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internal monologues
I have read about many techniques to express a character’s thoughts. They say there is no set technique so I decided on elipses to denote thoughts.
Here is an example:
Prologue
The Land expressed Her pressing need to Her sister, The Patterner of All Living. The Patterner selected the specified tattered, knotted, and discolored Thread, Whose fibers retained only a sparse
remnant of golden luster, from a Panel of the Tapestry of Life. she searched the same Panel for a second thread, one which was a sturdy, flawless, and vibrant multi-color. The Patterner then grafted the two Threads, initiating an ordained alteration of the Pattern.
One
In the early summer heat on a narrow ridge in Central New York, a smorgasbord of local, county and state official vehicles were perched on every accessible inch of land. From the air, the scattered Lego bricks of the convoy sprawled across the green and brown carpet of the accident site.
Her Holder’s work not yet accomplished; the Land had softened Her skin to cushion his landing in a gully at the foot of the ridge. Julian Moore’s scream had faded to nothing more than a faint echo within the tranquil, silent security of the Land’s womb. His pain was diminished to a brutal memory as it diffused within the warm insulation of Her birth waters. Tiny spider-like figures on their barely visible webs clarified and expanded in his liquid-obscured vision as they descended ever closer.
… so good to finally return to the peace of the Land’s body, Julian thought, his relief incalculable. He was no longer overburdened by the supervision of The Land and Her Children’s protracted advancement of the Great Work.
… I Held the Land… For what? … no one to praise my successes… encourage me in my tribulations… Julian was alone, the last Moore.
an ant colony of first responders had gathered to execute the established rescue plan. Firefighters repelled down the steep, rugged incline to land in the deep gully. It was filled with watery, gritty mud, geological diarrhea. The rescuers movements caused the sour-sweet methane laced swamp farts to percolate to the surface. They soldiered on with their goal to retrieve an injured man and his stranded horse.
His neighbors were long practiced in the extraction of livestock from the various predicaments into which they have an absolute genius. They caught and rigged up the horse in a harness and sling. A truck winched the animal upward to the awaiting trailer.
When the Land informed Julian of the proceedings, he was overwhelmed with gratitude.
… All praise to The Land… Chardashrey seems okay… Portia will look him over… damn glad my stupidity didn’t place Char in here with me.
… Whomever cometh amongst the Moore after me… got to be a damn sight better Holder… than I ever was.
SPEAKER, THE GREAT WORK MUST CONTINUE. YOU WILL CONTINUE UNTIL I CALL Another TO THE WORK. The Land’s womb expelled Her Holder back into life.
A series of huge subterranean belches of fetid gas propelled the paramedics forward to exhume the man from his partial entombment in a deep pocket of mud. They evaluated, revived, immobilized, and securely cocooned him into a basket stretcher. The rescue team hoisted the rig upwards to the waiting emergency transport.
Rescuers familiar with the area marveled at the large quagmire before them. Dry, cracked, hardpacked dirt normally filled all low-lying areas By early summer. Several rescuers shook their heads in bewilderment while others smiled knowingly.
… The Land provides. The Children prayed, gave thanks then packed their gear and began the climb to their vehicles.
Julian found himself abruptly and savagely uprooted from The Land’s nurturing protective embrace then flung into a woodchipper of pain, A maddening cacophony of mechanical noise, intermittent incomprehensible voices and a kaleidoscope of nauseating shifting lights and colors.
Mother… Don’t let them take me back… Don’t abandon me, too, Julian Called to the Land. The chaos scoured away much of his consciousness for a seemingly endless span of time.
As the medicopter lifted, its lights winked through a cyclone of dirt, grass, and leaf mold. Its engine’s rumble and beat of whirling blades faded as it pivoted on its axis then soared above the dense forest. The craft and its patient disappeared southeast through the descending ruby and purple shades of dusk.
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Two
Julian, for the second time that day, bounced on contact with the ground. The flight’s pandemonium ejected him into icy darkness. His stretcher trundled through a spotlighted wind tunnel then was sealed into a crowded, suspended, metal tomb. His muscles locked as he plummeted to a sudden halt a third time.
His rolling platter served him face up and tied down through a second tunnel of twilight bedlam. Strobed bright lights and glimpses of figures, colors, shapes, and textures skated across his retinas. Equipment beeps, alarms, foot and wheeled traffic, conversation, and groans splashed against his eardrums like wet paint. Pungent wisps of disinfectant, medical and bodily fluids, vending food, and transplanted flora left an astringent, fetid, nauseating taste in the back of his throat. Julian had become yet another tile in the constantly evolving mosaic of a hectic Manhattan hospital Emergency department.
Snatches of the paramedic’s report filtered through Julian’s vertigo from the swiftly moving stretcher.
“Julian Moore; white male, age 28—
No significant history—
transported from his farm outside Landhart, NY. discovered at bottom of approximate 25 ft. drop—
resuscitated and placed on six liters O2, nasal cannula—
left pelvic fracture, left femur compound fracture, and suspected left tibia simple fracture—
C-spine, compression pants and backboard precautions—
no complaint of pain, moderate signs/symptoms hypovolemic shock. “
The Emergency Medical Technicians rolled THE PATIENT stretcher into Trauma three. Dr. Siragusa Strange stood out of the way while THE Emergency room staff unpacked then transferred his new patient to a gurney. They cut off the muddy clothing, hooked up telemetry, and hung additional fluids.
Dr Siragusa Strange, the Ortho surgical consult paused in the doorway to collect himself. He placed his crutches into a corner then tottered in his leg braces in close to place his hands firmly about Julian’s head.
A Mercifully soothing sensation intervened to send a warm current of analgesia through Julian’s bloodstream. An unidentifiable but soothing barrier inhibited his pain enough to allow a reintegration of mind and body.
“Mr. Moore, I’m Dr. Siragusa. We’re going to shoot some x-rays then take you to the O. R.
Do you know where you are?”
“– hospital?” Julian shivered as he fought to suppress a wave of confusion and pain. His doctor’s strong hands moved to stabilize his patient’s lower body. Julian’s remaining hip and femur pain ebbed away enough to perceive mor of his immediate surroundings.
“Yes. You’re at Medical Center, Manhattan.
Do you REMEMBER what happened?”
“Land crumbled. Horse fell.” Julian gave a violent shutter. A technician restrained his arm to protect the IV site.
“We’ll give you something to help you sleep and we’ll talk again after your surgery. I’ll do my absolute best for you.” Dr. Siragusa Strange’s voice dissipated into the descending grey mist that blanketed Julian’s mind.
What do you think? Suggestions?
Will
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7 Replies
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Hi Will, this is an interesting question about representing thought in third-person narration. Although there is no one set technique, there’s a small number of traditional approaches. He thought/she thought/they thought is the obvious one. Simply say that your character is thinking so that the reader knows their thoughts are thoughts. Then there’s free indirect style — very effective if you want to use it Free Indirect Style: what it is and how to use it – This Itch of Writing (typepad.com)
This isn’t an either/or. You can use both techniques. Then there are italics to show readers you’ve shifted into a character’s head. Personally I find blocks of italics hard to read so I think the italics technique works for only a sentence or two. Other readers and writers may disagree.
Of course you can be creative; it’s your novel. Using punctuation such as ellipses, which normally have a different purpose, seems like using dashes instead of speech marks to indicate dialogue. Dashes for speech has become a recognised technique, I think more often in literary fiction than elsewhere, but from what I hear other readers saying, they’re not always keen on it!
My own feeling is that a traditional approach is best unless you really think something different will work better. Experiment and see what works.
A slightly different topic: you’ve several typographical styles – standard, italic, bold – in your excerpt and I have to admit I found them distracting. Your story feels potentially very interesting but at the moment the prose is often cryptic and I struggled to grasp the concepts underlying the world you are creating. I wanted some simplification in both type and prose to help me get grounded in the story. My interest perked up at ” … their goal to retrieve an injured man and his stranded horse.” Here was something straightforward. I’m not suggesting you have to keep writing in an obvious way but at the opening of a story the reader needs help to start creating a world in their head. My own reaction was that you were letting your interesting ideas trickle through the cracks for want of a more standard approach. But that’s only my opinion.
I hope this helps.
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Hi Will,
I pretty much agree with everything Libby said. The ellipsis are distracting as they chop the narrative. Combined with the other formatting (italics, bold) it’s even more distracting.
Of course, you can use whatever you like, but usually there are three ways thoughts/internal monologues are handled: 1) using filtering verbs like think, remember or wonder 2) use italics 3) nothing at all.
Personally, as a reader and a writer I prefer nothing at all. I’m a big fan of trusting the reader — we already know that everything we read is what the POV character sees, hears, feels and thinks so there isn’t any needs to signpost it. Readers are clever enough to work it out. I doesn’t mean never using filtering but keeping it to a minimum. Again, personal choice but I found too much italics distracting (and harder to read) so I only use it when the POV character remembers something someone else’s said.
I hope this helps.
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Libby,
This is with what I’m struggling. There are so many ways my characters interact.
Deus ex machina characters and happenings are in Italics.
The Land speaks in bold uppercase.
character thoughts follow elipses.
Julian Speaks to the Land in bold italics.
Julian speaks for the land and as a Holder in bold times new roman.
I plan to self publish so I will not have to deal with printing headaches.
I am open to any and all suggestions. Also, for some reason, my fonts do not remain as Times New Roman. As I’m Blind, I don’t catch this and other typos until I edit. I have to depend on spell/grammar check and I know it doesn’t catch everything.
I am looking for some angel with a saint’s patience to proof my drafts to cure my manuscript as much as possible before I do a manuscript assessment with JW.
Thank you so much for your input.
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Hi Will, if you’re using Word it can be a real pain for changing font away from Times NR. I’m not techie enough to know what to do about this except to keep selecting the whole text (block the text and then press Control and A) and reselecting TNR on the font list.
I know spell and grammar checkers don’t pick up everything. They’re not always particularly helpful.
Regarding your characters, they’re all characters and suitable for the same approach. Whatever writing technique you use to identify dialogue and/or thoughts, use the same approach for all the characters. Words, not type, will show which one of them is speaking or thinking. Altering the type and hoping your readers will learn this system and remember which type denotes which characters sounds like asking a lot of them 🙂
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Libby, Is this better?
Prologue
The Land expressed Her pressing need to Her sister, The Patterner of All Living. The Patterner selected the specified tattered, knotted, and discolored Thread, Whose fibers retained only a sparse
remnant of golden luster, from a Panel of the Tapestry of Life. she searched the same Panel for a second thread, one which was a sturdy, flawless, and vibrant multi-color. The Patterner then grafted the two Threads, initiating an ordained alteration of the Pattern.
One
In the early summer heat on a narrow ridge in Central New York, a smorgasbord of local, county and state official vehicles were perched on every accessible inch of land. From the air, the scattered Lego bricks of the convoy sprawled across the green and brown carpet of the accident site.
Her Holder’s work not yet accomplished; the Land had softened Her skin to cushion his landing in a gully at the foot of the ridge. Julian Moore’s scream had faded to nothing more than a faint echo within the tranquil, silent security of the Land’s womb. His pain was diminished to a brutal memory as it diffused within the warm insulation of Her birth waters. Tiny spider-like figures on their barely visible webs clarified and expanded in his liquid-obscured vision as they descended ever closer.
so good to finally return to the peace of the Land’s body, Julian thought, his relief incalculable. He was no longer overburdened by the supervision of The Land and Her Children’s protracted advancement of the Great Work.
I Held the Land. For what? no one to praise my successes or encourage me in my tribulations. Julian was alone, the last Moore.
an ant colony of first responders had gathered to execute the established rescue plan. Firefighters repelled down the steep, rugged incline to land in the deep gully. It was filled with watery, gritty mud, geological diarrhea. The rescuers movements caused the sour-sweet methane laced swamp farts to percolate to the surface. They soldiered on with their goal to retrieve an injured man and his stranded horse.
His neighbors were long practiced in the extraction of livestock from the various predicaments into which they have an absolute genius. They caught and rigged up the horse in a harness and sling. A truck winched the animal upward to the awaiting trailer.
When the Land informed Julian of the proceedings, he was overwhelmed with gratitude.
All praise to The Land. Chardashrey seems okay. Portia will look him over. damn glad my stupidity didn’t place Char in here with me.
Julian Spoke unto the Land. Whomever cometh amongst the More after me has got to be a damn sight better Holder than I ever was.
SPEAKER, THE GREAT WORK MUST CONTINUE. YOU WILL CONTINUE UNTIL I CALL Another TO THE WORK. The Land replied as She expelled Her Holder from Her womb and back into life.
A series of huge subterranean belches of fetid gas propelled the paramedics forward to exhume the man from his partial entombment in a deep pocket of mud. They evaluated, revived, immobilized, and securely cocooned him into a basket stretcher. The rescue team hoisted the rig upwards to the waiting emergency transport.
Rescuers familiar with the area marveled at the large quagmire before them. Dry, cracked, hardpacked dirt normally filled all low-lying areas By early summer. Several rescuers shook their heads in bewilderment while others smiled knowingly.
“The Land provides.”, the Land’s Children prayed and gave thanks. They packed their gear then began the climb to their vehicles.
Julian found himself abruptly and savagely uprooted from The Land’s nurturing protective embrace then flung into a woodchipper of pain, A maddening cacophony of mechanical noise, intermittent incomprehensible voices and a kaleidoscope of nauseating shifting lights and colors.
Mistress, Don’t let them take me back! Don’t abandon me too. Julian Called to the Land. The chaos scoured away much of his consciousness for a seemingly endless span of time.
<i style=”font-size: 1.4rem; background-color: var(–bb-content-background-color); font-family: inherit; color: var(–bb-body-text-color);”>As the medicopter lifted, its lights winked through a cyclone of dirt, grass, and leaf mold. Its engine’s rumble and beat of whirling blades faded as it pivoted on its axis then soared above the dense forest. The craft and its patient disappeared southeast through the descending ruby and purple shades of dusk.
<i style=”font-size: 1.4rem; background-color: var(–bb-content-background-color); font-family: inherit; color: var(–bb-body-text-color);”>
<i style=”background-color: var(–bb-content-background-color);”><font color=”rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)” face=”inherit”>I didn’t change the non-human </font>dialog<font color=”rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)” face=”inherit”>.</font>
<i style=”background-color: var(–bb-content-background-color);”><font color=”rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)” face=”inherit”>Will</font>
I left all the non-human dialogue as is. This way the reader only has to differentiate between two charater groups.
Hope this is easier to read.
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Hi Will, many thanks for asking me to look at this. Just to say I’ll return to it tomorrow. Was hoping to reply today but it’s been a long one and I’ve run out of brain power 🙂
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Libby,
No problem. Tu tiempo es mi tiempo.Your time is my time.
Another but ongoing problem. How do I post a new discussion in Peer to Peer? I did it once but cannot find the new discussion under P toP forum.
Any help from anyone would be gratefully accepted,
Will
