Guest Blogger – James R. Callan

Greetings Friends,

Today, novelist James Callan has some choice words about Internalization, the subject of his new book.  Hope you enjoy.

 How many times have you said, “What was he thinking?”  Sometimes that may be in disbelief: how could he have done that?  Or perhaps: what he said doesn’t sound like him. Or maybe: what is his real motivation for that? Or even: he’s not saying anything, but he’s got to be thinking about it.

And more often than not, we never know what he was thinking.  Even the NSA cannot know what we are thinking – unless we choose to put it in an e-mail or a phone call.

That’s where the fiction writer has the advantage. We can know what one of our characters is thinking.  And we can share some of that with the reader. This is a great weapon.

We do this with internalization, internal dialog.  Internalization has three important advantages for the writer.  First, it can tell the reader how the character really feels about something rather than what the outward appearance of the character might reveal.  (For my examples, I’ll put the internalization in italics.)

Example: Two women meet at a class reunion. Natalie says to Janice,

“Hi. Glad to see you here. Someone had said you wouldn’t be able to make it this year.” 

Here we have two friends meeting, apparently glad to see one another. But suppose we have a little internalization from Natalie.

And if I’d known you were coming, I’d have stayed home. 

We get two attitudes from Natalie; “Hi, glad to see you.” And “I’d have stayed home.” Which is the reader going to believe? Without a doubt, the internal thought. Why? Since no one else can hear this, why wouldn’t it be the truth?

Second, internalization can reveal the true moral compass of a character.  This is different from number one above which is just her true feeling about a specific thing.

Example: Ryan leaned against the booth, hoping no one else came to try and pitch a quarter into one of the small dishes. I hate these charity things. If the poor people would get out and get a job and work like I do, they wouldn’t be poor. If I didn’t think this might help me get Mildred in the sack, I wouldn’t be within a mile of this sham.

This tells the reader much more about Ryan than Natalie’s bit of internal dialog. This goes to the core character of Ryan.

The third advantage of internalization is the most important: the reader will believe it. Internal thoughts are private. No one else is privy to them. We can think them. It’s okay. They’re private. So, they might as well be the truth.

We all have some feeling that we don’t share with anyone, not our mother, or best friend, or spouse. So, we know the internal thoughts of a character will be true.  We will believe them.

Three quick caveats. Internalization can only come from the POV character.  Second, don’t overwhelm the reader with too much internal dialog. That means, don’t use long segments, and don’t have too many segments. It will lose its power and you may lose your reader. And third, don’t give the reader access to the internal dialog of many characters, even if they have the POV at the time. That may lead to confusion. As a rule, limit it to the protagonist and possibly the antagonist.

Internalization is a powerful tool. Use it, but use it wisely.

Internalization is discussed at length in James Callan’s new book, How to Write Great Dialog, Oak Tree Press, 2014.

After a successful career in mathematics and computer science, receiving grants from the National Science Foundation and NASA, and being listed in Who’s Who in Computer Science and Two Thousand Notable Americans, James R. Callan turned to his first love—writing.  He has written articles for a national magazine, and published several non-fiction books.  He now concentrates on his favorite genre, mystery/suspense, with his fifth book released in 2013.  His work has also appeared in a number of anthologies. In addition to writing, Callan presents workshops in the U.S., Mexico, and on the Internet on various phases of writing

 

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