Inner Dialogue—Writing Character Thoughts

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Keep in mind—

While it’s certainly not required and you wouldn’t use the technique all the time—maybe not much of the time—consider putting thoughts and inner dialogue into a new paragraph, as if it were spoken dialogue. Yet even as dialogue can share a paragraph with action, so can thoughts. Treat inner dialogue as you would spoken dialogue. Separate the thoughts into a new paragraph if you want to create a wider narrative distance, yet keep thoughts in the same paragraph to narrow the narrative distance.

Never use quotation marks for thoughts, even if those thoughts are inner dialogue, a character talking to himself. Reserve quotation marks for speech that’s vocalized. Readers should be able to tell when a character is speaking inside his head and when he’s talking aloud, even if he’s the only person in the scene.

Plus, if you can cut back on distracting visuals, including unnecessary punctuation, do it.

Be consistent. Use the same method of conveying character thought and inner dialogue on the last page that you use on the first page. Consistency keeps the reader grounded in the fiction. Changes in method distract the reader.

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