Why Subtext is Better than Text
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| Title: | Why Subtext is Better Than Text |
| Creator: | Janis C. |
| Date(s): | February 3, 2004 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | Fanfiction, Horatio Hornblower |
| External Links: | Why Subtext is Better than Text, Archived version |
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Why Subtext is Better Than Text is an essay by Janis C..
It is part of the Fanfic Symposium series.
Excerpts
I'm one of those loud people who feel a deep desire to not allow myself to be manipulated or controlled. I dislike in the extreme feeling as if something I've done wasn't truly my choice, or that I was shepherded toward something without my knowledge or consent. I don't necessary dislike constraints; we all have to live with constraints on our behavior. But I like to choose them, freely, with a full understanding of what benefits accrue to voluntarily accepting the constraint.Text is constraint. Subtext is freedom.
Okay, what the hell do I mean by this?
And yet, I'm perfectly happy that [characters from Horatio Hornblower] weren't shown "doing it" on screen.Well, okay. I sure wouldn't have complained if we'd seen them climbing down one another's throats, let's face it. They're both gorgeous, and watching them licking each other's tongues wouldn't really be the worst thing that's ever happened to me. I think I could endure.
But as a writer, it would be constraining. Suppose the producers decided to show them finally falling into one another's arms and simply kissing at the end of "The Duchess and the Devil," a movie where the subtext is just about as barely "sub" as it's possible to be before it pokes up above the surface and becomes "text." Sure, I would have gotten the thrill of seeing two celestially beautiful characters playing tonsil hockey on screen, but what about as a writer?
Well, I wouldn't have been able to posit when they kissed, then. I wouldn't have had the freedom to put that first kiss where I wanted it. I'd have been stuck with someone else's decision. Not only would it have been yet another mine that I had to incorporate into my dance, but it would have been dropped smack-dab into a part of the dance floor that I was guaranteed to use. What a pain in the ass!
This is similar to what happened with "Stargate SG-1." A rarity among the slashers for that show, I actually found Sam/Jack to be plausible and a fun pairing to write. But when the producers actually tried to write it in and do it canonically, they fucked it up, didn't they? If I were still writing S/J in "Stargate SG-1," I'd have to choreograph my dance around this big, stinky turd in the middle of the damned floor! Get that turd off the dance floor, it's in my way!
Don't turn subtext into text, for pete's sake! I'll do that . as a fanfiction writer, that's my damned job. It's my fucking prerogative to determine when Horatio and Archie finally succumbed to one another's considerable charms and each decided that the balm of the other's ardor was worth the risk of hanging. I'll determine when Sam and Jack found out for themselves just how lovely it was to feel the other's body heat and, "What the hell are we going to do about this, sir?" Slash, het, whatever . I want control. Subtext gives it to me.
Making the subtext into text takes it away.