[Nancy Nielsen-Young]

This is where I usually get, Too on the nose, comments. I’m thinking if I use more sarcasm or ridiculous insults instead of regular conversation, I can bring out the subtext in a non-direct, and not on the nose comment. Where’s my book on Shakespeare insults?

[Nancy Nielsen-Young]

This is a technique I’ve noticed in the movies and TV series for many years, from old Westerns to new Sci-Fi’s. It usually ends up with the audience laughing and then an increase in action. It’s an old but effective technique, such irony in the movies as in life.

[Nancy Nielsen-Young]

Wow! I really had no idea I was including some of the subtext situations in my scenes, but I can really deliver deeper meaning and emotions by including more situations to each scene. It would give the viewer more emotional connections. Some character situations don’t need to be presented right away, maybe through a previous or later scene can the audience connect with the emotions at hand and understand the character’s response.
I can tweak some of my scenes to increase the emotional connections. I’m glad each subtext situation is listed and named to help consider each for each scene. Yeah!

[Nancy Nielsen-Young]

Lesson 3: Applying Character Subtext:
The protagonist, Elizabeth is embarrassed to share her out of school athletic activities with the boys in her Civics class, but gets braver as a rough-neck, teammate/classmate brags about their achievements. With support she gets braver and more determined to participate in athletics and her desire to play at the University someday, although they didn’t have varsity sports for girls yet. The boys make it clear that girls can play but women shouldn’t, it’s not lady-like.

When she tries out and makes the new varsity volleyball program at the University, she feels guilty about leaving all the work for Grams at the Truck Stop diner, feeling like she may have caused Grams’ heart attack. She goes to college knowing her dad used his truck for collateral for a college loan and worrying about it.

The social construct at the time did not support women at school so she has to get the nerve up to confront a professor for down grading her due to absences, she confronts the football team for taking away their scheduled time for the weight room between 12:00 am and 6:00 am. She finally challenges the football team to a volleyball game to raise money for uniforms and warm-ups. And finally, when the college says there’s no money to send them to the National tournament in Princeton that they qualified for, she makes her stand in front of the crowd at the pep rally. Elizabeth matures to be a leader in character and skill on the team.

I learned I have included some subtext for the football boyfriend who is pursuing a medical career, but not as a doctor, as a nurse that most men would never have considered until Title IX promoted it. I expanded the subtext for the roommate who moved out to the sorority house then returned to help Elizabeth to dress up fancy girlie for the date at Homecoming and found her calling of being a designer/party planner/dress designer. Her roommate leaves the sorority dissatisfied with them to return to the dorms as a roommate to Elizabeth that the sorority sisters felt was scandalous.

The biggest change was to include how the football players were won over to understand girls were as committed to their sport as the football team, so when the football players put on a pep rally in support of the volleyball team to go to Nationals, they were in full support of women’s athletics. The University President and Athletic Directors got creative to find a way to get plane tickets and housing for the team with the New Jersians for Nebraska homes for the week. It took fathers, families, male athletes and other women to stand up and to support the new women’s athletics in 1975 in order for the university to fully support women’s sports. They realize the women wouldn’t quit after one year, that they are here to stay, and the University could be part of the new programs that make a real impact in the world. They just didn’t realize it would take 50 years to build a quality program that would bring in more than 92,000 fans to the football field for a volleyball women’s game.

[Nancy Nielsen-Young]

Thinking about the environment of the 1970’s college campus, is there used to be girl only dorms and there were rules and regulations regarding times that men were allowed in the building and when they had to leave. If a man entered the floor, every woman would be screaming, “Man on the Floor” and you’d hear every door slam shut even when the man was a girl’s own father or brother. The colleges actively tried to keep women safe when they were on the campus.
I recently found out there are really no women only dorms on campuses nowadays, and security is very lax leaving the women as equals to men in the dorms. There isn’t such a comradery now between women as there was.

So, I’ve included demonstrating the security steps women used at the time to help each other and add to the feel of the 70’s. I know I’ve been told that it feels like the 1870’s instead of the 1970’s, but that’s how much our society has changed in 50 years and this generation is unaware of the care that women received at the time and why men thought women couldn’t do athletics. So, the women who started varsity sports were up against the unknown abilities and society was so awestruck when they found out women could do sports and lift weights even if it isn’t at the same level as men’s sports.

[Nancy Nielsen-Young]

I am finding I have not really considered the mysteries EACH character has for the underlying story, therefore finding much too much of my story being “on the nose.” Using subtext helps the reader/viewer feel the emotions and trying to solve the motivations instead of telling the plots of my stories.
My docudrama of the start of women’s varsity volleyball is based on true events showing how much extra work women did in order to just get to play sports in college. Overall, the underlying reason for women wanting to play sports in college was a chance to get a scholarship and get to earn an advanced degree. During the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, the station of women was pretty much the stagnate. Women who went to college were there only to get their M.R. S. degrees and severely limiting their chance to be independent and give themselves better options and better lives.
Another reason for the script/movie is to teach history and celebrate the accomplishments of the Husker VB program over the last 50 years. I talked with the Husker players in this year’s program, they have no idea how far the opportunities have come for women and they take it for granted that, of course women can get scholarships and have their education paid for. That wasn’t the case not so long ago.
I’m reviewing the story to expand the subtext for all the characters.