Glance

The fox sat very still. His scarf looked extra thick. A speech bubble floated above his head. It was half-empty. The bottom half was blank. The top half just said: "Cold." Next to the bubble, faint words floated. They were dotted lines, like a ghost. They read: "I do not want to talk right now, but I want you to stay."

Patter stared. His eyes got wide. He had never seen anything like it. "Your speech-bubble has two layers," he said.

The fox looked up slowly. He spoke in a quiet, careful voice. It sounded like a tiny arctic fox. "Yes," he said. "My name is Glance. I keep the subtext."

"Tell me," Patter said.

Glance explained. "What I say shows up in the bubble," he said. "What I mean shows up in the ghost words." He paused. "They are almost always different." He looked at Patter. "Most real talks work like this." He nodded slowly. "People say one thing. They mean something else." He pointed to his bubble. "The words you hear are the surface. The words you feel are the subtext." He tapped his scarf. "Both together make the whole talk."

Patter's jaw dropped. He just stared at Glance. This fox is it! he thought. He's the whole idea! Good stories have talking that works like this. The words people say are only half of it. The other half is what they really mean. It's about how they feel. It's about their past. It's about who they are to each other. Most kids Patter helped only wrote the spoken words. Their lines were correct. But they felt empty. They missed the second layer.

"Will you come to my pocket workshop?" Patter asked.

"I'd have to bring my scarf," Glance said. "It's cold even inside."

Glance agreed. He has stayed in the workshop since then. He always sits at the front. His thick blue scarf is always on. His speech bubble is always there. You can always see both layers. The spoken word is on top. The ghost words are below. When kids write talks, Patter makes them think. "What would the ghost words be for this line?" he asks. Glance helps them. He takes each line. He shows the top bubble. Then he shows the ghost words that go with it.

Patter teaches about subtext. It's his first lesson on it. He points to Glance. Glance sits there, as always. His bubble is half-empty. His ghost words float nearby. "This is Glance," Patter says. "His speech bubble has two parts." He taps the air. "The top part is what he says." He taps lower. "The bottom part is what he means." He brings his hands together. "Both parts make the whole talk." He looks at the kids. "Real talks are like this." He nods. "People say one thing. They mean something else." He holds up two fingers. "What they say and what they mean are both important." He smiles. "Good writing shows both."

He shows them how. He writes on the board: