Writing Notions: Thoughts in the Middle of Dialogue

Authors customarily insert the thoughts of a novel’s point-of-view character into the middle of dialogue or action scenes in large paragraphs. Let's look at an example:

Initial Thoughts

The author has used a rather routine conversation between a husband and wife as a way of bringing up (or reinforcing) the fact that Mary doesn't feel heard. Out of context with the rest of the story, it's hard to say whether this is a throw-away exchange being used to transition between scenes or chapters or whether it's part of a pattern of similar bits of dialogue.

Looking at this sample as though it were a page in a book, what do you make of Mary's paragraph of thoughts? Is it lengthy--at least in terms of its space on the page--because the author wanted to break up short lines of dialogue for purposes of pacing or visual appeal?

Clearly, the author didn't want to make an issue out of our usual because Mary didn't sigh, frown, use a pained voice tone or say anything. If I saw this exchange early in a story, I would assume it's there for a reason, either indicating possible arguments to come or indicating that Mary "suffers in silence" and feels "put upon."

Another Consideration

What we have here is a fairly customary approach to weaving a character's private thoughts into a scene. Quite possibly, I have written thoughts and dialogue like this myself. Nonetheless, this approach others me. Why?

Because I want to know what Bob is doing while Mary is sitting there thinking about the pizza. Bob doesn't say anything about Mary suddenly being lost in thought in the middle of an otherwise quick conversation. Since he doesn't say, "you seemed to zone out there for a moment" or ask "is everything all right?" I have to assume the author is pretending that all those thoughts either happened in zero time or are--with the reader's acceptance--are understood not to be a linear moment within the story.

If the characters had been moving around, talking while checking the mail and walking from one room to another, Mary could have had these thoughts and they wouldn't have seemed intrusive. Yes, I know, it's common to do this and to pretend the thoughts are somehow parenthetical to the dialogue or action. However, I would feel better about it if--in this case--Bob had stepped out in the hall to hang up his coat or had rummaged through a drawer, giving Mary to have time to have these thoughts.

Experimental Techniques

I have always been interested in ways an author might show simultanaeous thoughts, actions and events in novels that are linear compositions. I have put text in columns, using one to show the action and one to show what a character is thinking about while the action is happening. I've also interwoven the dialogue lines when people are talking on top of each other. If my novels had been printed with a color option for text, I would have put one color on top of the other to show things happening all in the same moment.

My publisher hates it when I do that. It complicates printing and (as of the last time out) cannot be properly shown in an e-book. Readers freak out when they see it. I'm always focused on time when I write, so paragrapghs like the one in our sample stand out when I read them even though I think most people don't notice.

Nonetheless, I offer it has food for thought, the notion being that the reader might be impacted by these kinds of pretenses of thoughts happening in zero time even though s/he takes part in the game by (usually) accepting them without question.

--Malcolm