In a new blog post, Mary Carroll Moore offers advice on using interiority to your best advantage. “Interiority or ‘internals’ is a fancy way to describe the reader’s view into your characters’ inner lives,” Moore explains. While this element is important for making your character seem real, internals can also slow your story.
Interiority can be shown through physical sensation and movement – a constricted throat, a clenched fist. A reasonable observer can infer a character’s mindset from these kinds of cues. However, you don’t want to overdo it. “How do you plant interiority for major characters where it coincides with peaks of tension and deepens the story most effectively?” Moore asks.
Like many writers, Moore reads her manuscript aloud, looking for places where interiority comes forward or where it’s missing. Next, she charts the type of interiority used, by page number and method. “Look for the natural pauses, when the character is reflecting on what’s been learned or experienced,” Moore writes. “Or look for the places where they are trying to hide something from themselves or others. There’s no formula, but these are usually where I’ve used internals to best advantage.”
