Writing Internal Dialouge

If there’s one thing I love writing, it’s internal dialogue. Banter and action is fun, but internal dialogue will always be my favorite. I love writing my characters’ opinions and finding out what they think after a plot twist. 

But how exactly do you write internal dialogue? 

Figure out your character’s voice. The most important thing about writing internal dialogue is knowing your character’s voice. I wrote a blog post about this, which you can find here. 

Basically, know your character. Know what their personality is, know what they notice, and know how they talk to the reader, so to speak. 

Character voice is directly related to internal dialogue. Character voice helps you know how your character thinks and processes things and how they talk. Are they sarcastic and sassy? Or are they cocky yet protective? 

Know their personalities inside and out. Figure out what makes your characters themselves. 

Make sure to know what your character thinks. This is close to your character’s voice, but it’s also a little different. What are the exact thoughts that your character is thinking? 

Often thoughts can be written in italics. They are the word-for-word thoughts that are going through your character’s mind. Such as: 

I can’t believe they are doing this. 

Or…

What is he thinking?! 

Or…

I really want to slap him. 

A lot of authors don’t include the word-for-word thoughts and it all just depends on your personal writing style, but knowing the thoughts as an author, even if you don’t write them in the book, can be really helpful. It helps you get to know your character and helps you capture the emotion of the scene really well. 

Always fit the internal dialogue in the pauses. There are always those pauses where nobody is saying anything or no action is happening in your story. This is where internal dialogue belongs. 

Think about it, we think more when things aren’t happening around us to distract us. So instead of filling the pages with long, dull descriptions, put in internal dialogue. Allow your character to process everything. Give them a break and let them think. Let them make a plan or allow them to build up their motivation to keep moving. 

And make sure to get the right amount of internal dialogue. Not everyone gets stuck in their thoughts. Some characters—just like real people—live more in the moment and might be suited for shorter sentences of internal dialogue while others could fill up pages and pages of their thoughts. 

For example, my MC, R, lives in the moment. She has short thoughts and always has to be doing something. If she is just sitting around, alone with her thoughts, she gets bored. 

While my other MC, Elias, could sit and think all day. I’ve had chapters where all he does is think, make plans, and get caught up on everything that happened. 

So decide how much your character thinks. Find out how they think and what they think about. 

Internal dialogue can be one of the most enjoyable things to write. It gets you into the story and can be even more fun than banter at times. Practice, study books, and keep practicing some more until you hone your internal dialogue skills. It can make your book stand out among others and help you as an author grow. 

Until next time, 

A.J. Syngraféas