How to Edit Inner Monologue

Five tips that will make all the difference.

Inner monologue is a character talking to themselves — inside their heads. Basically, it’s dialogue that’s not spoken. It’s thoughts.

There is a difference between inner monologue and exposition (or narrative.)

Inner monologue is happening in the moment. It’s what’s going on in a character’s head during an active scene. It’s written in the first person, present tense, no matter what tense and point of view the rest of the book is written in.

Exposition or narrative is storytelling. It’s written in the same tense and point of view as the rest of the story.

Here’s one way to distinguish between the two.

• Inner monologue is similar to dialogue. It’s something that might be said, word for word, out loud.

“Do you want to go to a movie tonight?” “Sure.” At least it’ll get me out of the house. “I’d love to.”

• Narrative is more like writing a letter. It’s not something that would be spoken, as is, out loud.

“Do you want to go to a movie tonight?” “Sure.” She’d do just about anything to get out of the house. “I’d love to.”

Editing Inner Monologue

In many ways, editing inner monologue isn’t a lot different from editing dialogue. It should read naturally. It should flow. It should be written in the character’s voice.

But there are a few things that are unique to editing inner monologue. I’ll go over those here.

Make sure the formatting is right.

Just like dialogue, inner monologue gets its own paragraph, with perhaps a small action beat. Each paragraph belongs to one character. The action beat should be performed by the same person who has the inner monologue.

While you can italicize inner monologue, you don’t have to. You don’t even need to tag it at all. As long as the reader knows who the point of view character is, they’ll know that the inner thoughts belong to that character.

You never need tags like thought or wondered. Nearly every time, they’re unnecessary and bog the writing down. They also distance the narrative and take the inner monologue to an almost omniscient narration.

Here’s an example.

Jane sat hard on a chair and closed her eyes. I don’t want to think about this anymore.

vs.

Jane sat hard on a chair and closed her eyes. She thought, I don’t want to think about this anymore.

Do you see the difference? In the second example the words ‘she thought’ make it read like someone is telling us what Jane thought, instead of just having the thought itself which is very immediate.

If you think that the dialogue needs to be set apart, do it with Italics. Inner monologue should never use quotation marks — which only indicate spoken dialogue.

Jane sat hard on a chair and closed her eyes. I don’t want to think about this anymore.

The Italics obviously draw attention to the inner monologue. They slow the pacing down a little bit, I think. But be judicious with the Italics. Too many of them and they start to feel a little muddy. You don’t want a whole page peppered with them.

Make sure there’s enough of it.

Believe it or not, one of the biggest edits you’ll need to make with regard to inner monologue is actually writing it in the first place. Most new writers just don’t put enough of it in.

Here’s a tip. Look for places where you’ve used tiny little beats. Things like smiling, grinning, frowning, sighing, or nodding. Replace those with inner monologue.

An example of a little bit of dialogue without any monologue:

“Do you want to go to a movie tonight?” “Sure.” She nodded. “I’d love to.”

And here it is with the little ‘she nodded’ beat replaced with inner monologue.

“Do you want to go to a movie tonight?” “Sure.” At least it’ll get me out of the house. “I’d love to.”

One good question to ask, as you’re working on putting more inner monologue into your work is how does this make my character feel. In the example above, it’s clear that the second speaker is feeling resigned about going to a movie.

If you change it up, you can make them seem excited.

“Sure.” How long has it been since I’ve been to the theater? “I’d love to.”

Or lovestruck.

“Sure.” It’s finally happening — our first date. “I’d love to.”

Or angry.

“Sure.” Asshole. Does he really think this is all it will take to make it up to me? “I’d love to.”

And on and on.

Make sure it’s different from the dialogue.

An important thing to remember with inner monologue is that people very rarely say just exactly what’s on their mind. Inner monologue that’s very different from the same character’s spoken dialogue adds interest.

See the examples above to see what I mean. Each of those inner thoughts is different from what comes out of the character’s mouth.

Make sure it’s not telling too much.

One mistake new writers often make is mistaking a character thinking about what they want to say as interiority. That looks something like this:

“Do you want to go to a movie tonight?” I love the movies. “Sure. I’d love to.”

Or maybe:

“Do you want to go to a movie tonight?” Yes. “Sure. I’d love to.”

Your inner monologue shouldn’t tell something that’s already been shown or will be shown soon.

Let’s look at that first example again. It’s pretty awkward and you probably wouldn’t write it anyway. You might do something this though:

“Do you want to go to a movie tonight?” That sounds like fun. “I’d love to.”

It’s less in your face with the telling. But it’s still telling. Obviously, if they’d love to go a movie, they think it sounds like fun. Right? It’s basically just telling us what they’re about to say.

It would be better to use that inner monologue to let the reader know why they think it sounds like fun. Like this:

“Do you want to go to a movie tonight?” Instead of doing my homework? “I’d love to.”

Okay, now we know that this character thinks that going to a movie will be more fun than homework. We also know what they’d be doing instead of going to a movie. Which brings me to my last point.

Make sure it does at least two things.

My most important rule of thumb when I’m writing fiction is simple: everything has to do at least two things. Every paragraph. Every scene. Every line of dialogue.

Every line of inner monologue, too.

It should all give information, of course. But also do at least one more thing: develop the setting, the character, or move the story forward.

Let’s look at this again:

“Do you want to go to a movie tonight?” That sounds like fun. “I’d love to.”

Here, we get some information in the inner monologue. The character thinks the movie would be fun. And — that’s really all. We’ll know in the next line that they’d love to go to a movie.

But this:

“Do you want to go to a movie tonight?” Instead of doing my homework? “I’d love to.”

Here, we get information. The character would be doing homework instead. But that information does a second job. It lets us know that the character is a student, that they don’t have a great work ethic, that they’re willing to leave their homework to go to a movie without much of a struggle.

So, two jobs: information and character development.

Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She is an out-of-place Nevadan living in Northwestern PA with her husband, three superstar kids, Louie Baloo the dog, and Ollie Wilbur the cat. She’s on Instagram @ninjawritershop and is the author of Viral Nation, Rebel Nation, The Astonishing Maybe, and Center of Gravity. She is the original Ninja Writer.

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