The Beginner Novelist’s Guide to Psychic Distance in Creative Writing
Use this advanced technique to add rhythm and power to your novel
Writing a novel is like choreographing a dance or composing a symphony. The universal factor which pulls all the other elements together into a harmonic whole is rhythm. Dance or music with no variation in tempo would be monotonous and meaningless. Likewise, with the novel.
A novel needs well-crafted rhythmic variation to make sense to the reader. Studies in linguistics, cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology suggest that language itself has close evolutionary links with dance, ritual, music, and rhythm. The most powerful technique for modulating the rhythmic sense of a novel is ‘psychic distance’ or ‘narrative distance’. I prefer psychic distance as it’s more evocative of what you’re aiming for with this technique and avoids confusion with other narrative elements.
How to understand psychic distance
The easiest way for most people to grasp the concept of psychic distance is to compare it with camera cuts in a movie. It’s not the same technique, but it’s similar enough to help explain it. In a movie the camera changes angle, viewpoint, and distance from the characters and events taking place on screen every few seconds.
A wide, panoramic shot, taking in the entire landscape will cut to a tighter view of a group of people; then comes a ‘close-up’ on one character’s face, or perhaps just their eyes; now, a ‘cut away’ to something happening elsewhere followed by a quick montage of scenes played one after another; next, you see a long, lingering scene, giving you time to absorb every detail, etc.
When you write your novel — or more likely, when you revise it — you must use a similar technique. There’s more to handling rhythm than moving from one point of view character to another or the inherent sense of speed or action in a scene. All those narrative techniques help create a sense of rhythm in your work, but the one which blends them together is the deliberate manipulation of psychic distance.
The psychic distance spectrum
You can think of psychic distance as a spectrum ranging from deep inside the protagonist’s mind and heart to a wide, impersonal, descriptive view. Borrowing an idea from John Gardner’s excellent book of instruction, The Art of Fiction: notes on craft for young writers, you can get an idea of the range by marking five points on the spectrum. The following are the examples Gardner gives, quoted here in compliance with the fair use policy of international copyright law. The notes and explanations are mine.
- It was winter of the year 1853. A large man stepped out of the doorway.
- Henry J. Warburton had never much cared for snowstorms.
In these first two levels of psychic distance, we get no insight at all into the inner life of the character. It’s like a far-off, ‘bird’s-eye view’. The voice is that of the narrator.
In the first example, there’s no distinction made between the narrator and the author of the novel. This is what we sometimes call ‘storytelling’ mode. It’s a form of descriptive reportage in which the storyteller/narrator/author grants the reader access only to the external realities of the events taking place. In exchange for this long-distance psychic perspective, the reader feels assured that the events, situations, and actions described are “facts”. This level of psychic distance is useful to give the reader information without revealing motives or feelings which you may wish to conceal.
3. Henry hated snowstorms.
At this point on the spectrum, we’re still in full narrative mode but have taken a step away from the authorial identity and moved closer toward the character himself. We get the beginnings of a sense of individuality and hint at the inner life of the character. At least, we know how he feels about snowstorms. But we still get that information second-hand. We have no direct insight into Henry’s mind and must take the information on faith in the narrator. You still report any thoughts or dialogue at this distance. You might write, for example: It would be too cold to work today, he thought.
4. God, how he hated these damn snowstorms.
Now we’re closing the psychic distance between the reader and the character and blurring the lines between information given by the narrator and direct access to the character’s inner life. Henry’s individuality is much stronger here, and we get a sense of his voice rather than the narrator’s. This is a ‘hot point’ frequency on the psychic distance spectrum. It’s called ‘close third person’ or ‘free indirect style’.
Most modern novels favor this frequency as the default psychic distance. The narrative voice is almost invisible, and we give the stage to a character ‘living out’ the scene. So much so, that the contextual framework of the bird’s-eye view has gone altogether, and the reader experiences everything from Henry’s limited perspective.
5. Snow. Under your collar, down inside your shoes, freezing and plugging up your miserable soul.
At this point on the spectrum, there’s no distance left between the reader and the character. We’re inside Henry’s head. We only know what he knows, see what he sees, feel what he feels; we think and believe what he thinks and believes. At least, we have no other information to go on and the voice is his. The narrator has vanished from the fictive space.
But as readers, it’s something we know and understand. We’re alert to the possibility that things as they seem filtered through Henry’s private, personal perception, may not be as they are in the wider, fictive reality of the novel. This zero-point psychic distance is powerful when you want the reader to share the full emotional impact of a protagonist’s experience. It’s also an excellent frequency to deploy the narrative technique of the ‘unreliable narrator’.
Psychic distance in the first person narrative
With a little imagination and practice, you can use all these distances — and others in between — in the first person, too. But while first person narrative voices are becoming more common in contemporary long-form fiction, they remain somewhat experimental or limited to specific sub-genres. The third person narrative — most often the free indirect style — is still the default.
Default frequencies and variations
The secret to the art of developing the rhythm of a novel lies in modulating psychic distance. Most novels in any genre, including literary, focus on frequencies around 3 and 4 on this psychic distance spectrum. But they will always deploy other frequencies from time to time. Sticking to a single frequency throughout, especially at the extremities of the spectrum, makes a narrative either tedious and disengaged at one end (1) or rushed and confusing at the other (5). But staying only in the middle range is too limited to achieve effective storytelling.
It’s a useful exercise to reread two or three of your favorite novels and try to work out which frequencies of psychic distance the author uses, where the changes are, what the changes are, and how often they happen. When you’ve done that, you can think about why the author used a specific frequency at a specific time. Do this with several books, so that you can compare each author’s approach.
Perfecting the narrative style of your novel
If you want to write compelling narrative fiction at novel length (50,000 words plus) it’s vital to learn the art and craft of manipulating psychic distance. Like so many elements of writing other than the rules of grammar and syntax, it’s hard to teach. Or, to be more precise, you can only learn what’s needed by doing it yourself. But once mastered, your command of psychic distance will enable you to put the last piece of the jigsaw in place when you’re perfecting the narrative style of your novel.
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