A novel in which the only dialogue is internal? [closed]
Closed by System on Apr 20, 2018 at 20:32
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I am mulling the idea of writing a novel in which the only dialogue is internal. Has anyone yet published such a novel?
I define "dialogue" here as any kind of speech addressed by a fictional person to a fictional person. This includes monologue insofar as a person who speaks to themselves, either out loud or internally, is still speaking to a person even if they are not addressing somebody else. In the sense that writing is a form of "speech", an epistolary novel comprising a collection of personal letters also contains dialogue. Excluded from the definition are first-person narrative when the addressee is the reader, because the reader is not fictional; and most stream of consciousness writing, unless it is sufficiently formally similar to literal speech to be considered "addressed".
On this definition, I am not aware of any novels that are completely free of dialogue. But are there some in which the only dialogue is internal? I would like to know so that I can study the authors' techniques and use them, perhaps adapted, in my own writing.
(The first and last sentences above were added following advice received by @Cloudchaser.)
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/35262. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
"The Old Man and the Sea" comes to mind as a novel where I don't recall any dialogue. Santiago talks to himself, talks to his hand, talks to the fish, etc., but that isn't really dialogue. Or, of you wish, it's internal dialogue.
How does it work? You've got one character, against the elements. Nobody to talk to, so all dialogue is internal.
While "The Old Man and the Sea" has layers of underlying meaning. I recall some short stories by Jack London about a man's struggle with the elements, which were more about the physical struggle for survival. There too, if the MC is alone, all dialogue would be internal.
So, if the MC is alone all through the novel, and all conflict is not with other people, but with nature, all "dialogue" would by necessity be internal. There might be other ways to achieve the goal you seek, but I can't think of any right now.
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