If you follow me on social media, you may have seen me discuss this topic; it is in the context of creating subtext in your novel.
I read a good article on the topic soon after my posts that explains subtext in detail. You can go to https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/how-to-write-subtext/
But today, let me explain why I love the movie as a training ground for writers. The book version is a bit hard to get through, but the movie version is brilliant. It’s the one that stars Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon.
To set the scene, two siblings live in a house on the Moors in England. Their father travels for work and comes home with a child he found on the street. That child is Heathcliff (Olivier); one of the main protagonists.
To make a long story short, the sister of the house, Cathy (Merle), essentially lives in a fantasy world. We see this early on when she and Heathcliff play a game while riding horses. She says the one who wins the race must be the other’s slave. When Heathcliff wins, he tells her she must water his horse and groom him. But it’s Cathy’s response that sets the stage for the rest of the movie: “Not fair. Too real.”
Too real.
We soon see that Cathy cannot handle her reality; she falls in love with Heathcliff, but he is poor and a mere servant in the house once the father dies and the son takes over. She wants more out of life and convinces him to sneak over to their rich neighbors to watch through the window at the ball they are throwing. She says, “That’s what I want. Dancing and singing in a pretty world.”
This carries through the entire rest of the movie: she marries the rich neighbor after Heathcliff leaves the country; she’s living her dream, throwing parties night after night.
So just that one statement: “Too real.” Tells us a lot about the character and the story.
You’ll have to watch the movie yourself to see the tragic end, but you get the point: plant the seed early and then allow it to germinate throughout the rest of the novel.
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