character as cold throughout the episode, and needing to show her as vulnerable and in love later, the phone is the bridge between the two. The phone was the way to show that even though she thought she had all of the power in the relationship,

she had given her heart to Sherlock long before, and his name was literally the key to it.

It's the same with water representing emotion: if emotion is present in the story then there isn't anything else that needs to represent it. People being "mirrors" to other characters focuses the audiences on a particular aspect of the character that cannot be overtly shown without simply coming out and saying "hey, look at this!"

So if the author wants to represent that two childhood friends are growing apart throughout a story as they get older, but wants the characters to believe that they are as close as they ever were, then they can insert a tree house into the story that they played in as children, but falls into disrepair over the years.

Then when they eventually fall out, the reader isn't completely shocked at the fact they went from best friends to indifference: they instinctively understand that they have been growing apart for years and the climax was just the straw that broke the camels back.

I think later drafts might be better to insert such symbols or subtextual metaphors, so that whatever is needed to be represented is fully fleshed out and a suitable choice can be made to represent the missing link within the narrative. Possibly the best time would be after beta readers can give feedback, so that anything that they feel was not very well established can be worked upon with something that is not overtly part of the story.

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