A few years ago I took a writing course that covered subtext because it was an element of writing that fascinated me. That course went through a lot of explanation of how characterisation, dialogue and even setting contribute to the development of subtext and instructed us to plan to build subtext into our stories. I was still fascinated, but not much clearer on exactly how one would go about “building” subtext. Subtext seemed this tenuous thing that should be left to writers of high-brow literary works. When I was offered the chance to review The Story Book by David Baboulene, I was impressed to discover that David was writing a Ph.D. thesis on subtext with the conclusion that readers and audiences prefer stories with deeper levels of subtext. In The Story Book , David clears up the mystery of subtext in a few lines: David Baboulene “Most writers think they must write subtext in order to deliver an underlying story. This is wrong... If the story is created using knowledge g...