How Body Language Can Help Create Subtext in Your Writing

 

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One of the things a writer can use for subtext in their writing is body language, and if there is anything I know a thing or two about, it’s body language.

 

As a person who is deaf, I have paid a lot of attention to body language. When I am in situations where people are speaking but I have no idea what they are saying, it’s their body language and facial expressions I pay attention to instead. Do they tense up as they speak? Are they clenching their fists? Shifting their weight? Do they hunch their shoulders in disappointment or sadness, or are they standing taller with a burst of excitement?

 

I can’t hear their voices, so this gives me a chance to gauge what they are feeling as they speak, and how they may be speaking.

 

On the other hand, a person’s body language can also reveal what they are NOT saying, or how they are communicating with someone.

 

As someone with social anxiety, it’s hard for me to make eye contact with people. This is especially true when I am busy trying to read their lips so I must look at their lips as they speak instead of their eyes (I make up for this by trying to make eye contact with them when it’s my turn to talk). So it bothers me a lot that there’s ALL of this expectation resting on making eye contact as to whether or not you can trust or respect that person, but there is a lot to be said about eye contact.

 

For example, on whether or not someone is being honest.

 

The thing about eye contact is that it’s not easy for people to do this if they are lying. Yes, some people can look you straight in the eye while they are lying, but for most people, it doesn’t happen when they are lying. This is especially true when they “nervously look away” or “shuffle their feet and look down as they replied.”

 

In one scene of a story I wrote, a character responds to someone’s question with a lie while he is looking at something that seems to catch his attention on the wall. A plain wall.

 

And while we’re on faces, facial expressions are another thing I notice when I read a person’s body language. Are they smiling as they talk? Perhaps they are saying something funny. Are they rolling their eyes? Throwing in a look of surprise? Reacting to something with alarm? These are things which tell me more about what they might be saying or what they might be talking about.

 

Then there is the way a person reacts to surprise noises while they are talking.

 

There was one time I was talking to my toddler. In the middle of the conversation, she shook with surprise and looked behind her.

 

“Did you hear something?” I asked.

 

She nodded and said, “Big truck.”

 

Other examples are when someone immediately takes off running in the middle of a conversation (maybe they heard an alarm?) or they hold up their hand for a pause because they heard their phone go off.

 

Sometimes, the cues we notice when talking with people may hint at things the person may not want to say. A person may be uncomfortable talking about something when they seem to cringe or respond with one-word answers to questions. Or someone may not feel safe while talking, or talking about something, because they are constantly looking around to see if the coast is clear or they may be responding with nods, gestures or a shake of the head. A person might be angry about something or someone they are forced to talk about, and this will show when they clench their fists or hunch their shoulders, or they might be too sad to talk about something because doing so makes them tear up. Sometimes, we have to use a little detective work to figure out the subtext of communication with others. Body language can help, but so does how a person communicates by the words they choose to say.

 

Body language can tell us all kinds of things about a conversation, but it’s also good for providing clues for the things we might not be picking up on in what or how a person responds. Keep this in mind when you write, and see how you can put body language to use to achieve subtext in your writing.

Anyone at any age could still enjoy a children's book!

I read children's books – but mainly because I write them! I started writing them long ago and now, in my fifties, I write them even still. 

  

But it would seem that the children's books that I will have published this year and beyond are a mix of books written years ago as well as the books I have written this year. And I'm so happy that I now have a publisher willing to accept to accept these manuscripts this year! 

 

But getting to this point took some time!

 

I wrote a children’s book in 2007 and now, 18 years later, I finally found a publisher for it.

 

That’s not to say that I spent those 18 years trying to find either an agent or a publisher for it. I did spend a long time looking for one, but not the entire 18 years.

 

No, even as I was constantly being rejected by literary agents and publishing companies, I was busy writing a lot of other things. I wrote novels, poetry books, nonfiction books and collections. I also co-authored books with a couple of people. I also continued to write more children’s books, even though I didn’t have a publisher for them. I STILL wrote those stories because I felt compelled to write them. I wrote them with the hope that someday, I will find a publisher for them. All that mattered at that time was writing them.

 

But I did not continue to look for a home for THIS particular children’s book for 18 years. I spent some time searching for one, then I stopped. I kept looking for one on and off, but it was not my main focus as a writer. My main focus as a writer was on other things – the things that WERE getting published. Like articles, essays and poems in magazines and websites.

 

I kept submitting other book manuscripts while I was doing this, sure. And I was trying to see just where I could go as an author.

 

When I did finally start getting children’s books published, I started with what was new at that time, which was The Yellow Rose. Then, I started co-authoring children’s books with my oldest, who went by the name Jennifer at that time (the name he was assigned at birth – my oldest is transgender). If that had continued in that capacity, I would have likely gotten around to submitting the book I wrote in 2007, but that didn’t happen.

 

Then I started to self-publish children’s books, among them the books I co-authored with Jennifer Wilson. That eventually stopped too, and even still, that 2007 book was not published yet!

 

I just didn’t get to it quite yet when I was self-publishing children’s books.

 

So, for a while, I didn’t have any children’s books coming out anymore, because I lost my illustrator. I also didn’t have a publisher for the children’s books, indie or otherwise.

 

But I did have publishers for other books, and it was the other books that I focused my energies on.

 

Meanwhile, that 2007 children’s book collected proverbial dust on my hard drive.

 

That was, until now.

 

My UK publisher, Baynam Books Press, recently began publishing fully-illustrated children’s books. I have seen one such book that was published and I was impressed with the quality of the art. I asked if I could start submitting one my own children’s book manuscripts and the publisher, Crystal Baynam, said yes.

 

So, I did. And held my breath!

 

Imagine my excitement when I received an acceptance on the book. Yay!

 

But it wasn’t the 2007 book I had submitted. Actually, it was a book I had written in 2009!

 

So a book I had written 16 years ago is finally going to be published. What’s interesting is that, after I self-published The Dream Forest, I made the decision to dedicate THIS book that is going to be published at the end of the month, Little Turtle Finds Friends, to my friend’s daughter. She was little at the time I had decided to dedicate this book to her and when I THOUGHT I was going to self-publish it. But my plans to self-publish it never went through and the book remained in limbo until I found a publisher who said “yes” to my inquiry about submitting children’s books manuscripts. That happened this year, and the little girl who I am dedicating the book to is now 13 years old! A little too old for children’s books, but she loves turtles, so after some back and forth with her mom, as well as input from her, I got the blessing to dedicate the book to her.

 

And as we move closer to the publication of the book, I came across that old one I wrote in 2007. I just asked Crystal if she wanted it and she said yes.

 

In fact, she told me to go ahead and send her all of my other children’s books manuscripts! How cool is that??

 

I am so thrilled and very grateful that I now have a children’s book publisher. I am especially grateful to Crystal Baynam for wanting to publish my children’s books!

 

Am I in the wrong for submitting all of them to her in one full swoop? I don’t think so. It doesn’t mean that I am no longer writing horror novels or horror story collections (and I am currently writing a middle grade horror novel!); it just means that, now that I have finally found a publisher who says “yes” to my children’s book manuscripts, I am going to send her all of them!

 

Seriously, there’s no time like the present!

 

It’s not like Crystal will publish all of them in one day. LOL I know she’ll space them out in order to build up readership and allow certain books to be published at certain times. But I am sending her everything I have at this point in time because … well, she wants them, and Baynam Books Press is a home for them.

 

Of course, when I realized that this particular children’s book was written in 2007, when my youngest was born, I was gobsmacked! But now I am feeling so much joy and gratitude that, at long last, this book will see the light of day and can be enjoyed for the little ones that it was written for. Even my youngest, who is almost 18 and is cool with having a children’s book dedicated to him no matter how old he is!

 

And that’s the beauty of children’s books. They can be enjoyed by people young and old, as well as by the young at heart.