In a recent post, Janice Hardy examines internalization – a tool for showing your reader what’s going on inside your protagonist’s head – and asks how much is too much. “Good internalization requires a balance,” she says. “Too much and the character in too in their head and slows the story, too little and the reader can’t connect to the character enough to care about the story.”
Internalization – also called interiority – is more than what your character thinks. Strong interiority shows your protagonist’s worldview, their opinions, and how they describe their world and experiences. It helps develop your character’s voice. “Take out those opinions and you’re left with description that could be from anyone,” Hardy notes.
It’s easy to go too far with internalization, however. For example, your character may spend a page thinking about what just happened in a scene, without giving your reader too much information. This slows down your story and can push your reader right out of it. “The key to balanced internalization is giving just enough opinion so the reader understands why the things the POV character is thinking and seeing matter and how it affects the story, without banging them over the head with it,” Hardy writes. “If you find yourself explaining that internal thought just to make sure the reader gets it, odds are you’re doing too much.”
Hardy examines a scene from one of her novels, written three ways – with little interiority, too much, and what she found was the right balance and why. She concludes with a few questions to ask when you are deciding whether to add internalization to a scene and some red flags. Hardy says you may be using too much internalization if:
- You start adding internal thoughts to every line of dialogue
- Internal thoughts are always paragraphs long and happen every time the POV character thinks
- You sum up a scene or idea at the end (or describe it at the start before you show it)
- You repeat the same idea in multiple ways
