Subversion in Storytelling

Let's talk about Subversion. Subversion, as I am going to use it in this essay, means creating an expectation and then defying that expectation. As storytellers, whether in short story, novel, or screenwriting, the tools in our toolbox are vast and subversion is one of those terrific tools. When you use subversion you are taking what the audience expects and turning it around to surprise the audience who have been trained by years of reading and watching stories.

Being alive and consuming the world around us trains our brains to expect things. A red light means stop and a green light means go. Basic societal norms create unconscious expectations in the audience and this is something you can use to surprise your audience, make them laugh, scare them, of make them ill at ease. When something doesn't happen that we've been trained to expect, our brain makes note of it and the audience is shaken, if only briefly, from the passive to the active way of consuming a story being told.

So, let's paint a picture. In an another writing advice article I wrote recently, I talked about visual storytelling and the way you can use visual elements like the clothing a character is wearing to tell the audience something about the character. I'm going to use a similar visual storytelling device to illustrate my conception of subversion. Incidentally, if you'd like to read that article on Visual Storytelling, I will link it here.

So, let's create a character. I am re-using my previous character Steve. Steve is a blank slate, as far as the audience is concerned. They have the context of your title and maybe a synopsis of some sort that intrigued them to read your story, but they don't know Steve yet, they don't know the basics about Steve's life. You get to build Steve however you'd like.

In my case, I picture Steve in an impeccable suit and tie. If you saw a man in a suit and tie, carrying a briefcase, walking down the street with the Wall Street Journal tucked under his arm, what do you think you know about Steve? From the visual story I have given you, suit and tie, Wall Street Journal, suburban home. Steve's a businessman who is walking to work. He works somewhere where a suit and tie is the expected fashion.

Here is where we create subversion. Having created an expectation in the mind of the audience via our visual choices, we can now play in the world of subversion. In this case, instead of Steve arriving at an office building, greeting his secretary and starting to make phone calls, we have Steve arrive at a car wash. He doesn't have a car. What is he doing here? Perhaps he's picking up his car. Maybe he's the owner of the car wash dropping in for a site visit.

The next step is Steve in a locker room suit jacket off, he's slipping into a jumpsuit over what remains of his suit and tie. Next set up has Steve actually washing cars and our audience is left wondering what the heck is going on? We've successfully subverted their expectations without saying a word of dialogue. Our next story step could be to explain why Steve wears a suit to work in a car wash or we could leave that hanging, tell a different story that will circle back on this odd detail. The storytelling possibilities are infinite.

As with any writing device, use this one wisely. Make sure you choose something that is thematically important as your subversion. For instance, let's say I set up Steve to work at the car wash while wearing a suit as a way of feeding into the theme that Steve is someone who believes in the ethos 'Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.' Steve's story is that of a striver, a climber, a grinder. Perhaps, Steve has a job interview during his lunch hour and this will be a story about his attempt to balance the life he has versus the life he wants.

In a good story, your subversion means something. It could just be a joke. It could just be for shock value, a way to break through audience complacency by showing them something they could not have predicted. These are valid story choices. But only if they are building to something more in your story. Creating a subversion just to create one isn't interesting, it's lazy. Make your subversion of expectations mean something.