One of the biggest fiction concepts I champion is interiority in literature (thoughts, feelings, reactions) as a way of getting to know character. (You can view all the posts I’ve written with an “interiority” tag here.) Now that you’re learning what it is, how do you foster it in your own fiction writing?

Access to Emotions Is Crucial to Making a Reader Care

Some writers struggle with the idea of accessing a character’s emotions. When to do it, how much, whether or not it falls under the dreaded “telling” category (show, don’t tell). But I maintain that access to your character’s thoughts, if done well, and at the right time, is one of the most important elements of getting a protagonist down on the page in a relatable and nuanced way. The thing is, you don’t have to revamp your whole novel.

Picking small moments where interiority can shine is key.

Developing Character Interiority in Literature Isn’t Intuitive for Everyone

Many writers have a sense of whether or not they excel at developing interiority in literature. I recently worked with a client who came to me saying, “Dang it, I just don’t know how to render a character’s emotions.” It was true, and I appreciated her self-awareness.

When approaching how to describe emotion, instead of accessing her protagonist’s head, she pulled out physical clichés as shorthand for his feelings. His heart was beating, so that meant he was nervous. His fists clenched, and he was angry. His cheeks flushed, and he felt in love. But when you’re simply letting your body parts do the talking for the character, you will never get to the emotional nuances underneath (more on avoiding cliches here).

He’s nervous…about what in particular? About whether or not he’ll succeed? About a specific worst case scenario, which would give me additional context or foreshadowing about the plot? He’s angry…at who? The other character in the scene, who is a snake, or himself for believing the snake in the first place? As you can see, there are many things beyond the base feelings that we can layer into our emotional writing, and that is where the real meat of your character lives.

Checklist for Developing Character Interiority

If you suspect that you might struggle with interiority in literature, write the following questions on a Post It note and hang it above your writing station:

• What is your character doing right now (objective)? Why (motivation)? (The why is especially important.)
• What do they hope will happen?
• What do they worry will go wrong?
• How do they feel about themselves?
• How do they feel about their scene partner?
• How do they feel about their place in the plot in general?

Obviously, you don’t have to address these questions in every scene, but you can train yourself to think along these lines when your character is experiencing emotions.

Explore the Emotional Nuances of Big Moments

For every big emotion they might feel (anger, fear, lust), there are probably two or three secondary emotions that you can tease out that serve to deepen our understanding of the character or increase story tension. When you become better at looking through your protagonist’s eyes with these issues in mind, you can pick and choose whether or not to funnel some, all, or none of this information into interiority.

Emotions are tricky, messy, nuanced. They deserve a lot of attention as you craft your protagonist, and even secondary characters. At any moment, no matter what is happening, you could delve into their inner lives and discover some of these thoughts and feelings. Do you always need to share them? Of course not. But in bigger moments, where you really want to pull the reader in, try to hit some of these notes. Specificity is key. Take a scene you’re really struggling with, or that feels alienating, and try answering some of these questions today!

Want to dig deeper into interiority? Get my book, Writing Interiority: Crafting Irresistible Characters and transform your approach to character creation and storytelling.