Finding the Sweet Balance Between Interiority and Exteriority in Fiction

During my last writing retreat, I had a discussion with a few writers about how to nail the emotional thoughts, and inner struggles of a character on the page. How do you make the reader fall in love with your character just by writing dialogue or action? How do you fit in the things only the character knows. How do you decide how many inner thoughts to include? What is too much? Or is not enough? All great questions.

The answer is simple: Find the sweet balance between the characters’ interiority and exteriority within the story you are trying to tell.

What is Interiority?

For a fiction writer, interiority is what happens inside your point-of-view character’s mind. It is the internal narration of their thoughts and their feelings. It is the stuff that an observer wouldn’t be able to see or hear. So, the interiority is what someone else, who isn’t your main character, would have to guess if they weren’t told about it. It is also what makes your reader understand more about your character.

What is Exteriority?

Exteriority is the other things around the character, such as setting, action, narration, gestures, descriptions, exposition, and transitions.

How do you find the sweet balance?

Honestly, it is hard. Novels with more exteriority and only a small amount of interiority read more like a screenplay or a movie. It is mainly filled with dialogue and direction cues. When the novel has the opposite, more interiority over exteriority, it tends to have pacing issues that make the story so slow that no one wants to continue reading.

For example, if you have a scene where the character keeps interrupting the action with her thoughts (several times on a page), it becomes way too much. The reader will dislike the continuous commentary and put the book down. You, as the writer, do not want that.

Finding your individual balance between the two becomes your writing style. Some authors sprinkle it in like a tiny amount of salt in a birthday cake, while other writers hammer it in with several paragraphs at a time, in every chapter.

The trick is to add enough interiority to make the character’s growth believable, while keeping your reader on track, pulling or pushing them through the plot and pace of the story to the satisfying ending.

How do you choose what to add?

Sometimes, the reader must know how a particular word or sentence has triggered something in the character. Perhaps, the character senses the other person is lying to them, or they feel the need to tell their own lie for whatever reason. Adding a sentence of inner thought to contradict what they have just said in the conversation shows the reader the character is struggling. It also helps describe what kind of person they are without telling them.

When in doubt, read other authors. Reading books is the best way to learn how to do it like a professional. I just finished reading FUNNY STORY by Emily Henry, and she is a master at weaving the interiority with exteriority.

Examples:

Here is a tiny excerpt with no dialogue, but it shows actions mixed with thoughts, which provides a bit of humour.

Or, here is another excerpt from the same novel showing an example of interiority woven between the dialogue. In this partial scene, the main character’s ex-fiancé sends her a wedding invitation to his newly scheduled wedding to someone else, one month after he breaks up with her (that was one week before they were going to get married). So, after she RSVPs to his wedding invitation, the ex-fiancé calls her on the phone.

As if this whole thing isn’t humiliating enough, he’s called me to make sure I know he feels bad for me. I’m seeing red.

“I won’t be alone,” I say.

“I mean, without a date,” he clarifies, completely unnecessarily.

“I know,” I say. “I’m bringing a boyfriend.”

Even as I’m saying it, there’s a voice screeching in my brain, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

I face the window and pantomime a scream, one hand dragging down the side of my face. I wonder if this exact scenario inspired Edvard Munch’s The Scream?

“Your boyfriend?” Peter’s voice emanates sheer disbelief.

No, my brain says.

“Yes,” my mouth says.

“But… you didn’t RSVP for a plus-one.”

I’m not usually a liar. [eliminate two paragraphs for the purpose of demonstration here]. She says, “I didn’t need a plus-one. He got his own invitation.”

The weighty silence tells me that Peter is doing invisible calculus now.

~ FUNNY STORY by Emily Henry

These are two perfect examples of nailing that sweet balance of finding out more about the character and pushing the reader to desire more information. I sped through that 384-page novel in two nights. I would’ve finished it in one day if I didn’t have to go to work that day. Unfortunately, work constantly gets in the way of my reading progress. Pfft. But I must work to make more money to pay bills and buy a shit-ton more books. So, yeah, I need to stop complaining. Obviously, you know I love to collect books by the room-full and actually read some of them.

How do you find the sweet balance?

Here is a great exercise on how to balance interiority and exteriority in your novel. This is going to take some hard work and extra words, but I guarantee it will be worth your time. Once you do this exercise a few times, you won’t need to do it for every scene. The rest of the novel will come together naturally for you.

Exercise in finding the sweet balance:

1. Write a scene mostly consisting of exteriority (setting, action, descriptions, etc.)
2. Write the same scene again, but use the interiority approach to discovering the point-of-view character’s thoughts and feelings, giving hints to their emotional inner struggles. No dialogue or action, just their thoughts.
3. Read over both the exteriority and the interiority scenes while highlighting snippets of your best lines with a highlighter.
4. Write a third version of the same scene by focusing on your highlighted sentences weaving the best parts of exteriority with interiority.

After completing the exercise, you will notice how the reader gets a more profound feeling behind the character’s emotions, opinions, and ideas by observing the balance you have created between exteriority and interiority. They do not have to be a 50-50 split, and they shouldn’t. I think, you will need to edit a few more times to find the sweet balance percentage between the two. You might find that an 80-20 or a 70-30 split is more to your liking. Go with your natural inclination by reading the scene aloud to find the rhythm of your prose.

If suppose you find areas where the reader might be confused or disconnected from the character, you will need to add more interiority. If you find places with too many thoughts and feelings that are ruining the pace, you will need to dial it back a bit.

Effectively revealing a character’s wants, needs, dreams, or fears will ultimately pull your reader into the story. When you slow down the story by adding in some thoughts, even if your character is on the run, you push the reader into the real world, adding pure emotions and making them think about the stakes and whether they are achievable or not. This builds the momentum of the scene and the reader’s suspense to keep turning pages… and usually the reader will be hooked enough on your ability to tell a story that they are already pre-ordering your next book SEVEN SECONDS after finishing the current one. You know, the book you haven’t even started writing yet.

There are a few authors who set my heart and mind on fire, and their words feel like binging on crack for me. I want to read everything as soon as it is released, which is why the opportunity of pre-ordering a book appeals to me so much. The book arrives on my doorstep the day before or on Publication Day. I’m always extremely grateful and over-the-moon happy.

So, finding the sweet balance of writing interiority and exteriority in fiction becomes a novelist’s greatest asset. Finding the perfect way to reveal the character’s inner feelings and thoughts will up your game, making a reader fall in love with your work, compelling them to be a forever fan of your writing. Isn’t that what all writers want?

YES. Yes, it is.

Opportunities to learn more:

If you would like to learn more about inserting Interiority into your fiction, I highly recommend Rebecca Makkai’s Substack – go HERE.

Or, Literary Agent Cece Lyra has an upcoming 3-hour course on Thursday, June 6th, 2024, called, “Writing Interiority: Revealing your Character’s Inner Life.” To sign up for this course, go HERE. I have already signed up for this course and can’t wait to see what golden nuggets Cece shares with us. She is a great teacher, and I highly recommend her classes.

Lastly, if you are still searching for that perfect literary agent, I have something exciting to share with you. Literary agent, Carly Watters has opened up registration for a self-directed online master class, The Author’s Publishing Playbook: Insights from a Literary Agent. This master class is fantastic. I am halfway through it, and I love all the honest advice about strategies for preparing your manuscripts, pitching your books, and unlocking methods on how to stay published and successfully promote your books. It is expensive, but if you want your writing to become a full-time career, it is worth the money.

Happy writing.