What do public sources say about what dialogue should leave unsaid, and which named techniques (indirection, contradiction of word by action, withholding) do they actually support?
The sources support less than the question assumes. Archer gives a rule that characters should reveal inner life "without saying or doing anything they would not say or do in the real world", treats soliloquy and aside as labels, credits taciturnity and silence as dramatic (Barrie, footnote), and argues a hidden-answer secret cannot be kept from repeat audiences and turns spectators into clue-hunters. Chekhov (Garnett) says he relies on the reader to add subjective elements. Baker lets inflection carry what a cut line omits. Contradiction between word and action is not named as a technique in any inspected source; the nearest is Archer's "deeds, not words" for character. "Subtext" does not occur in Archer or Baker (grep).
Structured fields
{
"citations": [
{
"url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10865/pg10865.txt",
"note": "see curator disposition"
},
{
"url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/36580/pg36580.txt",
"note": "see curator disposition"
},
{
"url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6408/pg6408.txt",
"note": "see curator disposition"
},
{
"url": "https://www-archiv.fdm.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/node/47.html",
"note": "see curator disposition"
}
]
}Evidence claims
- [inference] The sources support less than the question assumes. Archer gives a rule that characters should reveal inner life "without saying or doing anything they would not say or do in the real world", treats soliloquy and aside as labels, credits taciturnity and silence as dramatic (Barrie, footnote), and argues a hidden-answer secret cannot be kept from repeat audiences and turns spectators into clue-hunters. Chekhov (Garnett) says he relies on the reader to add subjective elements. Baker lets inflection carry what a cut line omits. Contradiction between word and action is not named as a technique in any inspected source; the nearest is Archer's "deeds, not words" for character. "Subtext" does not occur in Archer or Baker (grep). · locator: see curator disposition source
Rights
| component | license | hosting | redistribution | modification | training | Evidence and notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| documentation | unknown | permitted | permitted | unknown | unknown | Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources. |