3rd person Inner Dialogue?

[ACEnders]

So my novel's completed and it's GOOD. I'm having other writers and readers read it piece by piece, and so far the response is overwhelming - they LOVE it!! I mean, they seriously love it! Everything's great - the characters are strong, the dialogue is strong, it holds your interest and ropes you in and makes you love the main characters...

But....

I'm having a hard time telling rather than showing. MOstly during transitions.

One of the writers suggested using a 3rd person inner dialogue. Does anyone know what that is or what the rules are? She didn't really know since she writes in 1st person.

[CaroGirl]

Congratulations on finishing your novel.

If your POV is 3rd, just narrow in to close 3rd. Write it as 1st person, only 3rd. You can use phrases like, "he wondered" or "he thought" but if you're sticking to one POV, you probably don't need them. Does your book change POV from scene to scene? As long as your firmly in one POV, you can probably just relate the character's thoughts and feelings without causing your readers undue confusion.

Hope I'm making sense! Good luck.

[gerrydodge]

A perfect example is Cormac McCarthy's, No Country for Old Men. You often think you're reading 1st. Person but you're not. Remarkable book.

[Danthia]

You can also try looking at the places you're telling and seeing how you can shift them tighter into your POV's voice. They'll have life experiences that will color how they see things, and those judgements will show in what they see. This gives your exposition a reason to be there besides "to show what stuff looks like" and will do some characterization as well and deepen your characters.

[windyrdg]

Another way to get out of telling and into showing is convert the scene to dialog. In my WIP I created a throw away character who's there for only one chapter so the MC has someone to talk to.

When doing 3rd person internal dialog, avoid over-using he thought, he wondered, she guessed. Usually you can just state things in a declarative way and the reader catches on.

[ACEnders]

Another way to get out of telling and into showing is convert the scene to dialog. In my WIP I created a throw away character who's there for only one chapter so the MC has someone to talk to.

This I do ... do. I have changed a LOT of telling into showing by changing it into dialogue, and many times that changed the entire scene or added a scene.

The other suggestions are good. I think some of it I"m already doing, and maybe getting it all mixed up with telling even though it really isn't. I'm not sure. Maybe I'll post a scene or two here and get some feed back.

Thanks for your help! Any other suggestions? I know that showing vs. telling is already in a lot of different threads though. Perhaps I should just check those out.

[maestrowork]

3rd person internal monologue is like 1st person, but you're still in 3rd person POV...

[David I]

There's probably nothing more useful in 3rd person than learning to manipulate psychic distance. At one extreme, you have the voice of the narrative itself, where POV isn't immediately discernable:

Every acre of rainforest harbors thousands of species of insects.

Then as you get closer in, you may need thinker tags:

Can I roll over that log myself? Jack wondered.

But once you're situtated in Jack's head, you can drop attribution:

I was an idiot to try that myself, and now I got what I deserved.

These vaguely correspond to the idea of wide, medium, and extreme closeup shots in film, and there are a lot of internediate stages between wide and extreme close-up.

The big difference in writing is that jumping from one to another suddenly is usually disruptive--the trick is usually modulate in and out. It's very common to "open wide" in scene-setting and then take a few paragraphs to get from your description of, say, Venice, to your character's sitatuation and into his head tight enough that you can render thoughts without needing "he thought."

Or superdramatic effects can be got from opening in very close (and sometimes it seems gimmicky).

I think that good control of distance, where the reader comes along easily without ever being jarred, is one of the main things that separates skillful writing from clumsy writing.

Yet it's seldom discussed...

[job]

Folks may be suggesting you add internal monologue or internals to your 3rd person POV.

Here's some deep 3rd person POV.


**********
Take Quentin, for instance. He had five little towers of copper lined up in a neat row in front of him. He was raking in his sister's pin money, ha'penny by ha'penny, and stacking it up. What was she supposed to make of that? There were men living in round, black, goat-hair tents in the desert she understood better.

He felt her eyes on him and looked up. "You must be bored, watching the play. You should join us."

"Not today. Maybe when I'm feeling better." Maybe when the moon turns green and jumps up and down in the sky like a frog.

"Another time, then. You'll be here a while, if Eunice has her way." He did a top shuffle of the cards, leaving the bottom quarter unchanged. Planting the book, they called that where she came from. He dealt, taking some from the top of the deck, some from the bottom. He wasn't clumsy exactly, but she'd watched experts. Lazarus, for one.
*********


The first level is the 3rd person POV. The character straightforwardly experiences the world and reports it as seen, heard, etc..

-- He had five little towers of copper lined up in a neat row in front of him.
-- He did a top shuffle of the cards, leaving the bottom quarter unchanged.
-- He dealt, taking some from the top of the deck, some from the bottom.


Then there's the character commenting, inside her head, on what she sees. That's her internals. This is what the character thinks about what she sees and hears and so on.

-- He was raking in his sister's pin money, ha'penny by ha'penny, and stacking it up. What was she supposed to make of that? There were men living in round, black, goat-hair tents in the desert she understood better.

-- Planting the book, they called that where she came from.

-- He wasn't clumsy exactly, but she'd watched experts. Lazarus, for one.


And then there's moments when she actually talks to herself. A kind of internal direct address. That's internal monologue. It appears in the ms as an underline, (or Italics,) and in the book as Italics.

-- "Not today. Maybe when I'm feeling better." Maybe when the moon turns green and jumps up and down in the sky like a frog.

[ACEnders]

I think that good control of distance, where the reader comes along easily without ever being jarred, is one of the main things that separates skillful writing from clumsy writing.

Yet it's seldom discussed...

I never looked at it like that, but that explains it well. Thanks! I'm working on it...