posted
Okay, here's a hoary ol' chestnut to drag out into the open; how do you write internal dialogue? I've recently submitted two short stories for critiquing on another site. Roughly 25% of the responses have commented on a POV shift to first person. For example:
Lamington Entwistle looked at the seventeen toughs surrounding him. I'm in deep kimchee now. Then he looked down at the scabbard resting on his left hip. I really wish that held a sword.
75% of people make no comment, understanding the switch to 1st person is Lamington's internal thoughts. But the other 25% insist that the POV change is jarring and, when they finally realise it's internal dialogue, helpfully suggest I use italics for that sort of ting.
Well, italics for internal dialogue won't work when you're using italics for telepathic communication already. So, do I continue on my own merry way or change this:
Lamington Entwistle looked at the seventeen toughs surrounding him. I'm in deep kimchee now
To this:
Lamington Entwistle looked at the seventeen toughs surrounding him. I'm in deep kimchee now, he thought.
posted
I put internal monologues on their own separate line. Like:
Lamington Entwistle looked at the seventeen toughs surrounding him. <i>I'm in deep kimchee now.</i> Then he looked down at the scabbard resting on his left hip. <i>I really wish that held a sword.</i>
I use italics to indicate thoughts, but it doesn't really matter IMO, as long as you use a distinct format. Change fonts, or use italics, use {* brackets, or in some way present thoughts in a way that makes them instantly distinguishable from spoken words.
quote:Lamington Entwistle looked at the seventeen toughs surrounding him. I'm in deep kimchee now. Then he looked down at the scabbard resting on his left hip. I really wish that held a sword.
To keep tight third person and not break into formatting issues.
"Lamington Entwistle looked at the seventeen toughs that surrounded him. He was deep in kimchee now. Looking down at the empty scabbard on his left hip he really wished he hadn't forgotten his sword."
I took a couple of liberties for smoothness but you get the idea.
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posted
I agree with Genevive. That's the way I generally handle it. I try to avoid, at all costs, using 'I' when writing in close third, my usual style. If I do, and that's rare, I tag it with a 'he thought'.
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posted
Thanks Owasm. I have to admit, I think I've abolished 'he thought'. If you're in tight third, any direct thought is going to be assumed to be his. The flip side of that is that sometimes a matter of judgment like "They knew they could do better," can be confused with a pov slip to another character, even when it's not. In that case I try to make it as clear as possible and give my readers some credit.
BTW, Lois McMaster Bujold is a master of internal dialog, in my opinion. Take a look at any of the Miles Vorkosigan series. Tons of the story takes place in his head.
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posted
In my opinion, direct thoughts are dialogue, even if they're internal, and must be tagged in some way. Either they have to be set apart with formatting (like regular dialogue is with quotes), or they have to have an attribution (he thought). Otherwise it is a POV shift from close third to first.
Genevieve's solution is perfectly valid, but that changes a direct thought to a general thought. Instead of thinking the exact words, "I'm in deep kimchee now," it signifies that the character is thinking *along those lines.* Which means his actual internal dialogue could be anything from "Oh crap" to a garbled mess of onomatopoeias.
Just my two cents.
ETA: Just had a thought. If you start off early tagging the internal thoughts with 'he thought' and make sure to give the thoughts their own paragraphs (like most dialogue) then later on you might be able to drop the tags. If you switch to internal thoughts often enough, the reader should be able to recognize the pattern. This probably won't work as well if direct thoughts are few and far between.
quote:but that changes a direct thought to a general thought
I understand what you're saying on a technical level, but I don't agree. If you're in tight third, I don't think anyone's going to take the statement as anything but a straight thought from the character, thus, not a general one.
The direct thoughts as dialog, and noted with italics or otherwise, is also valid, but I think it's an older way of doing things. There are certain techniques that you see in classic sf that just don't get used much anymore and I think this is one of them. Depends on the author though. It is truly a style choice.
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posted
I'm with genevive42 on this. I prefer a tight, close third POV. Which is almost like first person. Putting "he thought" or direct thoughts in italics puts a distance between the reader and the POV character. Whereas the way genevive42 wrote it makes the whole passage feel like we are in the POV character's head, and that draws us in closer to the character.
Of course this definitely is a style choice. Sometimes you want more distance between the POV character and the reader. I think in those cases you need to write he thought or put it in italics otherwise it does feel jaring to me to just switch from third to first. Although if you do too much "he thought" moments, it could get annoying. You have two in one paragraph in your example. If you are going to use a lot of direct thoughts, I think you should do it genevive's way. JMO.
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posted
Oh mercy, Grumpy old guy, you've opened a barrel of linguistic, semiotic, and semantic controversy. One rhetoric text covers a gamut of voice principles on point, Seymour Chatman's Story and Discourse. I'll be back to cover highlights after a day's tedious work on a publication's business book.
Meantime, four ways thoughts are expressed through written word:
Tagged direct thought Free direct thought Tagged indirect thought Free indirect thought
From four possible voices: writer, implied writer, narrator, character.
Using four possible formatting methods: roman in line, italics in line, set off by quotation or other brackets, set off by paragraph breaks.
In de dicto, de re, or de se context and texture.
Methods and principles to come today's evening.
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posted
So would any of this be considered inner dialog?:
********************************************************** Charlie rode in rhythm with Dancer’s gallop. Trees swept by on either side when the mare’s stride shortened to round a bend. What the h**l? A naked youth stood in the trail with his gape reflecting Charlie’s shock.
“Whoa!” she yelled then leaned back and tensed the reins. No good. Dancer’s momentum still knocked the youth into the brush with the mare and Charlie taking his place. **********************************************************
I'm thinking the sentence "What the h**l?" or "No good." Or is this something else entirely? I've always considered it inner dialog or at least a form of it. And in the way I've written it, I don't feel it needs anything to set it apart from the rest of this piece that's the start of one of my short stories.
Here's another example from the same story:
********************************************************** “Then you’re Professor...” Damn but she should know him. **********************************************************
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posted
As stated above, it's a style choice. The thing is, nothing says you have to stick with one style all the time. You can use the tight third person *and* occasionally toss in a case of using thought as dialogue.
IMO, using thought as internal speech (I think of it as monologue, but whatever) provides an opportunity for impact that you can't get otherwise.
Like:
Bill smiled. "You know, I really thought you were going to be one of the good ones, Fred." "I don't know what you mean, Bill." Fred casually reached behind him and felt for the letter opener. Nothing. <i>oh crap. where is it? </i> "Of course you do," Bill said, taking a step closer. "Honestly, I have no idea what you're talking about, Bill." <>He must have seen it. What do I do now. The fireplace! I need to reach the poker. </i>
quote:Originally posted by genevive42: BTW, Lois McMaster Bujold is a master of internal dialog, in my opinion. Take a look at any of the Miles Vorkosigan series. Tons of the story takes place in his head.
Yes! And she very rarely uses italics to indicate it. (And when she does use first person, she usually shifts to italics.)
In MEMORY, Miles even has a couple of arguments with himself. One side in normal text, the other in italics.
posted
I just finished MEMORY, but on audio (like I've read all her others), so I've never known how it looks on the page.
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quote:Originally posted by genevive42: I just finished MEMORY, but on audio (like I've read all her others), so I've never known how it looks on the page.
MEMORY is probably one of my two favorites from the series, because it's a real turning point for Miles's life. The other is A CIVIL CAMPAIGN.
I goofed slightly above. (Fixed now.) She usually doesn't put his internal thoughts in italics, except when she switches to first person.
When Miles is arguing with himself (for example, when he fights temptation toward the end) she uses italics for the shorter side of the argument. You can almost see the little devil and the little angel sitting on his shoulders.
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posted
I'm with genevive42, too. She suggested exactly what I would have suggested.
In one of John Gardner's books about writing (can't recall which at the moment, but it's probably ART OF FICTION), he talks about this kind of thing and how to avoid distancing the reader when you are in a character's point of view.
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quote:Originally posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury: I'm with genevive42, too. She suggested exactly what I would have suggested.
In one of John Gardner's books about writing (can't recall which at the moment, but it's probably ART OF FICTION), he talks about this kind of thing and how to avoid distancing the reader when you are in a character's point of view.
Gardner's The Art of Fiction does cover to a degree internal dialogue under keywords "Psychic distance," a linguistics principle overlapping but distiguishable from narrative distance.
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posted
Interior dialogue I compare to the cartoon devil and angel sitting on a screenplay character's shoulder. They have a conversation with the character. Dialogue is conversation, right?
Interior monologue, well, a lecture or reading, right? Dramatic monologue addressed to the self like narrating your life while you live it.
Both of which are types of thought discourse, or introspection. Introspection alters narrative time, often suspending story time's passage, or foreshortening story time, the way a traumatic vehicular event does. In part, introspection expresses a viewpoint character's emotional attitude toward unfolding events.
Introspection may also express uncertainty, irony, misperception, firm but antisocial convictions, disagreement, contention that is veiled from others' perception, etc., anything a character wants to keep from others yet their outward actions parallel or, stronger yet, contradict.
Other types of interior discourse include the most honored and respected stream of consciousness, untidy and unpolished back mind thought expressions, thoughts risen unbound from the subconscious and nonconscious minds, perhaps the unconscious mind. We are of many minds and many thoughts, we human beings. What can be thought in a moment may require paragraphs to express in somewhat artfully organized words.
Linguistics is the art and science of language's expression. Semiotics is the art and science of signal transmission and reception. Semantics is the art and science of meaning. Each discipline believes it is distinct and separate from the others. Not valid. They overlap more than they stand apart.
Does an attribution tag of the he thought variety not use artful language to express a thought utterance's source? Does the tag signal clearly who thought what? Does the tag convey meaning for readers? Yep. Two all but invisible words language scholars may debate about which discipline matters most, but without which readers may feel adrift at sea in a disembodied soup.
Use of italics to signal thought, direct or otherwise, has fallen out of favor except in genres targeting less sophisticated readers who expect and need that signal. Let the words do the work, not formatting, so the reading experience isn't disrupted by having to figure out what italics mean, is the clarion call from writing gurus of late. After all, nondiscretionary italics usages signal vessel names, book and publication titles, foreign words, words used as words, i.e., the term italics type instead of roman type describes a text decoration.
"Lamington Entwistle looked at the seventeen toughs surrounding him. I'm in deep kimchee now. Then he looked down at the scabbard resting on his left hip. I really wish that held a sword."
While this bit of artful composition signals its off-the-cuff nature, as an example for illustration purposes, its unpolished state makes it ripe for commentary.
First and third sentences, narrator summary and explanation of visual sensations. Second and fourth sentences, first person tagged direct thought reactions to the visual summaries. Any see action ought as a best practice be recast as direct visual descriptions. They're meaningful enough to elicit a thought reaction from a viewpoint character; they justify an expenditure of context and texture real estate. Show the visual sensations from the viewpoint observer's perception as if they're thoughts, and in this case, show the seventeen toughs' menance. Greenteeth scratched his canine's with a Kentuck toothpick. A nail-studded club held up Rusted chainmail's elbow. The gut who wore a greasemonkey's shirt swung a pipe wrench, etc. Since there's seventeen of them, describe two or three's most menancing features. Summarize the others in one fell swoop. They're not as menacing as the most menacing ones, so less important in the moment. And give them nicknames the character makes up on the spot so the population explosion can be managed as the action unfolds.
This way, there's no need to narrate in third person and express direct thoughts in first person. And already in the viewpoint character's thoughts from closely following his perceptions anyway. If third person becomes the narrative whole, so be it, alter the first person direct tags to third person. If the descriptive voice is from the character, readers will feel closeness to the character instead of the disembodied narrator. For variety's sake, though, since the voice is third person, open things up a little narrative distance-wise by narrating unadorned details, meaning a neutral emotional attitude.
The strength in terms of emotional attitude I see in the two thought sentences is they're interjections of the overstated exclamation type. One potent method for transitioning from narrator voice to character voice and closing narrative distance. Though, again, exclamations react to causal sensory stimuli. Understatement and sentence fragments have similar potency.
Sentence fragment exclamations in Crystal Stevens' example: "What the . . ." and "No good." Yes, free direct thought or, if you insist, "interior dialogue."
Once inside a thought, though, linger for a moment. What else is going on in the character's thoughts?
De dicto, of the word, the literal meaning of a word or phrase signaled and received. Grumpy old guy's first and third sentences are de dicto.
De re, of the thing, a word or phrase's figurative meaning that comes from an implied context and texture. Grumpy old guy's second and fourth sentences do not directly state they're thoughts; their thought figurative nature comes from their easy intrepretation as thoughts, if only who thinks them was clearly not the narrator who obviously expresses the other sentences, clearly the viewpoint character.
De se, of the self, where who is the self of a third person narrator who channels exclusively a viewpoint character as if experiencing the dramatic action and sensations as the self. Narrative theory's de se is similar to language arts and science's principle, but from a creative approach rather than an analytical approach. If one were to watch a newscast and see one's self as a stranger, remark that that dufus should have known he was going to be watched breaking into the fenced-in area, and not recognize that he's the self, that's de se from a language analsyis approach.
posted
Extrinsic, I'd thought that it was time to give you something to chew on that wasn't 'off the cuff'. This is an excerpt of a scene that is planted firmly in this character's POV. Do her internal thoughts work, or do I need to break up the action by adding 'she thought', or worse, 'she wondered'.
Quote:
She deflected his blow with the blade of her knife. Not much, just enough. A sword thrust through his armpit into his chest. A sucking sound, gushes of blood. A blow to her head and a bright flash of light. Movement. Ducking, she drove a shoulder into her foe while thrusting her dagger up, under his mail, into his groin. A scream!
Where are my men?
A cry behind her. She turned to see an enemy with a feathered shaft sticking out of his temple.
Who? No time!
More movement, a blur.
Wetness running down my neck.
She staggered back. “No!” She dropped her dagger and rushed
posted
Two methods used therein strongly signal internal discourse and obviate tagging of direct thoughts: sentence fragments and rhetorical questions. The action is already broken up, perhaps less than ideally, by the sentence fragment exclamation interjections.
Rhetorical questions are problematic when they express dramatic questions that can be expressed without interrogatory texture. And they too ought as a best practice be judisciously deployed.
Sentence fragments are strongest in small, timely, judiscious doses, like any kind of overt emphasis. I feel there are too many in the excerpt. Other methods are indicated. Stream of consciousness for one. And longer, grammatically complete sentences with conditional auxiliary verbs, like would, maybe should, maybe could, etc., which are strongest when they are ironic understatements; perfect tense infinitive auxiliary verbs, like had to; expressing litotes, a kind of hyperbole (ironic overstatement) expressing an affirmation of the positive of a negation statement, like She wouldn't happen to have a backup plan; verbal irony, albeit thoughts; and polysyndeton, linking a stream of related ideas with conjunctions (syndeton). Judicious use of polysyndeton and asyndeton—linking idea clauses or serial lists without conjunctions—is also a stream of consciousness method.
Grammar school grammar often refers to stream of consciousness methods as run-on sentences, comma splices, and semicolon or colon splices when polysyndeton or asyndeton are artless. Artless syndeton clumsily joins clauses and ideas.
English language sentences average twenty syllables or ten or so words, not coincidentally, in an iambic accentuation and a pentameter foot. Standard Spoken English syntax principles evolved from the most common poetry rhythm of the ancients, iambic pentameter. Judicious use of other poetry rhythms create subtle and artful emphases.
Shorter sentences or fragments accelerate narrative and story time. Longer sentences draw out narrative time and suspend or foreshorten story time. An intense combat scene drawn out in narrative time can have more impact than one that's unsettled and jumpy. The former is more common and stronger for written word; the latter for cinema, being entirely audiovisual, where internal discourse is all but impossible to portray without cinematic devices like voiceover or slideshow lecture narration or reality television's confession booth debriefings.
Varying sentence length settles readers into a narrative. Short, choppy sentences and fragments are bumpy, as a best practice used for timely and judiscious emphases, as well as one method for signaling thought. Variety is as much the spice of writing as it is life. Other sentence types that are part of stream of consciousness methods are compound and complex sentences and loose and periodic sentences. Whatever lengths most suit a target audience's sensibilities.
While the narrative distance of the excerpt is danger close, I feel it's both opened by excess sentence fragments creating the opposite effect—calling undue attention and challenging willing suspension of disbelief—and a lack of other scene context and texture the viewpoint character doesn't observe or respond to, like setting's time, place, and situation and character development.
Yes, the scene is an action scene and the nature of thoughts for up close and personal, intense action scenes don't allow for a lot of, if any, navel contemplation introspection; however, for intense action scenes, adrenalin's fight or flight reaction causes a hyper alertness and awareness of orientation to stimuli and to person, time, place, and situation. The Glasgow Coma scale triage nurses use to assess patients evaluates those very characteristics: responsiveness to stimuli, orientation to person, time, place, and situation on a scale of zero to five, zero being a coma.
In other words, "she" would be more alert and aware of her surroundings than the tunnel vision portrayed due to the situation. For example, use longer sentences to portray her sense of the setting but as a method for characterizing her, the situation, and the dramatic complication and perhaps larger-than-life stakes of the scene—features she would credibly have on her mind in the moment of the action. And use them to suspend or foreshorten story time as if she's hyped up on adrenaline the way a warrior credibly would be. In other words, linger in her perceptions and thoughts—never miss an opportunity to further develop setting, plot, idea, character, event, and discourse in any scene (SPICED).
Other interior discourse methods, punctuation that signals broken thoughts: use of em dashes, colons and semicolons, and perhaps occasional ellipses, either signaled by ellipsis points or not. Ellipsis points ought as a best practice signal omitted content easily understood but reserved for grammatically incomplete sentences. A grammatically complete ellipsis isn't typically marked with ellipsis points. What she said. Oh no she didn't (litotes too). In that case . . . I was thinking . . .
Facility with grammar's artful deployment holds many, many potent potentials for a creative writer. Grumpy old guy, I've seen you have an acute appreciation and mechanistic scholarly capability with mechanical style. Want to up your game—your art? Look to grammar for fulfilling the first writing Law, facilitate reading and comprehension ease and, most importantly, audience appeal.
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