How-to: Keep Interiority Intimate

People come to stories to forget their own lives for a while. Whether it’s a Netflix show or a NYT bestselling book, we want to be taken into a different world when we sit down with a story.

The best stories take us ALL the way into that different world. We want to experience events like the protagonist experiences events, from inside their body and perspective. Good storytelling ensures there’s no separation between the protagonist and the experiencer of the story, whether they’re reading, watching or listening.

Two sentences rolled across my X timeline a few days ago. Here, the OP is asking which is stronger as the opening line to their first chapter:

There’s no doubt #2 is stronger. Reasons:

• The reader / experiencer enters into the story expecting be inside the main character’s head, so we don’t need a cue as to who is doing the thinking. The character’s actions in the next couple paragraphs should do the job of orienting us to who’s on the page without having to say who’s doing the thinking.

• Fewer words, fewer clauses. Generally a good rule of thumb.

• Adding “Esbé thought” wedges a space between the reader and the character, reminding the reader that, “You’re not really Esbé, you’re just reading about her.” But the reader comes to the page to EXPERIENCE BEING Esbé. So by attributing the thought to Esbé, we actually lose intimacy with Esbé. The reader hears her as Esbé, not as ME.

Readers want to be intimate with your characters. They want to become your characters—to be absorbed by their problems, to be rocked by their emotions, to be exhilarated by their triumphs. Let your reader hear your characters’ internal speech (interiority) with no interference.

This works in fiction, of course, but it’s also important in nonfiction when you’re writing an anecdote to illustrate your point.

Bonus round:

I’d remove the “deeply” from sentence #2 as well. Terrifying’s got more gunpowder without the adverb.