1/8/2024 0 Comments Monologue vs dialogueWith the POV character's indirect thoughts, I let them notice or recall anything relevant to the scene. (dialogue and / or action beat) - (physical sensation) - (emotional response) - (indirect thought) - (direct thought and / or inner monologue) and ending with (dialogue and / or action beat). He suggests the POV character's half of the MRU be constructed in the following order: I weave character, object, and relevant setting descriptions into the action beats. Reacts to the POV character (dialogue and / or action beat), and initiates something new (dialogue and / or action beat). The non-POV character's MRU looks like this: This sounds similar to something to what Jack Bickham teaches when constructing MRUs. Is that about right? That seems to work in my mind at least :) By all rights it shouldn't even be there, but it's inserted by the narrator because it will help the reader understand or appreciate the story better. The characters aren't saying it or thinking it or doing it or seeing it. It's not even really part of the scene or the action. Or maybe you can lean onto the suffixes? Inner monologue and Exposition - one faces inward (the character's natural response to a situation) and the other faces outward (providing context for the reader).Įxposition is none of the above. I think that's what your own explanation is saying, which is more helpful to me: The characters probably know it already, or they don't need to know it, which means that aren't saying or thinking it. Maybe the 'need' bit is more important? Exposition is stuff that is added in for the reader, because the reader needs to know it. Some people love reading description about the scenery, others find it dull. Some people love reading about a character's ancestry, while others would be bored by it. It also feels like it's impossible to know what the reader will and won't want to know. In all of these categories, whether the reader needs or wants to know it is irrelevant, so it seems a bit weird to make the distinction about whether the readers want to know it or not. Inner Monologue is what the characters are thinking. Description is what the characters are seeing, hearing, feeling. Dialogue is what the characters are saying. Inner monologue consists of things that readers want to learnĮxposition consists of things that readers need to learnīut that feels a bit like a category shift, because:Īction is what the characters are doing. The way you've explained it makes it clearer. Thanks! I did actually read that post you linked, but it didn't make much sense to me. Or is there perhaps a better scheme than the 5 modes that I have listed? (4) In fact, he couldn't remember the last time that a girl didn't turn away as soon as they saw him.ģ and 4 could be either Internal Dialogue or Exposition (2) Why was she smiling at him? (3) Girls didn't usually like him. (1) Lisa smiled at him, and he smiled back shyly. I can't tell whether that should be classed as interior monologue or exposition. It often tells us a lot about the character's memories and history and knowledge (which makes it seem like exposition), but it comes in response to some action or dialogue, as though the character has been prompted to reflect on their past or something (which makes it seem like interior monologue). The book I'm reading now has heaps of this sort of mode, which is not dialogue, description or action. The first sentence is clearly action, but the next two sentences - are they his internal thoughts, or exposition about his past? In all his training at the thieves school, he'd never seen anything like it. Hopefully I can improve my writing balance this way.īut I'm having trouble distinguishing between 'Exposition' and 'Thought' sometimes. I'm interested in analysing some of my favourite books to see what the balance is between the five modes of fictional writing: Dialogue, Action, Description, Exposition & Thought.
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