Intentional Gaps
Multiple studies have been done on nonverbal communication. I have seen different breakdowns of this. Albert Mehrabian developed the 7-38-55% rule as a result of his research. This rule breaks down communication as fifty-five percent nonverbal, thirty-eight percent vocal (how something is said), and seven percent words only. This is often copied and oversimplified all over the internet, as; communication is ninety percent nonverbal. In reality, there is some crossover of all the elements of communication. David Matsumoto, Ph.D., is another well-known researcher in this area focusing on micro-expressions. Other communication factors include the context, tone, and even what is being emoted. I believe there are unnamed elements of nonverbal communication that cannot be researched in a study. They may be some of the most powerful.
With this in mind, the case for emojis becomes a little more obvious. Playing with the theory that only seven percent of communication is purely the words used, does that mean that ninety-three percent of what you really meant in that text you sent is wide open to interpretation? I think if you know someone well, you can do a pretty good job of filling in those emotional and contextual blanks. But get a text when your in a rough place emotionally and those gaps may be filled in with insecurities, or imagined offenses that cause anger. It’s obviously better to call.
As an author, I’ve really considered this. Writing is words only! I think a great illustrator can be a force multiplier in middle-grade literature and essential in children's books, but I will stick with pure text for now. An author is challenged to get across one hundred percent of what they are trying to communicate with only words.
This means that time needs to be spent describing body language, small facial expressions, and context clues. A scene must be well described so that a character’s words make sense within their world. This is really where writing becomes a medium of art. Talented writers manage to convey more than what is normally possible by conversation. Poetry is a good example of this.
In music, we have rest. Pauses that create tension or let you breathe for a moment and process. In writing, this is where the real craft comes in. It's impossible to convey one hundred percent of anything you are trying to say using words alone. But what can be done is arrange the blank spots so that the reader fills them in with their own experience. With their own fears, understanding of love, the experience of death, hopes, and excitement. Every reader then has an intensely personal experience. Their own world. This is part of what makes writing so powerful. This is how myths can inspire consideration of the incomprehensible. And the reason we are disappointed when the movie of a book we love doesn’t look right to us.
I think the best books for middle-grade kids foster a sense of ownership between the reader and the story. A feeling that the characters they love are at least partly their own creation rather than only the writer. The characters actually come to represent very personal pieces of the reader. I listen to kids discuss books they have read and what they think of the characters, and it's interesting to see how upset some get when a character they really like is described wrong by the other. Tweens especially can get particularly heated with one another over differences in the imagined details of a character's life from a series of books they feel strongly about. A personal relationship is unique. There exist as many versions of a story as those who read it.
All this is to say there is power in the unspoken. Or in the case of a book, the unwritten. The intentional gaps left in storytelling allow one to figure out the rest of the journey. If most communication is nonverbal, and writing is words only, writers must inspire the reader to fill in the rest with a piece of themselves. I think this is part of what makes writing such a powerful medium.