by Stephanie Morrill
Stephanie writes young adult contemporary novels and is the creator of GoTeenWriters.com. Her novels include The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series (Revell) and The Revised Life of Ellie Sweet (Playlist). You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and check out samples of her work on her author website.
When we do Go Teen Writers contests, one of the feedback boxes that our judges can check is that an entry had “too much internal monologue.” One of our writers asked me to explain in more detail what this means.
Internal monologue refers to the thought life of your point of view (POV) character. Often, it follows an action: (Internal monologue is bold in this situation.)
Susie dropped the plate. Well, that was dumb.
Internal monologue is a good and necessary component to make the character resonate with the audience, but like all elements in writing, it has to be balanced. Too much slows down the story. Too little makes the character read thin and you risk losing the closeness between the character and reader.
Here’s an example where the internal monologue is too heavy:
Susie dropped the plate. Well that was dumb. But hadn’t her mother always said she had the worst case of butter fingers?
“Can I help you, Susie?” John called from the living room.
He was probably only offering because he saw how rude her own husband was to her. “I’m fine, thank you!” She wished her voice didn’t crackle like that when she talked.
She should have washed these dishes last night so she didn’t have to deal with the pile of plates right now. That hadn’t been smart at all. Tom hated the sight of dirty dishes.
See how slow this is? If it keeps going at this pace, it’ll feel like hour five of Susie clearing the table and beating herself up over it.
And here’s an example where the internal monologue is too light:
Susie dropped the plate.
“Can I help you, Susie?” John called from the living room
“I’m fine, thank you.” Her voice crackled like always. In the kitchen, she was greeted with last night’s dishes. And Tom hated the sight of dirty dishes.
The pacing of this is a lot snappier, but we’re also missing out on Susie’s feelings throughout this scene and because of that, we don’t understand her state of mind. This last example is a better blend of action and internal monologue:
Susie dropped the plate. Her constant butter fingers would be the death of her someday – maybe literally.
“Can I help you, Susie?” John called from the living room.
He was probably only offering because he saw how rude her own husband was to her. “I’m fine, thank you!” Her voice crackled like always.
In the kitchen, she was greeted with last night’s dishes. Why, oh why, didn’t she do the dishes last night? Tom hated the sight of dirty dishes.
Refining your story’s internal monologue is best taken care of in the editing process, but there are a few things you can do in the first draft to help guide what you put in and what you don’t:
- Pick a dominant emotion in a scene. Is it surprise? Is it anger? To make that emotion pop, you want to choose internal monologue that reflects it. In the scenes above, Susie’s dominant emotion is fear of her abusive husband. So when the writer dips into her thought life, that’s what they should highlight.
- If the dominant emotion of your character switches mid-scene, make sure to show that. Say John walks in to help Susie, and he starts to rinse dishes. Now Susie’s dominate feeling isn’t fear of Tom, but it’s something else. Shyness from having a man she doesn’t know scrubbing her dirty plates. Warmth from being shown a kindness. Mistrust because she’s come to expect that men don’t do anything out of the goodness of their heart, and she thinks John must want something from her.
- Leave off the “he thought” or “she thought.” If you’re deep in your POV character’s head, there’s no need for it.
- Use italics sparingly. Many new writers are under the impression that internal monologue should be italicized, but that gets old quickly. I’ve posted about the use of italics here.
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Go Teen Writers
by Stephanie Morrill
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