How to Write an Interior Monologue

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Interior monologues: post-modern art

As I mentioned in my post on writing allegories, I get people googling how to write an interior monologue as a hit all the time. As I've never actually written about how to write an interior monologue, it's a little baffling to me, but it's about time I wrote about it, right? So without further ado,

How to write an interior monologue

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So. Let's start with what an interior monologue, or internal monologue, really is. It's a nice fat chunk of text of thought -- that is, a narrative of exactly what is going on in a character's head. These can be tricky to pull off successfully for two reasons. First, just like it's a struggle for even great writers to reproduce authentic sounding dialogue, it's just as hard to create an authentic-sounding interior dialogue. Because when we're thinking, that's really what's going on -- we're talking to ourselves silently. We usually don't use big words or perfectly grammatically correct sentences in our thoughts. Unless we have the control of a zen master, most of the time thoughts are fragmented, darting, a million places at once. But that brings us to the other challenge of an interior monologue. If we do it too well and accurately capture what thought is usually like, we will probably end up with the literary equivalent of Jackson Pollock painting. It will be incomprehensible and very post-modern. If you're going for that, for the next Finnegan's Wake or To the Lighthouse, then by all means forge ahead, but for your normal interior monologue, one that can be very touching or effective, you need balance and discipline. After the jump: how to monologue.

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An interior monologue is all about character and voice. It's about knowing your character so intimately that you know how he speaks to himself in his head. Even if you don't use an interior monologue in your story, it's a good idea to have this level of knowledge anyway, as a kind of baseline that will improve how you write about his actions. So first, let's begin with character.

Character Is your character the kind of person who would talk to himself extensively? If not, you're barking up the wrong tree. If he is, what's on his mind at this stage in the story? Is he frightened, worried, rapturously in love, paranoid? What are the things haunting his thoughts? A past love, a crime he is about to commit, someone who wants him dead, the traumatic event he witnessed that day? Whatever it is, it should be the centerpiece of your monologue, returning again and again. His thoughts might wander to lighter matters, but always they must come back, circling around and constantly returning to The One Thing dominating the interior monologue.

Voice This is all about character as well. As I mentioned earlier, it will be incoherent if you try to actually reproduce literally everything a character is thinking. Instead, try to isolate his particular voice. It's probably similar to the way he talks, but more intimate. Perhaps it is only in his thoughts that the character's insecurities are allowed to come to the surface. Perhaps he denies feelings for another person outwardly, but is inwardly infatuated. The voice must strike a balance between too-tidy narration, which will sound awkward, forced, and artificial, and pure stream-of-consciousness, which will lack continuity. Err on the side of stream-of-consciousness at first; let your pencil go where it will. You can clean it up later.

This is your first lesson in writing an interior monologue. Email me your efforts at blair@blairhurley.com and I'll be sure to post them. More lessons on this writing technique and others will always be forthcoming at Creative Writing Corner.

UPDATE: It's been great seeing all of the enthusiastic responses to this post, and I'm glad I've been able to help so many of you with writing your own monologues. A few of you have commented, wondering why I don't include an example of an interior monologue. I'd like to explain why. First of all, I get many many emails asking for help with school assignments on this topic. While I can give tips like what I've written above, I can't help you do your work for you. Also, many people have emailed me trying to get me to basically write their monologues. If I were to include an example of an interior monologue here, I'm afraid that it might be used for cheating by some people.

So I'm afraid you'll have to do the work yourself! Good luck writing that monologue, and feel free to ask me questions about the process!

Comments

[sarah]

Thank you so much... that was really helpful. I have to write a monologue this weekend and it was inspiring to read this...

Thanks again!

[Emily]

Hey! thanks a bunch, i had to do an assignment for school and i have never been taught how to write a monologue, it was great, really helpful. i will make sure i check out all you other works!!!!

[Ahmed]

Thank you very much, it was very helpful , I have to explain the interior monologue on Tuesday at the Uni.

Thank you very much

[Chuck Norris]

Our Teacher made us write a monolauge (who cares if it is spelled wrong?) and we were never even taught how to do it thnx

[Peter]

Thanks for the monologue guide, I have never written one myself, but I have to teach a class of 15 year olds how to do it tomorrow.

[Peter]

Thanks for the monologue guide, I have never written one myself, but I have to teach a class of 15 year olds how to do it tomorrow.

[Peter]

Thanks for the monologue guide, I have never written one myself, but I have to teach a class of 15 year olds how to do it tomorrow.

[teerveDurpomo]

At work, the authority of a person is inversely proportional to the
number of pens that person is carrying.

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http://ebloggy.com/freddymirandaln

[Mary]

Thank you a lot! Your explanation about the characters voice helped me a lot when I was working on a school assignment where I had to write a monologue for a character in a book I had read! I really appreciate it! :]

[mooose]

thankyouuu soo much!you've saved my life no joke...i will get into uni becasue of you! thankyouuu from the bottom of my heart!god speed! xxx

[Hello]

THX

[amar]

thanks man...

[jojo]

Thank you sososos much i dint even know what a monologue was.so thanks now i can finally write mine assigment.

[jojo]

Thank you sososos much i dint even know what a monologue was.so thanks now i can finally write mine assigment.

[asd]

thx a lot...

[zahra]

Thanku. I have to write a monologue due tomorrow for Rosalind in as you like it. This helped thnx!!

[Norah]

Many thanks for the informative post on the subject.
It would be more helpful though if you can posts for us examples of interior monologue writings.

[taya]

thanks so much .. this really gave me a jumpstart .. i at first had no clue .. thanks

[Matt]

it was okay not much help

[Sunshine]

Thx this really helped!! :)
and thx 2 these tips my interior monologue will be soo fab!! :)

[Val]

hey thanks this helped me a LOT...now i can start writing this interior monologue assignment.

[Daniel]

Thanks a lot for the post, this really improved my ability in writing interior monologues.

[dana]

thanks bud.

[Maureen Whitley]

I agree with Norah. Learning something without the benefit of example has no staying power. Tips on how to write an interior monolog are somewhat self-evident and of little value, without the illustrative power of example to anchor the lesson in my mind.