What’s Left Unsaid: A Conversation About Silence in Literary Fiction

I’ve always been drawn to the quiet patches in novels—the pauses, the things left unsaid, the white space on the page that somehow feels heavier than the words around it. So when I sat down with Alina Kostova, a novelist and critic who writes about the inner lives of her characters with unusual care, I wanted to talk about something that doesn’t get enough airtime: silence. Not just as absence, but as a narrative force that can shove a story forward or hold it terribly still.

Alina showed up at the café with a battered copy of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead tucked under her arm, and I figured we were off to a good start. Over lukewarm tea—why do cafés never get the temperature right?—we talked about how silence works in literary fiction: how it shapes character, builds tension, and, when a writer knows what they’re doing, becomes a language of its own.

The Unspoken as Character Development

Eliza: When I think about silence in fiction, I usually think about what characters don’t say. How do you see that operating in the books you love?

Alina: It’s subtext’s backbone, really. Take Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. The protagonist, Stevens, is a master of bottling things up. His whole emotional life gets communicated through what he refuses to let out. The silence around his feelings for Miss Kenton is louder than any confession could ever be. You’re leaning in as a reader, straining to hear a tremor that never quite arrives. That restraint makes the rare cracks in his composure shattering.

She stopped to stir her tea. “I think readers are starved for that. In a world that never shuts up, a character who holds back can feel more real, more trustworthy. We’re all carting around things we can’t say.”

Eliza: Does that demand a certain type of reader? Somebody who’s okay with sitting in discomfort?

Alina: Sure. But I’d argue that literary fiction trains you to become that reader. When you run into a narrator who deflects or skips over things, you start questioning what’s being hidden. It’s a partnership. The silence pulls you into the story in a way that a heap of exposition never could.

Structural Silence: Pacing and the White Space

Eliza: Let’s talk about silence on the actual page—the physical breaks, the short chapters, the paragraphs that cut off without warning. How do you use those as a writer?

Alina: I’m a little obsessed with the pause, I’ll admit. In my last novel, I treated section breaks almost like breaths. After a particularly tense scene, I’d leave a whole page blank except for a single asterisk. It forces the reader to stop and sit in the aftermath. You can’t just barrel through. I picked that up from Virginia Woolf—the way To the Lighthouse handles the “Time Passes” section. The house decays in silence, and the clipped, bracketed passages make the loss feel enormous.

She leaned in. “But you have to earn it. If every chapter ends with a dramatic ellipsis, it turns into a nervous habit. Silence works best when it’s set against noise—when a chatty character suddenly clams up, or when a narrative that’s been racing slows to a crawl. The contrast is what gives it muscle.”

Eliza: Do you think contemporary fiction is scared of that slowness?

Alina: Sometimes. There’s pressure to keep the plot chugging, to hook the reader on every single page. But the books that stick to my ribs are the ones that let me breathe. Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy is almost entirely conversations, yet what hangs in the air is the narrator’s unwillingness to talk about her own life. She becomes a kind of hollow center, and that hollowness is weirdly gripping.

Cultural Silences and What We’re Allowed to Say

Eliza: I’m curious about the cultural dimension. Silence means different things in different settings. How do you handle that as a writer drawing on Eastern European traditions?

Alina: I grew up with my grandmother’s stories, and they were stuffed with deliberate omissions—things you couldn’t say out loud because of political or social pressures. In those narratives, silence meant survival. When I started writing, I realized I was copying that pattern without meaning to. My characters would circle a trauma, never naming it head-on. Some readers found it maddening, but to me it felt true. In certain cultures, what’s left unsaid outweighs what’s announced.

She smiled. “That’s probably why I’m drawn to writers like James Baldwin. He writes about silence as a kind of erasure, but also as a place of resistance. In Giovanni’s Room, the protagonist’s inability to speak his love aloud becomes the tragedy. The silence isn’t peaceful—it’s violent. That’s a different breed of quiet, and it demands to be shattered.”

Eliza: That makes me think about the writer’s responsibility. When does silence become a failure instead of a technique?

Alina: When it’s dishonest. If a character is silent because the author is ducking something hard, readers can smell it. It’s the gap between purposeful restraint and plain old avoidance. I’ve read manuscripts where a central conversation just doesn’t happen because the writer didn’t know how to pull it off. That’s not artful silence; that’s a hole in the story. The best silences feel inevitable—like the story couldn’t have gone any other way.

Practicing Silence in a Noisy World

Before we said goodbye, I asked Alina how she cultivates silence in her own writing life. She laughed and said, “I turn off my phone. I know that sounds too easy, but it’s surprisingly hard to do. I need long stretches of unscheduled time, space where I can hear my own thoughts. I read poetry too—Mary Oliver, mostly—because it shows me how much you can pack into a tiny space. And I walk. Walking is a form of silence, even with traffic buzzing. It’s a rhythm that lets my mind drift without shoving it.”

I walked out of that café thinking about all the quiet I’d skimmed past in my own reading—the pauses I’d rushed through, the gaps I’d filled in too fast. Maybe the best fiction doesn’t just hand us a story; it teaches us how to listen.

FAQ: Silence in Literary Fiction

What is the difference between silence as a literary device and simple underwriting?
Literary silence is intentional and layered; it points toward meaning beyond the words on the page. Underwriting happens when a writer fails to develop a scene or character properly, leaving the reader confused rather than thoughtful. A well-crafted silence hums with resonance, while underwriting just feels empty.

Can silence be overused in a novel?
Definitely. Too many unexplained gaps or trailing-off endings can frustrate readers and water down emotional impact. Silence lands best when it’s set against moments of clarity or breakthrough. A novel that never lets the reader in risks turning opaque instead of profound.

Which contemporary authors use silence effectively?
Writers like Jhumpa Lahiri, Colm Tóibín, and Jenny Offill come to mind. Lahiri’s short stories often pivot on what characters can’t express across cultural divides. Tóibín’s Brooklyn is a clinic in quiet longing. Offill’s fragmented style in Dept. of Speculation uses white space to mirror the narrator’s splintered attention.

How can a reader become more attuned to silence in fiction?
Slow way down. Reread passages that feel emotionally charged and ask what’s being withheld. Notice sentence length and paragraph breaks. Watch for when a character changes the subject or goes quiet. That’s often where the real story is hiding.