How to Write Interiority: Read Deep to Write Better Fiction-The Micro Elements Part 2
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We’re continuing on with our deep dive into the micro elements of a story, dissecting them to improve our fiction writing.
Last time, we chatted about Action, Dialogue, and Description, and now we’ll turn our attention to Interiority.
I was going to include inner monologue and voice here because both are so intricately woven with interiority, but I’ll have to save them for next time. If you’re going to read one of my novels, I want it to be my fiction, LOL. Plus, voice is kind of a mystical beast deserving of its own spotlight.
Again, remember that this is all about deep reading and dissection. So prepare to sloooow down and find a novel that gives you the “Whoa, I want to write something like that” factor, crack it open, and let’s analyze.
Interiority is ultimately a stylistic choice, so how much or how little you notice will vary by book and author. We’ll get into when and how much to use in a minute, but the bottom line is to use enough to deliver the moment’s meaning to the reader. Don’t sacrifice words if it means letting go of vital context.
What is Interiority?
Interiority is the inside life of the POV character: the thoughts, reflections, and feelings that are not voiced via dialogue or implied with action or gesture.
Interiority is looking directly inside the character’s head and heart. From it, we understand their emotions, motivations, decision-making process, and psychological states, which can be very different from their actions on the page. (It’s so fun when it is!) It allows the reader to understand the character’s perspectives and empathize with their experiences.
As I said, a big part of interiority is the character’s inner monologue, which is the character’s thoughts. We’ll talk about different ways to handle that in another article, but it’s not the whole thing. Interiority is also about showing emotion by expressing the character’s physical feelings, the way the situation is creating a physical manifestation in their body.
For now, let’s look at a couple of examples to help us pick out interiority and see how it affects the moment, informs our experience as readers, and contributes to the show-don’t-tell rule that we all have hammered into our heads.
Examples of Interiority - look for the bold script below:
Example 1: No Interiority
Here’s a passage with no interiority: imagine a couple driving on a highway.
“Let’s stop to eat,” John said as he shifted gears.
“I don’t know,” Shelby replied as she forced a smile.
“We have time,” John countered.
In this example, emotion is absent. We have no idea what is going on, and we don’t even know who the POV character is.
Example 2: Weak Interiority
Here’s an example of interiority that just repeats what’s already on the page. It doesn’t lend to a deeper understanding of the characters in any way that makes us feel something, and it’s very telling.
“Let’s stop to eat,” John said as he shifted gears.
“I don’t know,” Shelby replied as she forced a smile. She wasn’t really hungry. Her stomach still felt uncomfortably full from the big meal they’d had the night before.
“We have time,” John countered. True, they did. They weren’t due in Atlanta for another couple of hours, so why not? She could just have some coffee. John wouldn’t care.
Ugh. So there’s interiority here, but it’s boring and telling.
Can you, as the reader, feel anything from these sentences? Can you make connections and infer motivation and deeper meaning?
Nope.
You don’t have to because you were told how to feel and what to think about. I “authorsplained” you, locked you out of the experience, and limited your participation.
Example 3:
Okay, let’s try again, but this time, we’ll use interiority to let the reader inside the character’s mind and heart. Keep your fingers crossed because I made it up on the fly.
“Let’s stop to eat,” John said as he shifted gears.
“I don’t know,” Shelby replied as she forced a smile. Five months in this joke of a marriage had taught her one thing about the fat bastard in the passenger seat: the only thing John consistently thought of was his big ol’ gut. Certainly not her, and thank god for that, or how in less than two hours they’d be at the funeral and finally put that son-of-a-bitch, good-for-nothing, father-in-law of hers in the ground. After that, the money would come easy and she could practically taste the freedom it would buy her.
“We have time,” John countered. Yeah, time. You think you’ve got all the time in the world, don’t ya, Johnnie-boy? Newsflash buddy. You don’t. Because you’re going in the ground next.
What did you notice? What did you learn about Shelby, our POV character? What emotions did you detect?
Here, we’re meant to feel irritation, disdain, and disgust and pick up on the motives of deceit, revenge, greed, and murder.
Notice that Shelby’s interiority was mostly around her reflections and thoughts about how the moment was affecting her. It also gave us an indication of her desires, hopes, and expectations, which created a sense of anticipation for her future. As a bonus, Shelby’s interiority also gives John characterization.
It’s important to note that you were not told how Shelby feels. I didn’t tell you that she felt disdain. I didn’t say her stomach twisted in disgust as she thought of John’s big ol’ gut or that she was angry with her father-in-law and glad he was dead.
If I did my job well, I didn’t have to. You, as the reader, were able to make those connections for yourself and hopefully enjoyed doing so. This is trusting the reader and yourself as a writer; both take time and practice to learn to do.
Example 4:
Let’s try again, but come at it from another angle and shoot for different emotions:
“Let’s stop to eat,” John said as he shifted gears.
“I don’t know,” Shelby replied as she forced a smile, hoping it was enough to make her husband relax. He was always thinking of her, worried for her. She desperately wanted to be okay, to have an appetite again, to not vomit the supplement shakes, to run a goddamn brush through the wiry hair she used to complain about and no longer had. But the truth was none of those things were going to happen. Not with the chemical cocktails regularly pumped into her bloodstream despite her prognosis.
Palliative care.
What a bullshit word. Why didn’t they just call it what it really meant: a distraction while they waited for you to waste away?
“We have time,” John countered. An ache formed in her chest. Oh, John, baby. Time was the one thing they didn’t have, and he knew it too.
What did you notice? What did you learn about Shelby, the POV character, and her husband, John? What emotions did you detect?
In this example, we’re meant to feel ache, loss, anger, sadness, longing, love, and fear of the future. We’re also meant to pick up on the motives of two people trying to comfort themselves and each other against a hard truth: Shelby is going to die of cancer.
That’s a long way from the first example where we thought two people were simply talking about getting something to eat, right?!
As you can see, interiority provides us with context and illuminates the inside life of our characters and you don’t have to tell the reader blatantly what the character is feeling. You can still convey the emotions you want to communicate effectively by choosing how to do so based on their thoughts and why.
When to Use Interiority and How Much?
This is a challenging question, one there is no hard fast answer for.
It depends on the character, their inner workings, the situation, what you want the reader to feel, and your style.
But all too often, I see writers leave out interiority.
Part of this is the writer’s curse of knowledge, meaning that you, as the writer, understand what is motivating your character and how they feel. Because of that, it is easy to forget to put it on the page in a way that allows a reader to experience it. More often, writers worry they are telling vs. showing if they allow the reader to know what the character thinks and feels. This is NOT the case. Not if it’s done well, in a way that lets the reader participate and make inferences.
Solution: Err on the side of caution and overdo the interiority because you can always pull it out later if it’s overkill.
Every time something happens in the story that your character should react to–make them react on the page. Show the reader how it affects them by putting words to their thoughts, feelings, and reflections. Show us that they experience physical manifestations in their bodies. Doing so will provide us with the context to understand how the moment affects them and make sense of what they want and will do next.
Now, there are times when interiority isn’t necessary.
I like Donald Maass’s example in The Emotional Craft of Fiction, where he uses a scene from Matthew Quick’s The Silver Linings Playbook to demonstrate when interiority isn’t needed and why.
The scene is told in first person POV by the main character, Pat Peoples. Pat has bipolar disorder and is in a lobby waiting to see his new psychiatrist when a song plays over the loudspeaker. This song triggers Pat into an emotionally painful and violent outburst. But the author only shows what the reader can visualize: Pat kicking the table, turning over chairs, screaming, and later, his mother rubbing his back and being ushered into the psychiatrist’s office.
There’s not one ounce of Pat’s interiority on the page.
Why?
There are two reasons:
We don’t need it to experience how hard this is on Pat.
Pat’s inner life is so volatile and erratic that it would be chaos to describe, probably too chaotic for the reader to make sense of.
So, the author chose to show action instead. The writing reads more like a report, but you still feel the moment and understand the context. Nothing is lost due to the lack of interiority.
If you haven’t read The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass, I highly recommend it!
Why Interiority Gives Us So Much Mileage and Makes Novels Unique
To me, interiority is the true playground of fiction. It’s where we can have fun with juxtaposition and watch our protagonist misdirect other characters for their own gain.
It allows us to deeply understand who our characters are and what they don’t want anyone else to see. This fact alone drives the beauty and uniqueness of narrative fiction–you can’t get inside a character’s head in a movie like you can in a novel.
But a word of caution:
I love interiority, and many writers, especially those who are particularly empathetic, love it too. We get into the feels of it all. This means we are also at risk of navel-gazing (characters being in their heads for copious amounts of time where nothing else happens), so interiority must play by the same rules as the rest of the micro elements: It must advance the plot or inform the reader of a new or deeper understanding of the character and their situation.
Deep Reading Exercises For Interiority:
Pull out those pens and highlighters.
Select a couple of passages or chapters from a novel you love.
Note the POV choice, and each time the narrator peels back the curtain and lets you step directly into the character’s mind and body.
Questions to ask:
Why did they do that? Why was now the time to let you peek behind the curtain?
How did it allow you to understand the situation better?
Did it provide the context to understand the moment and how the character was affected?
Does it inform what might happen next?
Did it give you a deeper understanding of the character, and did it help move the narrative forward?
Did the author tell you explicitly how the character felt, or did they show it instead? Pick out examples of where this occurred.
How did you experience the scene as the reader?
What emotions did you register from the character? Did you experience any feelings different from what the character was experiencing?
Take the next step and apply this to your writing:
Type up a passage or two from the text you’ve selected.
Highlight all the interiority and name the emotions you notice.
Then delete the parts you just highlighted. Read it through. How does it feel? Can you make sense of it? What did you lose by removing the interiority?
Now, do your own thing. Add in your version of interiority. Play with it. Change the situation and context entirely and see what happens. Have fun!
Remember, no words are wasted, even the practice ones…because, honestly, it’s all practice!
Writing is a craft we will never perfect. There is always more to learn and different ways to do it. The more you write, the more you’ll learn and the more you’ll want to.
