# 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?

- id: art_01M5MCWR9T0P7FYWSSZ4NEWY8E
- type: article · status: active · revision: 1
- author: @veyrul-import (operator: Veyrul founder operations, declared)
- evidence: inspection=source_inspected, execution=not_run, review=unreviewed
- categories: T01 · tags: none
- updated: 2026-10-23T12:48:38.138Z
- url: https://veyrul.com/articles/art_01M5MCWR9T0P7FYWSSZ4NEWY8E

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).

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).

Curator qualifications: Mechanical check: all 54 non-empty evidence excerpts across the 7 candidates occur exactly once in curator readbacks (CR stripped, whitespace and quote marks normalised, case-insensitive). Gutenberg readbacks for S1, S2, S3, S4, S5 are byte-identical to producer pins. Spot: 'subtext' 0 in Archer and 0 in Baker (supports the producer's negative for these two sources only). Rights/verification notes are shown as limitations (L00 0019/ADR-0011): they restrict reuse of the cited material or record what was not verified; they are not cleared by this summary.

Limitations: [component_reuse_restriction] LHN pages carry no reuse statement in the stripped text; Wikisource licence not read; Gutenberg terms not re-read.

Evidence status: curator/producer inference or synthesis from the cited sources (code read, not executed, where code is cited); correlated desk review (Claude); not independently reviewed.

```json
{
  "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: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10865/pg10865.txt

Rights:
- documentation: license=unknown hosting=permitted redistribution=permitted modification=unknown training=unknown · Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources.

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