Critique: 4 Ways to Write Gripping Internal Narrative

The old joke about how “the book was better than the movie” is a reflection of several attributes written fiction offers over visual fiction. One of the main ones is the ability to get inside characters’ heads via internal narrative.

Narrative, by its very nature, is narrated by someone. Usually, that someone is the protagonist. The “deeper” or “closer” the POV, the more important it is that narrative choices be crafted to reflect the narrating character’s internal landscape. Even in distant or omniscient POVs, in which the narration doesn’t pretend to issue from the characters’ heads but simply observes and/or reports, readers are still given at least glimpses of the characters’ interiority.

In many ways the subject of internal narrative is also the subject of POV (point of view). And POV, as any student of narrative fiction knows, is often one of the most difficult subjects for writers to understand and execute.

Today, I want to largely divorce internal narrative from the bigger questions of POV (e.g., “when and how is it okay to use different characters’ thoughts in certain POVs?” or “what are the nuances of writing a close versus a distant POV?”). Instead, as part of our ongoing series of “excerpt analyses,” I want to explore some common challenges writers face in trying to write internal narrative that is both functional and engaging.

Learning From Each Other: WIP Excerpt Analysis

Today’s post is the fourth in an ongoing series in which I am analyzing the excerpts you all have shared with me. My approach to these critiques is a little different from those you normally see on writing blogs. Instead of editing each piece, I’m focusing on one particular lesson that can be drawn from each excerpt, so we can deep-dive into the logic and process of various useful techniques.

Today, my thanks to Darrell Ferguson for sharing the following excerpt from his portal fantasy Escape From Paradise. Let’s take a look! (The bolded entries and superscript numbers will correspond with the tips I’ll talk about in subsequent sections.)

Frozen in place, Adam drew a trembling breath.1

“Come on, Adam! You can do it!” Jimmy shouted from the water below.

From atop the waterslide, Adam looked down at the neighborhood pool. “I’m coming!” He sounded braver than he felt. Jimmy had a way of inspiring courage, and Adam was eager to impress his big brother.2

“I just need a second,” he whispered to himself, trying to calm his racing heart. A deep breath, then another. I can do it. All I have to do is … let … GO!

Adam released his death grip on the rails, his stomach pushed up into his chest and he became weightless, falling more than sliding. I don’t want to do this! Too late to change his mind.3 He braced for impact.

Plunging into the muffled depths, his flash of regret gave way to exhilaration. That was so scary … and fun! I’m going again!4

Adam smiled under the water. There was nothing he enjoyed more than going to the pool with his family. Being under water on such a hot day felt good. Adam took a moment to enjoy the cool refreshment before he started swimming toward the surface.

Wow, this pool is deeper than I thought. His arms strained against the water as he pulled himself upward. Why was it taking so long to get up? He swam harder. I need to breathe! His smooth stroke turned to a panicked dogpaddle. He had never been under water this long before. His thinking became cloudy and he could feel his consciousness beginning to slip away.

Finally, he broke the surface with a splash and gulped in the precious air. He was so relieved to have made it that it took several more breaths before he realized, Something’s wrong with this air. It seemed thin—even worse than times when he and his dad had climbed at high altitude. This air wasn’t just thin. It was … empty.

Most of what we’re seeing in these opening paragraphs is internal narrative. We are in the protagonist’s head, seeing and experiencing what he sees and experiences. I’m going to talk about some of the specific ways the internal narrative could be tightened for a stronger effect, but first note how much more immediate and intimate the final paragraph is compared to what comes before. This is because the final paragraph uses almost all the techniques we’ll talk be talking about.

4 Tips for Internal Narrative That Grabs Readers

The broadest understanding of internal narrative is that it is any part of the story that “takes place inside your character’s head.” In short, internal narrative is your character’s thoughts.

But it can be more than that too. The technique of the deep POV is designed to create the impression that the story is being told by (first-person) or from (third-person) the narrating character. When done well, this technique removes as much distance as possible between the narrating protagonist and the reader, allowing the reader full immersion in the story and encouraging total identification with the narrator. Most genre novels these days are written in deep POVs, of varying degrees.

When writing from a deep POV, it can be useful to think of the entire narrative as internal narrative. In most stories, this won’t mean the character is literally thinking every word shared with readers. But even in dealing with non-thought aspects (feelings, intentions, reactions, observations, etc.), the narrative will be crafted in such a way that readers always feel as if they are seeing everything through the narrator’s eyes. As we’ll get into in a bit, one of the best ways of achieving this effect is by creating a recognizable and consistent voice for your character/narrative.

In our last critique, I talked about common “show, don’t tell” mistakes. I also talked about how the art of “showing” is really the entire art of narrative fiction. What this means, of course, is that much of the art of dramatizing a character’s interiority overlaps considerably with smart “showing” techniques.

Lively narrative voices are those that show readers what the narrator is experiencing, rather than simply reporting it back. If you can master the basics of internal narrative, you’ll have taken a huge step on your way to engaging readers in your story.

Let’s take a look at four important components of skillful internal narrative.

1. Use Your Narrator’s Voice to Influence Every Word Choice

The key to leveraging internal narrative is to use it to both power your narrator’s voice and to infuse that voice into every moment of the story. (This is true even if you’re using a distant narrator who presents the effect of observing the characters’ actions rather than participating in them.)

Optimally, your narrative’s voice must simultaneously and subconsciously signal several things to readers:

1. What person is this story being told in? (Third-person, in the case of our excerpt.)

2. How deep is this POV? (The POV in the excerpt actually feels quite distant and on-the-nose due to all the direct thoughts, but probably was intended to be deep in light of how much time we’re spending explicitly in the character’s head.)

3. Who is this character? (The voice presented in the excerpt, starting with the opening line, creates a feeling of observatory distance from the protagonist, which both prevents the effect of readers seeing events through the character’s eyes and skips the opportunity to immediately introduce the character via a potentially engaging inner voice.)

Until you’ve found your character’s voice, it can be difficult to pull off seamlessly engaging internal narrative. But once you have, the narrative will often write itself.

2. Use Irony and Subtext at Every Opportunity

How can you create a voice that conveys your character’s personality and interiority in every line of your narrative?

One of the single best ways to create and infuse voice into a narrative is to use ironic subtext. Straightforward narratives that spell out everything for readers often comes across as dull, even when trying to convey thrilling action. Mostly, this is because straightforward or on-the-nose narration offers only a single character dimension.

But when the narrative is as much about what the character isn’t saying or is creating an ironic juxtaposition between what the character is saying and what the reader understands as the subtext—wowza! Suddenly, great things happen.

Sarcasm is an easy example of ironic subtext. But even uncomplicated subtext can add layers to a character’s internal narrative. This happens when readers are shown for themselves why something is so, rather than being told, as they are in the excerpt’s third paragraph: “Jimmy had a way of inspiring courage, and Adam was eager to impress his big brother.”

We’re told Adam has a motivating connection with his brother, but because it’s spelled out for us, it lacks emotional resonance. We’re told what to think, rather than being shown by first being drawn deeply into Adam’s interiority.

3. Choose Indirect Thoughts Over Direct Thoughts 99% of the Time

Okay, so I pulled that percentage out of my ear. But you get the idea.

Direct thoughts are distinguished from the rest of the narrative, usually by being presented in first-person and present tense, but also sometimes by being punctuated differently (italicization being the most common and, for my money, most functional approach). We see direct thoughts peppered throughout the excerpt, including the fourth paragraph with the protagonist’s panicked, “I don’t want to do this!”

Indirect thoughts, by contrast, are phrased to flow with the rest of the narrative, usually by being presented in the same person and tense. The excerpt follows up the above-mentioned direct thought with a good example of an indirect thought: “Too late to change his mind.”

The great benefit of direct thoughts is the immediacy they provide. But their great drawback is that, used too often or too inconsistently, they can actually pull readers out of the narrative rather than immersing them more deeply. By contrast, indirect thoughts masquerade as part of the main narrative, which strengthens the effect that the entire story is being filtered through a single narrator’s experience.

4. Show, Don’t Tell

The amazing versatility of internal narrative makes it one your best tools for powerfully showing readers what your narrator is experiencing. However, it can also be easily misused as a shortcut for telling readers what to think and feel about the story.

The excerpt’s sixth paragraph offers two different examples of telling. The first sentence starts with a bit of showing that uses strong verbs, adjectives, and nouns (“plunging into the muffled depths”), but then gives way to telling readers what the character is feeling (“regret gave way to exhilaration”) instead of evoking empathetic feelings. (You may remember from our last critique analysis that you should “.”)

The second sentence in this paragraph offers direct thoughts: “That was so scary … and fun! I’m going again!” In a way, the direct thoughts are “showing,” since they directly dramatize something that’s happening. However, because the content of the thoughts is on the nose, the effect feels more like “telling.”

In essence, readers are being told the slide was scary. This bit of internal narrative is not only unnecessary in light of the “showing” in the previous paragraph (“his stomach pushed up into his chest and he became weightless, falling more than sliding”), but also contributes to a stiff internal voice.

***

At the end of the day, great internal narrative is simply great narrative. As such, it’s no wonder internal narrative is one of the most complex and challenging techniques for writers to master. So many different tricks and tools come into play, all of which must be mastered to pull off a seamless effect. When you do pull it off, the result is an immediately recognizable “it factor” that will be spotted by any reader browsing your pages.

My thanks to Darrell for sharing his excerpt, and my best wishes for his story’s success. Stay tuned for more analysis posts in the future!

You can find previous excerpt analyses linked below:

5 Ways to Successfully Start a Book With a Dream
How to Use Paragraph Breaks to Guide the Reader’s Experience
8 Quick Tips for Show, Don’t Tell

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! What do you think is the key to great internal narrative? Tell me in the comments!

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