The Worth of Implicit Communication

One of my favorite elements of good fiction (and any writing) is the art of subtlety. Though the "understated," the "implied," and the "unarticulated" are not necessarily in vogue in tweet-it-as-soon-as-you-think-it-land, they are often the currency of stories and arguments that lodge themselves down the deepest in readers. In other words, some of my favorite things to hear are things that "cannot be directly told."

What sparked this thought and prompted me to not leave it unarticulated (!):

It is to be hoped that this book reaffirms the worth of implicit communication; not everything that needs to be said needs to be said outright. Some things, indeed, cannot be directly told: like happiness which 'writes white,' they vanish when put into words.

–Michael Ward, Planet Narnia, xi.