Creative Writing Exercises For Dummies

Chapter 7

Conveying Characters’ Thoughts in Style

In This Chapter

Laying out characters’ thoughts on the page

Communicating a character’s inner world

Making use of free indirect style

You hear and even read a lot of nonsense today about books and the written word being ‘sooooo last century’ because of the challenges posed by electronic media. But well-written prose still does one thing more effectively than any other form does: it can reveal a character’s thoughts and feelings in a wonderfully direct and efficient manner. In this chapter, I look at the different ways in which you can convey your characters’ thoughts and feelings to readers – including the incredibly useful free indirect style. I also describe some of the best approaches to getting a character’s thoughts down clearly and stylishly on the page.

Exploring Ways to Set Down Characters’ Thoughts

You can lay down your character’s thoughts on the page in a number of different ways. In this section I discuss some of the options, using the same basic passage to examine the pro and cons of the different techniques. The crucial elements to aim for in your own work are clarity and believability, while not drawing too much distracting ...