INTROSPECTION: Advantages and Pitfalls

Janet here. I could write passages of introspection/internal monologue until Mary’s cows come home. I love to crawl into my characters’ heads and share what they’re thinking, how they view the world and better yet, how they view others. I especially enjoy writing and reading thoughts of the push-pull of attraction and resistance in romance novels, as when the hero hunk is threatening the feisty heroine’s livelihood and she’s furious at herself for reacting to this menace. And trying desperately to keep him from knowing.

Oh, yes, introspection is a wonderful tool for writers.

Advantages of Introspection

Introspection can bring our characters alive. Especially when their thoughts are different than their words or reveal hidden motives. Or when their goals are in conflict with their values. Minds are a veritable treasure trove!

Introspection can reveal a secret. Don’t we all love being "in the know"? Left to wonder how the other character will handle the truth when s/he finds out?

Introspection can show Scene and Sequel. After the heroine fails to achieve her goal, her thoughts reveal how she recovers and formulates a new plan of action.

Introspection can show a character's weaknesses and strengths. Characters thoughts can show they're not honest with themselves or astute about others. Characters thoughts can show resilience, humor, loyalty and determination. Remember strengths carried too far often become weaknesses.   

Pitfalls of introspection

Overdoing introspection. As with all valuable tools in the writers kit, introspection can go on too long.  

If you've met someone, and instead of a two-way conversation, find yourself listening to a monologue, you may start looking for ways to escape. Readers have the advantage of skipping the passage without having to fake the need for a restroom break. Make the thoughts count. Make them essential to the story.

Introspection can make characters seem self-absorbed.

If you’ve ever examined your own feelings at length, especially hurt feelings, you probably can attest that going over and over the issue risks becoming self-absorbed. Let’s not turn off readers with narcissistic heroes and heroines.

Introspection can stop or slow the pace.

Long passages of internal monologue grind the dialogue/action to a halt. Action keeps the reader turning pages. I’ve read dialogue interrupted with paragraph after paragraph of introspection that requires rereading the last sentence the character said in order to make sense of what s/he says next. Do not do this. If the thoughts are important--and they can be--give the character an activity that fits their goal and intersperse thoughts with actions. Even use the setting to show their state of mind.   

Introspection can be redundant.

Rehashing the same tired thoughts over and over again will make readers want to tear out their hair. Or the writer’s. LOL  This often happens in a romance because the writer is rehashing instead of escalating the conflict between the hero and heroine. Characters drive the story so their decisions and actions should create new rising conflict for the other character.

                

                 With all those pitfalls how can we use introspection appropriately?

Sprinkle introspection in. Writers can sprinkle in characters’ thoughts much as they do back story. Just a thought or two will go a long way. Sometimes introspection—or introspection with an action—is a clever way to identify the speaker while sprinkling in her thoughts, as in this passage from A Broken Kind of Beautiful by Katie Ganshert:

She held out her hand for him to stop. Right there. Because as much as her heart ached for his nearness, she knew she’d only end up hurt. And her heart could only break into so many pieces. “I came to run a fashion show. Could you please let me by?”

Give introspection the wow factor. When the thought is something unexpected, even a secret, readers won’t skip a word. Often introspection can serve as a hook. Hero Ted's introspection from The Substitute Bride:

Night was falling, putting the farm in shadow, but Ted knew every fence, building and pasture. He’d earned all this off others’ pain. A straight flush had paid for the house. A full house repaired his barn and a four of a kind had bought his livestock.

Yep, the best poker player on the Mississippi, that had been him. Not that he’d planned on being “Hold ‘Em” Logan” when he’d joined the crew of that riverboat.

Readers already know why heroine Elizabeth despises gambling and she’s just married the guy. 
   

Use introspection to show the times. Fourteen-year-old Will Tweedy’s introspection from Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns:

I just didn’t think I could stand any more mourning. For three whole weeks of summer vacation they hadn’t let me play baseball or go fishing or anything. I couldn’t mention the camping trip I’d been planning all spring with Pink Pedmore and Lee Roy Sleep and Smiley Snodgrass, and I had missed a chance to ride in a Buick automobile all the way to Atlanta. Pink’s uncle over in Athens invited him and me to go so we could fix his flat tires and push the car up hills—and out of ditches if it rained and the roads got slick. Pink went, but Mama wouldn’t let me go. Also, I didn’t get to go downtown for the Fourth of July parade, and they hadn’t let me read the funny paper since the day Granny passed on.

Burns paints a detailed picture of the confining customs of mourning in the early 1900s and the difficulties driving the first automobiles. This brought the times alive for me.      

Make introspection emotional. I love how sparse yet emotional the hero’s thoughts are in this passage from Unwritten by Charles Martin:

My insides hurt. Like they hadn't in a decade. Old wounds, picked open. The scab and scar, peeled back. I turned, looked away. Pain is pain whether it’s yours or someone else’s. It’s one thing to know it as your own. It’s something else to watch it crack someone else down the middle.

The last sentence caught my breath. We writers often use character’s physical reactions to create emotion like a knotted throat or quivering chin, but if we’re not careful these reactions become overused and clichéd. If you're thinking this passage is telling, you'd be right, at least in part, but Martin isn't cheating the reader of an emotional payoff. Instead he's carefully selected words that pack a wallop. 

If you're also thinking that I'm approving "it"--one of my bugaboo words--I did say that upon occasion "it" and "there" can be powerful. But when the reader isn't sure what "it" refers to, then that's lazy writing.  

Make introspection fit the character, who s/he is, what her occupation is, what his view of the world is. Matt Walker’s introspection in this passage from The Bride Wore Spurs:

A young inexperienced female boss was about as welcome to cowpokes as a rattler in the bunkhouse. How long before Hannah learned that truth the hard way?

Matt's thoughts in this last paragraph of the scene fits his occupation of rancher. Note how introspection serves as a hook.

Introspection is not the only way to show what a character is thinking.  We can show his thoughts through his actions, dialogue, silence, physical reactions, expressions. But the blessing of introspection is that books are the only place—besides our own heads—where we are privileged to know a character’s thoughts. 

  

How does all this fit into SpeedBo?

SpeedBo is Seekerville’s push month for writing or revising fast. If we use introspection effectively, we will save time and not have to ax our precious words later.

More importantly, we writers need to look at our own internal monologue. Sometimes we feed our minds self-defeating garbage. We wouldn't go out to the city dump for a meal, but we will feed our minds platter after platter of toxic negativity. Remember that you're a writer, a terrific writer, who has a story only you can tell. You can finish that book and polish it until it shines. So go forth and SpeedBo! 

I brought eggs, ham and English muffins, juice and coffee for breakfast. Leave a comment for a chance to win a $15 Amazon gift card.