Stream of Consciousness

[ccv707]

Just curious on who else here uses stream of consciousness in their work. Ever since I wrote my first novel-length ms, I've employed this narrative style. I find that using the characters own thought processes makes the story more interesting to follow--it increases the intensity of the fast-paced scenes, and helps to flesh out the quieter moments when the characters stop speaking.

I understand that most people here already know what stream of consciousness is, both the narrative style and the psychology term, which are two sides of the same coin really. However, for those who aren't quite sure, here's a link...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_consciousness_(narrative_mode)

[Cyia]

I definitely do. And your reasoning is almost verbatim what one of the agents who read my MS said about how SoC intensified the action/suspense of the story.

[backslashbaby]

I love SoC and enjoy using it in works. My current WIP can't have too much of it for various reasons, but it's still there (SoC Lite ;) ).

[CheyElizabeth]

Yes! this is my favorite way to write.. I feel that it makes the story wayyy more interesting.

I didn't know this is what it was called, so thanks for the info =)

[C.M.C.]

I've tried it before, but it doesn't allow me to write with the density and flourish that I like.

[Cybernaught]

I've read enough Joyce to know I really don't want to read (let alone write) him anymore.

[Jimmy McAdams]

I do this, as well. I feel this method is better than planning everything out with too many details, since the characters' actions were always the best way of shaping the action scenes and story for me.

[BravoYankee]

I definitely like to use it. Helps the MC build his "character", plus its very fun to write.

[Matera the Mad]

The Wikipedia link goes to a page that doesn't exist. Eithier it mutated that fast, or...

[Judg]

Or it needed the parentheses closed at the end...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_consciousness_(narrative_mode) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_consciousness_(narrative_mode))

[ccarver30]

I have never heard of this yet I use it. LOL

[ElsaM]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but I'm not familiar with the term. What's the difference between stream of consciousness narration and first person perspective? Is there any? I had a look at the wikipedia article and it's still not clear to me.

[backslashbaby]

[See link to source at bottom]

There are variations, but the ideas are more rambling than usually found in other forms of narrative. I don't know if it's good practice to do this less heavy-handedly (as I do), but you can see that different authors do it different ways:

A further example of stream of consciousness is found in I Stand Here Ironing, by Tillie Olsen.

You do not guess how new and uneasy her tenancy in her now-loveliness. You did not know her all those years she was thought homely, or see her poring over her baby pictures, making me tell her over and over how beautirful she had been-and would be, I would tell her-and was now to the seeing eye.

Olsen describes the thoughts running through a mother's head concerning her daughter. The thoughts flow in a pattern reminiscent of how thoughts run through the human mind.

Stream of consciousness is also found in a sample of David Kaplan's, Doe Season.

They were the same woods that lay behind her house, and they stretch all the way to here, she thought, for miles and miles, longer than I could walk in a day, or a week even, but they are still the same woods. The though made her feel good: it was like thinking of God; it was like thinking of the space between here and the moon; it was like thinking of all the foreign countries from her geography book where even now Andy knew, people were going to bed, while they-she and her father and Charlie Spoon and Mac, Charlie's eleven-year-old son-were driving deeper into the Pennsylvania countryside, to go hunting.

In this situation, like the others, a person's thoughts are represented by many sentences related by the fact that they are connected by a stream of logic, one thought neccesarily leading to the next, and stemming from, the previous. [my bolding]


http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:JGfhAsyh5s0J:www.northern.edu/benkertl/short_fiction_dictionary.html+stream+of+consciousn ess+example&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

[Kateri]

I also write SOC. I thought it was a form of babbling. I feel better now. Thanks for all the great info. and links everyone.

[ccv707]

Well, many all-time great writers have employed this narrative technique, and one can hardly say William Faulkner babbles!

I didn't know about it when I first started writing about twelve years ago, but I always used it. It wasn't until a few years later when I was reading probably the most insightful book on the craft of writing, On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner, where he discusses it in great detail, that I understood.

I believe it creates more personal characters, and allows you to reveal certain levels of character development without having to spell things out--in the process patronizing and alienating readers AND belittling your own skills.

[Willowmound]

I just wanted to say, I don't.

[SarahMacManus]

I use it, but not heavy-handedly, I hope.

[White-Tean]

I always use SoC (though like backslashbaby mine is more SoC Lite). I mean, I can't necessarily use it well yet and not make it clunky (occasionally mine bogs down the story and diverts things too much which is what I'm working on) but it's great for advancing my sci-fi story which is very character driven. Plus the story is also a bit of caper and cleverness for all that it takes itself quite seriously, and I think it's good to give readers hints of exactly how clever a small number of the characters are - although I'm writing my first draft only from one viewpoint in order to get a better handle on the MC because her motivations and decisions (though we don't see all of them) are integral to the story.

[backslashbaby]

I think it is wonderful when used in a story it fits, but it has its drawbacks, too.

imho:

-- It can be hard to fit into the overall voice of a work that has a lot of "plot" or dialogue.

-- It can be difficult to tell what is happening. Is it similar to poetry in a good way, or does it take the reader out of the story if he has to re-read particularly vague parts? (I love vague, btw, in the right work).

-- It doesn't fit all POVs

The voice and POV issues are why it's not the right fit for my current WIP. And the vagueness, although I hope to have enough SoC in there to capitalize on that mysteriousness while pulling the reader close in some parts. Dunno! It might not fit at all, darnit.

[ccarver30]

I also write SOC. I thought it was a form of babbling. I feel better now. Thanks for all the great info. and links everyone.

LOL Me too! I'm glad it has a real definition. :)

[NatJM]

I use it very sporadically. I have read a few badly written stories using this device so I don't quite trust it/myself with using it.

[ccv707]

Well, it's up to the writer to keep things from being too vague. If it's done right, it won't bog the story down or be too confusing to follow along.

[ElsaM]

Thanks for the explanation, backslashbaby. I don't think I use it at the moment, but I'd be interested in trying it out. Maybe in my next short story.

[LAWolf]

Doesn't fit my style. I personally struggle when reading SoC, but there's some works of SoC that I really enjoyed.

[Izz]

I use it if it fits the story or the character from whose viewpoint the story (or that part of it) is being told. If it doesn't fit, then i don't use it.

It's basically the same reason that i enjoy mayo with my scrambled eggs, but don't enjoy chocolate sauce with them. But i love chocolate sauce with my icecream, but mayo not so much.

It's all about whether it adds or detracts to the story-telling experience of that particular story.

[Arkie]

I assume SOC is not edited, because that would require thinking about it, and once thought about, it is no longer SOC.

[Dawnstorm]

I assume SOC is not edited, because that would require thinking about it, and once thought about, it is no longer SOC.

Pretty much, though terminology varies. Some people use it very restrictively (referring only to the Joycean technique in Ulysses as stream of consciousness), while others use it as the "thing" to be represented, and they have different names for the literary techniques. It's a mess, terminology-wise, but then what isn't?

Here's one way it could go:

Stream of consciousness:

...n im typin typin thinkin writin what to what to write is difficult makes no sense not very coherent am I...

Edited Stream of consciousness/Interior Monologue

And I'm typing. Thinking. Writing. What to write? It's difficult, makes no sense. Not very coherent, am I?

Free indirect discourse:

And he was typing, thinking, writing. What to write? It was difficult, made no sense. Not very coherent, was he?

[And all the things inbetween...]

[Izz]

I assume SOC is not edited, because that would require thinking about it, and once thought about, it is no longer SOC.If it's your stream of consciousness, maybe. But if it's a character's stream of consciousness...

[ccv707]

Yes, there is a difference between your own stream of consciousness and the character's, although they were similar in nature. But generally I employ both methods (whenever I can get into the "groove").

[Adelaide]

Like most people have said, I use it/appreciate it when it is fitting. If overdone or misplaced, it can be distracting. Though I am not particularly fond of A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway, I think the places where he used stream of consciousness were appropriate: during battle when the MC was getting wounded; sometimes when he was drunk; when his wife was in critical condition. His mind was reeling at those moments. We use punctuation markers for breath and separation of ideas. When there are none it seems proper to eschew them.

[Bufty]

ccv707, these are mammoth manuscripts under your signature.

Are they edited or just raw SofC?

If they are the latter...hmmm.

[gonovelgo]

I'm really not a fan of stream of consciousness. It can be used effectively, particularly in first-person narratives, but I don't think I'll ever manage to get through an entire story that's all (or mostly) composed of it.

[Cyia]

ccv707, these are mammoth manuscripts under your signature.

Are they edited or just raw SofC?

If they are the latter...hmmm.

Uh... no kidding. Do you realize how long these "books" would be? The ENTIRE Harry Potter SERIES weighed in at around 800,000 words. That's pretty close to your "4th". Try stacking all of the HP books on top of each other and imagining: A. a binding that would actually fit them, and B. a single person who would pick it up to read as a single volume.


3rd--completed 740,999 words
4th--completed 791,432 words
5th--completed 444,488 words

[Bubastes]

I assume SOC is not edited, because that would require thinking about it, and once thought about, it is no longer SOC.

I disagree. SoC gives the illusion of sponteneity, which may require some serious editing to pull off.

I don't mind reading SoC if it makes sense for the story, but it's like salt -- too much ruins it for me.

[ccv707]

They are complete manuscripts, though each one is divided into several parts. The first book in the series, the 3rd ms, is three parts, the second book (4th ms) is four, and the third book (5th ms) is two. The final two whole books in the series haven't been written yet, each consisting of two parts. The complete series will be 13 "acts", in five complete novel sequences. It will end up being published (with any luck) as 13 books in five thematically related story arcs.

The first book in the series (3rd ms) is the last book, chronologically--the series is made up of prequels, where the following book in the series is the prequel of the previous one. The second book takes place about thirty-twenty years before the first, elaborating on a massive war that took place in the past. The third book is over a thousand years before that, about how the government that exists in the preceding books was created. The next one is a couple hundreds years prior to that, and the final book is set at the beginning of time.

I realize they are massive. The first book is edited (I trimmed out 40,000 words) and the second book is mostly edited. I have tried to trim them down even more, but taking any more away from the story will only hinder the scope of the series itself--I'm telling these stories from the point of view of roughly sixty or seventy major characters, from different time periods and different sides of whatever conflict is taking place. It is meant to detail the "philosophy of the universe" that I've been developing for the past ten years.

I'm not naive enough to say that these will definitely get published in their current form. This is why they may not be the first manuscripts I hope to get published. I have others already completed (a couple I actually didn't list in my sig because of the character limit) and about ten more that I've already planned and plotted in my head that are ready to be written, NONE of which have the same scope as this particular book series--yes, they will be average sized books. Their stories and scope don't call for such drastic measures.

EDIT: I employ SoC heavily because I tell my stories from greatly differing points of view--some that I don't even agree with--and it is easier to be objective in terms of character perspectives when I'm simply allowing them to flow and think on their own. And when I say SoC I'm generally referring to the characters' SoC, though, as I said before, I employ both methods.

[Izz]

SoC gives the illusion of sponteneity, which may require some serious editing to pull off.QFT

[Blue Sky]

SoC was a surprise discovery for me as well. Years ago, I was nervous about a group of sentence fragments I used to describe my first parachute jump, but it felt so good that I left it. The instructor complimented my use of fragment and "stream of consciousness" to show the experience.

Relieved, I welcomed two new arrows into my writing quiver.

If it works best, I use it. SoC sometimes comes out nicely right away, other times it takes quite a bit of fine-tuning to recede into the background, to appear effortless. As with dialog, I pay close attention to the way my body feels as I read and thoughts that stir.

[Bufty]

I can't see the basic difference between what is referred to as 'stream of consciousness' and simply concentrating upon what one is doing when trying to write in someone's POV. It seems to me the S of C is far less disciplined so it's perhaps more hit-and-miss -possibly angled toward the 'miss'.

Isn't it simply writer-speake gobbledygook?

[RickN]

I rarely write in SoC because I really dislike reading it. Small batches are fine, but I find Faulkner and Joyce to be terrible. I feel like I'm slogging through waist-deep water on each page.

I've read some crime novels where the sections from the psycho's POV were in SoC to highlight his psychosis. It made a noticable distinction between him and the protaganist.

[gonovelgo]

As someone who has to read Joyce in college, I wholeheartedly agree. 'Slogging through waist-deep water' is a pretty apt description of trying to read a lot of his stuff.