How to write internally emotional characters?
Over the past couple of days, I've asked questions about writing female characters with agency, and writing female characters as a male writer. Both have sparked some interesting, and for me informative conversations. After some consideration, I realize that, while what I learned from reading the responses was informative and useful, I've been asking the wrong questions.
I'm coming to realize that my writing, at least where my characters are concerned, is very flat. One person asked if my character, for whom I offered up a small sample of "interior monologue" (having seen the responses, I hesitate to lean to heavily on that term), was a psychopath. That shocked me a bit, but the poster backed up their question with evidence, and I couldn't argue (though I admit to being stung).
I have two characters, Celeste and Marko. The opening setting is 23rd Century Croatia. At the start of the story, the two have been courting for a few months when, on an adventure date, they find themselves thrown back in time to the 14th Century, entirely unprepared. Now they're stuck with each other in unfamiliar territory, so I have the opportunity for both external adventure (action) and internal adventure (how they respond to events). The trouble is, I don't seem to be able to write emotional reactions very well.
Celeste is smart, brash, and sharp-tongued. She admits to herself that she doesn't always think before she acts. I started out my queries (above) trying to understand how to write Celeste's interior monologue in a way that sounded like what a woman would think like, not wanting to presume that I, as a man, would be able to intuit that well (my wife insists that I usually don't get how women think).
Marko is a bit of a stoic, outwardly quiet, and internally boxes things up so he doesn't have to think too much about them. He plans almost everything, and feels confident that he has the toolkit to take on whatever is thrown at him. This adventure will test that.
Apologies for the length, but here's another snip, from Celeste's POV, as they start to realize what has happened to them. In the previous scene, they both threw up in the cave where they were swept back to the 14th Century.
“I have no idea where we are or how we got here,” said Marko.
Celeste looked at him blankly. “I clearly don’t know either. This is beyond anything I have the toolkit for understanding.” She turned, looking around the area, trying to find something… anything familiar. She saw an olive grove in the distance, but didn’t remember it. Had it been there before? She didn’t know. “Fuck!” she said.
Marko looked at her as if she were a stranger. “We may not know where we are, but between the two of us we should be able to solve the problem. We need to focus on what’s in front of us.”.
She considered him and what he said. While she took a certain joy she didn’t want to admit in teasing him about being young -- younger than her by a whole four months -- he displayed a strength of character that she hadn’t seen in others. And he was brilliant at problem solving, which she saw in the way he played chess and go with his father. Whatever this situation they were in, she felt safe with him. But what situation were they in? She had no idea. She felt sick to her stomach. “I don’t even know how to describe what’s in front of us, metaphorically speaking. Clearly… well, okay, it seems that we’re on the island we were on earlier today. Or yesterday. Or… I don’t know. The island. It looks like the same one.”
“I agree. And this villa: it looks not-as-old as it did… earlier. It’s like everything new is gone; like we’ve been thrown back in time.”
Time travel. Could she believe in it? Was it possible? She thought back to her science professor talking about quantum physics, about how scientists and mathematicians still only knew enough about it to know we didn’t know enough, and he had been fairly certain nothing would change. And there ended her learning about quantum physics and science in general. At some point you had to realize that there were limits to what you could understand, draw a line, and move on. And subjects like business, economics, and politics were more to her interest than unknowable science. Everyone, she told herself, had their limits. Her stomach growled. “One thing I can say for sure, I’m hungry. I left my lunch in that cave, and that run down the hill really took it out of me.”
So, to my question: how can I improve the emotional or just general interior perspective description for my characters? This is really going to become important when Marko falls into a deep depression, but along the way I need Celeste to go through some challenges, which will give her a toolkit to help him when he most needs it.
For anyone interested, I've shared the Google Doc that is my working document, with public comment capability turned on. All I ask is that, if you choose to comment, please be constructive.
I agree, too much exposition. Which likely means, too little "setup" in your book. If Celeste thinks Marko is brilliant …
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The problem I see with your writing, the answer to your question, is that you need to immerse yourself in your character …
5y ago
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/39373. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
2 answers
I agree, too much exposition. Which likely means, too little "setup" in your book.
If Celeste thinks Marko is brilliant at chess or Go, that should have been shown earlier, in the story setup. (ACT I, typically first 20% to 25% of the story.)
You are being too repetitive, you don't trust your reader or you have fallen into over-emphasis, saying the same thing multiple times in different words to make sure the reader "gets it". I've bolded some of what are effectively repetitions to convey the "I don't know" claim in this passage:
Celeste looked at him blankly. “I clearly don’t know either. This is beyond [me] anything I have the toolkit for understanding.” She turned, looking around the area, trying to find something… anything familiar. She saw an olive grove in the distance, but didn’t remember it. Had it been there before? She didn’t know. “Fuck!” she said.
Saying "I don't know" five times doesn't create the sense of disorientation I think you are looking for.
Here would be my first draft on your scene. Yours would be different, but to show you what I mean. I've made them more collaborative, as well.
They raced down the hill, dead even halfway but Marko pulled ahead. Then stopped short, in the middle of a meadow, looking into the distance.
"What happened?" Celeste said, a little breathless, pulling up to him.
Marko turned his head to look at her. “I have no idea where we are or how we got here.”
Celeste looked too, and realized he was right. She turned her gaze to her right. It felt vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite recall where she had seen it.
“Fuuuuck!” she said, then took a deep breath and blew it out. "Me neither."
She flashed on why it was familiar. "The hills. They look the same as the island we were on yesterday. Right?" She was turning back to the left, and spotted something, pointing, "Look! That villa. Remember?"
Marko looked with her. "Yes! But it's new now. And the gardens are much larger. And not flowers anymore."
Celeste felt her pulse in her throat. "And there is no information booth, or parking lot. No paved roads, anywhere."
"Like we're back in time. That olive grove behind it is new, too."
That's impossible.
She put her hands to her head to feel for a holo viewer, but felt nothing. Her alarm rose, her breath still short. "It's a trick, Marko. That island is a hundred miles from here. This isn't real!"
"Don't panic," Marko said. He stepped to her, offering his hand palm up for her to take."We made a wrong turn, I think. It's real, but a set for a holo game or something."
She took his hand, and squeezed it hard for a moment, then took a deep breath. "Those are all simulations."
"Okay," he said, nodding. "A resort re-creation? A replica made by robots. Let's go see what this villa is about."
That's level headed. He's right. Gather evidence. Solve the problem.
She felt slightly embarrassed, she had been silly. The villa was the only evidence of humans in sight. She firmed her grip on Marko's hand and stepped forward, resolute. He responded in kind.
"If this is a replica it must have cost a fortune," she said. "I hope they have a restaurant."
Hopefully that helps. I left out the exposition, invented some stuff. And mine is longer, I think, with less information conveyed than yours. The point is instead of telling us all about Marko and Celeste, we reveal them slowly, all through their actions and dialogue. Readers don't mind learning what they need to know as they need to know it, and it is easier to remember if it happened in a scene.
The reason exposition usually doesn't work is because you are asking us to memorize dry facts and history, and we (readers) just cannot.
But we can remember a visualized scene and character actions (including feelings conveyed as part of the scene). This takes longer, but readers don't mind reading if a scene and interactions are in progress.
The Hollywood maxim is, 'Dialogue IS action'. Dialogue should always have an element of conflict in it, even if it is slight disagreement, even if that disagreement is only expressed in thought. It can also be surprise at something somebody said, confusion, resentment, anger, pity, etc. But preferably not just a long talk where everything is in agreement. It should also involve some stage craft, characters are moving, thinking, itchy people!
And although it is tempting to think of them serially (Marko says something, then Celeste says something, then Marko considers that and replies), IRL while you are talking I am thinking and half ignoring you, and vice versa. Think, what is Marko thinking about when Celeste is talking, and vice versa? It isn't always a volley, the same person can speak twice in a row, and the response to a statement may have nothing to do with the statement, the respondent's mind may have gone off on another track. That will come to you naturally if you stop to consider whether that happened or not.
Finally, your virtual acceptance of time travel is too quick. We don't believe impossible things until we are forced into it, and people from C23 will have sophisticated, immersive entertainment that will make them think of many things before actual time travel. They need to exhaust every possible other explanation first. It may take a serious injury or death before they accept that what they are seeing is real, and not acted. Hence the "resort for the rich" idea, a futuristic Disneyland, and the get it, nobody breaks character, ever, because it would cost them their job.
Of course, even in Disneyland, Goofy will break character if a man is disemboweled and dies in front of him. When something like that happens and none of the "actors" break character, and Celeste doesn't believe it was some kind of illusion, then she believes it's real. They time traveled.
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The problem I see with your writing, the answer to your question, is that you need to immerse yourself in your character's emotion. Put yourself in that emotional experience, in that moment. What do you feel? Your thoughts? Your responses? Your associations? Your visceral desires?
To use your example, having just time-travelled, Celeste is supposed to be confused, with a beginning of fear, right? Imagine yourself confused and scared. Would you, in that moment, wish to tease your companion about their age? Or would you want to grab their hand for support? Would you be all analytical about where you saw proof that the person next to you is good at problem solving, or would it just be a fact to you? At most, I think, you might remember a previous frightening episode the person got you out of - not strategy games.
Your character's internal monologue, her thoughts, are calm and analytical where we'd expect her to experience some emotion. Which makes a reader wonder if she is capable of experiencing emotions. You haven't gone deep enough into how she feels, and so you've created a disconnect between what we'd expect Celeste to feel, and what she displays.
I've actually struggled with a similar problem. I had this argument between a father and son written out. The comment of the first friend who read it was "yeh, that's how the father wishes the argument would have gone. Only he was angry, and afraid for his son, and a bunch of other emotions besides, so he ended up saying something completely different. And the boy was equally emotional about the whole thing, so his response wasn't what he would have liked it to be either. Now go and write not what they wished they had said, but what they actually said." After which I went and rewrote the scene with more visceral emotions and responses in it, and what do you know - it came alive.
To sum up, every time your character is supposed to experience an emotion, let them feel it. Not think "I'm afraid", but be afraid. Act afraid. Respond to being afraid. If you're still struggling, try to evoke the emotion within yourself. Feel that fear, not in your mind, but viscerally, and observe yourself in that state.
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