An Introduction to Quiet Spaces
On a drizzly Tuesday afternoon, I met literary critic and author Margaret Ashworth at her house in Bath. We sank into a pair of worn armchairs and got talking about a subject that doesn’t make nearly enough noise: silence in literary fiction. Margaret’s recent essay collection, What Is Not Said, has been stirring up hushed, enthusiastic chats among readers who love books that leave room for mystery. She’s spent most of her career looking at what happens between the lines—and I was there to pry.
I’ve always had a soft spot for novels that let me breathe. As Eliza Gale, my interviews keep circling back to the same thing: the pauses, the white space, the words characters swallow. Margaret’s work gave me the perfect excuse to chase down why silence hits so hard in a story and how it changes the way we turn the pages.
Margaret Ashworth on Defining Literary Silence
Eliza: Margaret, your book opens with the line, “Silence is the writer’s secret collaborator.” Can you unpack that for someone who might think of silence as just an absence?
Margaret: Of course. Silence in fiction isn’t emptiness—it’s a presence. When a character stops speaking mid-sentence, or a narrator refuses to describe a traumatic event, that silence is doing heavy lifting. It makes the reader lean in. In Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, the butler Stevens never once says he’s heartbroken, but the silences around his feelings are so loud they practically echo. That’s the collaboration: the writer trusts the reader to fill the gap, and the reader becomes a co-creator of meaning.
We talked about how this differs from simply leaving things out. Margaret drew a sharp line between omission and strategic silence. “Bad writing skips over things because the writer doesn’t know what matters. Good silence—literary silence—is deliberate. It’s like the rest in a piece of music. It shapes the sound around it.”
The Emotional Weight of What Goes Unspoken
Eliza: Some readers find silence in books frustrating. They want everything spelled out. How do you respond to that?
Margaret: I get the frustration, but I think it comes from wanting to be spoon-fed. The real emotional wallop in fiction often lands because something isn’t said. Think of the end of James Joyce’s “The Dead.” Gabriel Conroy watches the snow falling and says nothing about his epiphany. The story closes on that quiet image. If Joyce had made Gabriel turn to his wife and announce, “I’ve just realized my whole life is a sham and I’m paralyzed by jealousy of a dead boy,” the story would collapse. Instead, the silence lets the feeling swell inside the reader.
Her point made me think of the quiet desperation in Jhumpa Lahiri’s stories, where immigrant families often can’t find words for their dislocation, so the silence itself becomes the subject. Margaret nodded vigorously. “Exactly. Lahiri is a master of the unspoken. In ‘A Temporary Matter,’ the couple communicates more through their shared silences during the power outages than they ever did with words. The darkness lets them finally be honest, but the silence around their grief is the real conversation.”
Silence as a Structural Tool
We shifted to craft. Eliza: How do writers actually build silence into the structure of a novel? Is it just about short sentences and white space?
Margaret: It can be, but it’s much more varied. Chapter breaks, for instance, are a powerful form of silence. What happens in the gap between chapters? The reader is left to imagine. A novelist like Virginia Woolf uses the white space between sections in To the Lighthouse to mark the passage of years, and that gap is filled with unspoken loss. Dialogue is another tool. Often the most important thing in a conversation is what characters avoid saying. Hemingway’s “Iceberg Theory” is all about this: the dignity of omission.
She pulled a well-worn copy of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead from her shelf. “This novel is essentially one long letter, and the silences are in what the narrator, John Ames, chooses not to confess directly to his son. The whole book is steeped in a quiet, contemplative hush that mirrors his pastoral life. Robinson doesn’t need to announce the themes; the rhythm of the prose creates a meditative silence.”
Cultural Silences and What They Reveal
Eliza: Does silence work differently across cultures in literature?
Margaret: Absolutely. In many Japanese novels, silence is a form of communication itself. In Yasunari Kawabata’s Snow Country, the relationship between Shimamura and Komako is defined by all the things left unspoken, and that reticence reflects a cultural value of restraint. By contrast, in a lot of American fiction, silence can signal repression or trauma—something that needs to be broken through. The meaning of silence isn’t universal; it’s shaped by cultural context, and the best writers use that deliberately.
We discussed how Zora Neale Hurston uses silence in Their Eyes Were Watching God—Janie’s long stretches of internal quiet while she endures her marriages speak to the ways Black women’s voices have been historically suppressed. The silence isn’t weakness; it’s a survival strategy and a form of resistance. “When Janie finally speaks, the silence before makes her words seismic,” Margaret said.
When Silence Overwhelms the Story
I asked the question that had been nagging me. Eliza: Can there be too much silence? Can a book become so oblique that it alienates readers?
Margaret: Definitely. Silence is a spice, not the meal. If a novel is all gaps and no substance, it’s just a puzzle that most readers won’t bother solving. I think of certain experimental works that withhold so much they become solipsistic. The key is balance. The silence has to be surrounded by enough concrete detail and emotion that the reader trusts the journey. Otherwise, it’s just an empty room.
She mentioned a contemporary novel that tried to center on a character who never speaks aloud, but the author failed to give us access to her interiority, so the silence became a wall rather than a window. “You need to feel the pressure of what’s being silenced. If there’s no pressure, there’s no power.”
Practical Insights for Writers and Readers
Before we wrapped up, I asked Margaret for advice. Eliza: For a writer trying to use silence more effectively, what’s the first step?
Margaret: Listen to your characters. Pay attention to what they nearly say and then pull back from. Write a scene where the most important emotion is never named. Then read it aloud and notice where the pauses naturally fall. For readers, I’d say: when you’re reading and you feel a little pang of confusion or curiosity because something is missing, don’t rush past it. Sit in that discomfort. That’s where the author is probably doing their best work.
FAQ: Understanding Silence in Literary Fiction
Why do some authors use so much silence in their writing?
Authors use silence to create depth and invite reader participation. By leaving things unsaid, they allow emotions and themes to resonate without over-explaining, making the reading experience more personal and powerful.
How can I tell if a silence in a novel is purposeful or just bad writing?
Purposeful silence feels charged; it adds tension or meaning. If a gap leaves you curious and emotionally engaged, it’s likely deliberate. If it just leaves you confused about basic plot or character facts without any payoff, it may be careless omission.
What are some classic books that use silence exceptionally well?
Margaret mentioned The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, and Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata. Other strong examples include Ernest Hemingway’s short stories and Toni Morrison’s Beloved, where silence around trauma speaks volumes.
Does silence in fiction only relate to dialogue?
Not at all. Silence can appear in narrative gaps, descriptive choices, pacing, chapter breaks, and even what a narrator chooses not to tell us about their own feelings. It’s a structural and thematic tool, not just a conversational one.
As I left Margaret’s home, the rain had stopped and the streets were quiet. I found myself thinking about all the conversations I’d had where the most important parts were the pauses. Maybe that’s the mark of a good interview, too—and certainly the mark of a great book.
