Friday, February 11, 2022

Working with Internal Monologue--When Narrators Think, Remember, or Talk with Themselves on the Page

Internal monologue can be one of those complicated craft decisions for fiction and memoir writers. When to use it well, when it's not needed, what style it uses to properly show itself on the page.

Not hard to recognize: most stories have brief moments when the narrator--yourself in memoir, the point-of-view character in fiction--pauses to reflect.

They think, remember, or talk with themselves on the page, but it's all happening inside their heads, not aloud. So it doesn't fall under the regular craft guidelines that dialogue relies on.

In fact, it's a tricky beast with constantly changing rules to use it properly.