On Jane Friedman site:

In horror, silence often speaks the loudest. Whether it’s a glance across a dinner table, a hesitation before a door is opened, or a line of dialogue that means the opposite of what it says, subtext is the quiet engine beneath your scene. It’s the difference between a story that moves and one that lingers.

Emerging writers often focus on plot and action—which are essential!—but the true pulse of horror comes from what festers just beneath the surface. Subtext transforms the mundane into the menacing. It’s what makes readers lean in closer, even when they want to look away.

Let’s dig into what subtext is and why it matters to make it work like a whispered warning in your fiction.