Character Inner Monologue...ugh.

[DragonOfTheAerie]

So, I have a problem I've been coming across constantly in my WIP. I'm not sure how exactly to handle this, or how to fix it.

I'm struggling with how to show my character's thoughts in the narrative. She is a first-person narrator and she seems to think a lot. I have a ton of inner monologue going on all the time. And it's driving me CRAZY. I don't know why exactly; maybe there's too much of it, maybe it's too 'telly' and obvious. we've all heard 'show don't tell,' right? I don't place a lot of stock in writing 'rules' but whatever, this one is helpful oftentimes.

My character is constantly asking herself questions about what's going on, or telling us what's going on in her head. I use the words "I wondered" "I thought" "I realized" what seems to me like way too often. I have lots of passages like "I realized I couldn't trust X character, no matter what they claimed" or "I decided I wasn't going to give up." which show changes of heart or mind. But I keep thinking, there has to be a better way to show my character's priorities have shifted or that they don't trust a character than just SAYING it outright.

And the typical "show don't tell" solution is "show it through their actions..." But what do you do if your character is in turmoil and doesn't know what to do? What if they can't act? What if the struggle really is happening in their thoughts? My character spends lots of time indecisive about who to trust and what to do. I'm struggling with how to show this inner turmoil without long, boring passages of "I thought this. Then I thought this. Then I thought this. Then I thought this..."

Then there's when my character is trying to figure something out and is asking herself a barrage of questions. I have whole PARAGRAPHS like this: "Could I trust what X character said? I wouldn't put it past her to twist the truth, but to lie outright? Was what she had said about X thing true? What could I do other than trust her? Did I have any other options?" Paragraphs of that. It makes my brain start to leak out my nose, but I don't know how to trim those passages.

Not showing my character's thoughts would make her actions look illogical and ill-considered at best, and completely confusing at worst. Heck, I need to write this stuff out so *I* can figure out in *my* mind what's going on. I feel like the reader has to see it to get a full grasp of the situation too. I really don't know what to do.

I feel like my character's thoughts take up way too much space. Do other characters think this much? Is it my first person narration that's causing this? If these long inner monologues have to be kept, then I at least wish I knew a way to make them less painfully dull. Honestly I get sick of watching my character's indecision and I sense the reader will too...but does that mean I can't have a character be indecisive? I just don't know.

(You'll probably end up saying you need an example actually from the story. Yeah, I'll post one up in the morning, but as of now I'm up in my room posting on mobile away from the computer.)

 

[Heliotrope]

Ahh, first person is fun isn't it?

The thing about first person is that is basically is all inner monolog. Like, the whole framework of first person is that the person is telling the story from their own memory, so if it comes accross as telly as too much thinking that is par for the course.

However, there are ways to get around it being super obvious.

So, you noted that you tend to find phrasing like "I thought, I realized, I wondered." You can take all of those out. All of them.

So instead of:

I realized I couldn't trust X character, no matter what they claimed

You can just say:

I couldn't trust x character, no matter what they claimed.

Having a character ask themselves questions or debate with themselves is normal and good. But pick the key questions and then move on.

I really would need to see an example to understand where your concerns really lay... but for now I would suggest picking up a few books written in first and studying how that author shows the thoughts and feelings of the character.

 

[Svrtnsse]

So, you noted that you tend to find phrasing like "I thought, I realized, I wondered." You can take all of those out. All of them.

So instead of:

I realized I couldn't trust X character, no matter what they claimed

You can just say:

I couldn't trust x character, no matter what they claimed.

I'd like to second this. When you're writing internal monologue you can remove anything like beats and tags (if you want to). It should/will be obvious that it's internal thought anyway, and there's only one person speaking inside the mind of the character (if it isn't, then you may have to make that clear, unless... etc..)

If your character is asking themselves a question it should be clear that it's a question without you telling the reader they're asking themselves a question. Depending on how comfortable you are with it you may be able to just write down the thoughts themselves, without any explanation at all - like you're talking directly to the reader, sort of.

I write in third person, but I tend to try to do internal monologue in that way. Usually it's spread out between other things though, like chat lines or actions or such. Here's an example from a recent story though:

She had more important things to worry about.

Roy was gone. She was probably the reason he’d left, but it wasn’t her fault he’d not returned. Poor idiot. He’d never been good at dealing with things not turning out his way.

Him and her. That really hadn’t turned out the way he’d hoped for.

They’d had a good run. Growing up together – he’d been her sister’s best friend and she’d been the annoying kid sister that eventually grew into a person in her own right. They’d grown close, she and Roy. Became good friends, confidants. He was the closest thing to a brother she had ever known.

He’d wanted more, and in the end she’d served him a frying pan to the face and walked away. That had been bad. If he’d been a normal human he probably wouldn’t have survived. He’d been fine though. She’d checked his heartbeat before she left.

She hadn’t expected him to just leave and never come back though. That was a bit excessive. She’d just wanted him to take a hint and back off for a bit – not run away for ever.

This is Toini remember her old friend Roy who had a crush on her. It's not exactly internal monologue, but it's not straight up narrator voice either. Probably something in between (if someone knows the technical term, feel free to enlighten me).

Let's see if I can rewrite the first part in first person. It should be largely similar:

I had more important things to worry about.

Roy was gone. Probably left because of me, but it's not my stupid fault he did't return. Poor idiot. He was never any good with things not turning out his way.

Me and him. Yeah, that sure hadn't turned out like he'd hoped.

We had a good run. Grew up together - my sister's best friend and me just an annoying brat at the time. I grew up though. We grew closer, me and Roy. Good friends. Confidants. He was the closes thing to a brother I've ever had.

He'd wanted more though, and in the end I served him a frying pan to the face and left. Bad times. If he'd been human I'd probably have killed him. That was the last time I touched him. My fingers on his neck, feeling the pulse.

I never thought he'd just leave for ever though. A bit excessive that. He should have just taken the hint and backed off a bit - not leave permanently.

It's not an exact change from third person to first, but it's pretty close. I'd say the above now is all internal monologue. I don't know about anyone else, but when I just let my mind wander it's rare that words come up. It's more concepts, feelings, and images. I think it's fine to try and replicate this in writing by not adding in tags, or necessarily even using complete sentences (within limits). I feel it works, but I could be wrong.

 

[Heliotrope]

Yep,

I'll second, second Svrt.

First person is often very telly and deeply rooted in the narrator's voice, as they are 'telling' the story after all. It is a very different narrative strategy than say, third omni, where the narrative might be presented in such a way as "showing" the story as if it were a film. I think this is why many people either love first or hate it.

Here are the first few lines of my WIP:

My dad and I have two unspoken rules:

One: Never mention my mother.

Two: Avoid the landlady at all cost.

The first rule is easy. The second is challenging, especially when she is pounding on your door at six-thirty in the morning.

Mrs. Skein, our landlady, is the most feared woman in Bay Ridge. I can tell it’s her by the bleached hair sticking up above the half moon window on our front door and the way she screeches my dad’s name like a wounded ally cat.

Usually when she comes knocking my dad curses and escapes through the back door to the small garages we all have behind our single story units.

But we stay because she offers the cheapest rent in town, and I’ll tell you why: No heat, no hot water, no electricity between six p.m. and six a.m.

I’m not kidding.

Note how I have purposely deeply rooted the reader in the narrative voice ASAP. My narrator has grabbed hold of her role as the 'story teller'. I could have started with:

My dad and I lounged by the window one lazy Saturday morning when all of a sudden a pounding at our door warned the landlady was ready for a fight.

But that strategy woudn't have been as effective for estabishing narrator voice ASAP.

Trying to "show" in first person, is not always as effective as taking the storyteller reigns and telling throught personal thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

 

[cydare]

Another suggestion to add is ground long paragraphs of internal monologue by adding in some action. Ideally, she'd be physically pushing part of the plot forward (Getting to city X, creating object Y, etc), but every-day basic stuff is okay too. Even if she's alone in a room with only her thoughts for company, she can be doing the odd thing like shifting around from seat to seat, cleaning her room, indulging in an activity that soothes her if she's agitated...and so on, so forth.

So as a quick example:

It was hard to decide whether I could trust what CHARACTER said. I wouldn't put it past her to bend the truth, but to lie outright? I held the ribbon she'd given me in my hand, twisting and untwisting it around my fingers until I could feel its edges fray. Was she capable of that?

 

[Russ]

Helios first answer nails most of it but leaves out the fancy writing term for your problem.

I use the words "I wondered" "I thought" "I realized" what seems to me like way too often.

Using these terms is called "filtering" and it makes your writing weaker no matter what person you are writing in and creates greater distance between the protagonist and the reader, and can damage immersion. So it is not just bad with inner monologue.

Avoid filtering as much as possible. I am short on time this morning or I write a long segment on how to avoid it (my wife kicks my ass when I filter and she is great at avoiding it, I learned the hard way), instead just google filtering and writing and read a few of the articles on it. It can really improve your writing.

The amount of inner dialogue needed varies on the nature of the plot and the characters and your writing style. I would however suggest less navel gazing is better than more.

 

[FifthView]

"Filtering" is an interesting term. I've thought of what Russ is addressing in a slightly different way, but it comes to the same thing.

Your POV characters are like real people. They have introspective and "extrospective" modes. The vast majority of time, we operate in the extro- mode. We usually don't think about ourselves in the third person even when being introspective. One doesn't think, "I realized," but simply realizes.

Now, when relating an event to another person, we will often cast the tale with a kind of third person treatment, cast ourselves as a third person character, and say "I realized." But that's after-the-fact, not real-time. I.e., we are filtering a tale as a narrator outside the events, or at a distance from those events.

Such narration is not always bad, but the filtering automatically introduces a "separate narrator" vibe. In omniscient voices, this can work well. But in close first and close third, it's an intrusion.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Today, I wrote the word "Exposition" on a notebook as I planned some key internal monologue parts...and I put little hearts and smilies all around the words because this is my favorite part of writing, now.

I used to suffer from the "she thoughts" a lot. Now I just write like I'm telling someone something important. The less I do to it, the better it feels, even. Perhaps you are over-thinking HOW you're trying to tell, and you should just talk like you're having a conversation about something that matters a lot, to someone who cares a lot about it.

When people speak of constants, they choose two. Perhaps because three is too many, and one not nearly definitive enough to make a clear point. In Brazelton, those constants are the wind and the sea. Blessing and curse.

Hard men and women brave spring floods and autumn gales to pull crops from fertile delta soil, and desperate souls seek fortune upon the waves, aboard merchant ships that sometimes disappear over the horizon never to return. Raisa always knew she was one of those tempered souls, a survivor against the odds. It’s why she made her way to the port city in the first place. She was fit to do the work of a grown woman, and willing to labor for adequate room and board. After all, the two constants of Vaardnell must surely be work and hardship.

If Brazelton were likened to a person, it was a wretch in a sad state. Choking on the stench of sewage, bleeding money out of every orifice, and rapt with the pleasures of sex and drugs. Dressed in finery, though it was, underneath a veneer of palatial buildings and gaudy festivals, the city, with its bowels bound up by a self-serving government, limped like a retired courser. The real power was in the hands of trade guilds, and they preferred the dons’ designs of operating over the direction of an aging council and a hedonist mayor.

[paragraph omitted for brevity]

But the port authority didn’t look out for the people, and it didn’t look out for the city. Even the mayor didn’t have the power to command the harbormaster’s office. It predated any official governing body, and as an ancient institution, laid in place by the merchant founders of the city, it functioned in autonomy. Which made it the perfect target for a scam of don-sized proportion. And if Raisa and Lion succeeded in their con, Raisa’s split would line all her jewelry boxes with enough gold to have any kind of life she wanted, anywhere she wanted to go.

One of the funny things about dying is that people do it every day, but don’t really think about it. Does the porter dress for work, expecting to be crushed that afternoon under a slipped crate? Does the milkmaid anticipate she’ll be kicked in the head by a moody cow and spend three days unconscious before the swelling in her skull proves fatal?

For many years, Cyril was prepared to accept his likely fate. Part and parcel for those who worked as mercenaries. If anything, he’d lived longer than he should have. But he’d always had confidence in his magical healing to see him through the day-to-day threats most swords-for-hire faced. It was only when that power was beyond his reach that he found cause to worry. And the more it slipped away, threatening to be the thing that did him in, the worse the worrying got.

The other funny thing about dying is that no matter how a person prepares, knowing it’ll one day come, it doesn’t change the terror of staring at death in the mirror. When faced with the knowledge that their days are numbered, most people start to live like they’ve never lived before. They drink like there’s no reason to face the day sober. They **** their friends’ wives, maybe welcoming the possibility of a quick death by a friendly blade. Cyril had seen it plenty, before campaigns, before boarding the ships that would return home half empty.

Even the downtrodden and destitute, or the lost souls who had nothing left to live for felt it. Cyril felt it. And he had as little reason to live as anyone.

An idyllic lake in a pleasant hill region might look a paradise to the untrained eye. Fog rising in the brisk autumn air, blanketing the quaint town in a dreamy haze. But for Cyril, it was far from a happy homecoming.

When he last left Mist, he had a girl he loved, a baby daughter he cherished, and a free spirit that belonged only to him. Returning, after so many years away, brought a flood of memories back, both good and bad. Mostly bad, reminding him just how little he had to live for

A lot of this exposition stuff I avoided for the last few years, thinking it "weak" and inherently "bad" but the more I use it, the more I love it. I think this is the easiest way I find to get a character's voice and thoughts across, maybe amuse at the same time, and it's faster than showing every single thing that happens. If you scale exposition back to its most primitive form, it is probably not an extremely useful tool to over-use. Statements like, "It was hot. The harbor was closed." They do a job, sure, and short sentences that are direct do absolutely serve a purpose. But I avoided all exposition because no matter what I wrote, it felt just that basic and dull. But then I just let my actual weird voice peek through the character's words, and I'm having a blast with including exposition. So excited that I can't wait to jot down some reflective scenes that I can include in the next book I'm rewriting.

Hope that helps. Try to feel less anxious and just let your natural speaking voice flow. That always sounds like terrible advice, but it's some of the best I've ever given/ gotten.

 

[Jackarandajam]

Fight Club is my favorite reference for excellent FPN

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

ok, I said I would post an example, and forgot somehow...