Understanding Subtext is the Key to Writing Fiction.

I am a devotee of The Closer, an old Kira Sedgewick vehicle now in reruns on Start-TV, a cable station that reruns old TV series. The Closer is one of them. Touched by an Angel, Medicine Woman, Cagney and Lacey, are others. A lot of then are cop programs. Sedgewick plays the Deputy Chief of the LAPD -- there probably isn’t one of those but no matter -- Brenda Lee Johnson, a Georgia native, and veteran of several eastern seaboard city police departments and, for a time the CIA, stuck in Los Angeles. Good source of tension already. She says in one frustrating moment when everyone seems to be Latino gang members, “I speak every language in the world except Spanis, and here I am, stuck where everybody only speaks only Spanish. ”The series boasts great characters, strong performances, and great writing. I watch about half of the episodes over and over, and parts of others.

I wish they’d rerun Northern Exposure, The Sopranos, LA Law, and Hill Street Blues, but that’s for another post. I go to bed early, so I also appreciate the fact that they run The Closer when I can see it

Brenda and Fritz, first her love-interest, then her husband, spend a lot of time not discussing having kids. Fritz makes no bones about the fact that he wants kids. Brenda continues a relentless ambivalence. Whenever he tries to bring the subject up, she says she doesn’t want to talk about it right then. They also need to find a bigger house. Her house is too small for two active people, each of whom is busy with their own career. Over several episodes they discuss looking for a house. Fritz brings up several houses near schools, and she rejects each one because it’s too expensive or too big. She’s really saying she doesn’t want to bring a child into the horrible world she sees on a daily basis. They finally non-decide not to look for a house near a school, which really means they decide not to have children.

The characters talk about a subject which is obvious to everyone, without ever, or rarely ever, mentioning the real issue at hand. That’s subtext.

In my most recent Opus, they spend most of the time arguing with each other when the subtext is that they all love each other.