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The Editing Blog: for Editors, Proofreaders and Writers

FOR EDITORS, PROOFREADERS AND WRITERS

3 reasons to use free indirect speech in your crime fiction

9/7/2018

14 Comments

 
Are you using free indirect speech in your writing? This article provides an overview of what it is and how it can spice up crime fiction.
3 reasons to use free indirect speech in crime writing
​This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #94
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What is free indirect speech?
In a nutshell, free indirect speech offers the essence of first-person dialogue or thought but through a third-person viewpoint.

The character’s voice takes the lead, but without the clutter of speech marks, speech tags, italic, or other devices to indicate who’s thinking or saying what.

It’s a useful tool to have in your sentence-level toolbox because:

  1. It’s flexible and can add interest
  2. It can make for a leaner narrative
  3. It can deepen our understanding of a character

The table below shows three contrasting third-person narrative styles in action so you can see how free indirect speech works:
​Indirect/reported
​Rathbone thought Cumberbatch’s portrayal of Sherlock Holmes was excellent and decided it was time to hang up his deerstalker.
Direct/quoted
‘Time I hung up my deerstalker,’ said Rathbone. ‘That Cumberbatch chap’s doing a sterling job with Holmes.’
​Free indirect speech
​Time to hang up his deerstalker – that Cumberbatch chap was doing a sterling job with Holmes.
It’s also referred to as free indirect style and free indirect discourse.
 
1. Flexibility and interest
Free indirect speech (FIS) is flexible because it can be blended seamlessly with other third-person narrative styles.
 
Let’s say you want to convey information about a character’s physical description, their experiences, and their thoughts – what they think and delivered in the way they’d say it.
 
You could use third-person objective for the description, third-person limited for the experience, and free indirect speech for some of the thought processes.
 
In other words, you have a single narrative viewpoint but styled in different ways. You’re not changing the viewpoint, but rather shifting the distance between the reader and the character. And that can make your prose more interesting.
 
Here’s an example from Val McDermid’s Insidious Intent (p. 14). She begins with a more distant third-person narrator who reports what had been on Elinor Blessing’s mind, and when. Then she shifts to free indirect speech (the bold text). This gives us temporary access to Blessing’s innermost thoughts – her irritation – and her lightly sweary tone, but still in the third-person:
It had been on her mind for days. The last thing on her mind as she let the oblivion of sleep overtake her, the first thought on waking.
     Earlier that morning, she’d groaned at the invasive ringtone from her partner’s iPhone. Bloody cathedral bells. How could such a small slab of silicone produce so much noise? At this rate, she was going to end up as the Quasimodo of the A&E department. ‘Paula,’ she grumbled sleepily. ‘It’s my day off.’
Val McDermid: Insidious Intent

Philip Prowse employs a similar shift in Hellyer’s Trip (p. 194):
Then the interrogation ceased. He knew he should have been scratching lines on the cell walls to mark the passing of time. But what was the point? He wasn’t the Count of effing Monte Cristo.
Philip Prowse: Hellyer’s Trip

​2. A leaner narrative
FIS is a useful tool when you want to declutter.
 
Direct speech and thoughts are often tagged so that the reader knows who’s speaking/thinking:
​
  • ‘Blah blah,’ she said.
  • Blah blah, she wondered.
 
With regard to thoughts, there’s nothing wrong with a reader being told that a character thought this or wondered that, but tagging can be interruptive and render your prose overworked and laboured if that’s the only device you use.
 
Imagine your viewpoint character’s in a tight spot – a fight scene with an arch enemy. The pace of the action is lightning quick and you want that to be reflected in how your viewpoint character experiences the scene. FIS enables you to ditch the tags, focus on what’s going on in the character’s head, and maintain a cracking pace.
 
The opening chapter of Stephen Lloyd Jones’s The Silenced contains numerous examples of free indirect speech dotted about. Mallory is being hunted by the bad guys. She’s already disarmed one in a violent confrontation and fears more are on the way. Jones keeps the tension high by splintering descriptions of step-by-step action with free-indirect-styled insights into his protagonist’s deepest thought processes as, ridden with terror, she tries to find a way out of her predicament:
She tensed in the doorway, holding herself erect, terrified that by moving she would give away her position and feel the wet kiss of a blade, or bone-shattering impact of a hammer.
     Another press of air lifted fronds of her hair from her face. Abruptly, she recalled the window she had found at the back of the house, open to the night.
     Of course. That was the source of the breeze.
[...]
     Was there anything she had forgotten? The Nissan’s keys were in her right-hand pocket. She had the two books from the study.
     That was it.
     Reaching for the deadbolt, she carefully drew it back.
     Breathe in. Breathe out.
Stephen Lloyd Jones: The Silenced

​Here’s an excerpt from Lee Child’s The Hard Way (p. 64). Child doesn’t use FIS to close the narrative distance. Instead, he opts to shift into first-person thoughts. Reacher is wondering if he’s been made, and whether it matters:
Reacher asked himself: did they see me? He answered himself: of course they did. Close to certainty. The mugger saw me. That was for damn sure. And these other guys are smarter than any mugger. [...] Then he asked himself: but were they worried? Answered himself: no, they weren’t. The mugger saw a professional opportunity. That was all.
Lee Child: The Hard Way

Some might argue that this is a little clunkier than going down the FIS route, but perhaps he wanted to retain a sense of Reacher’s clinical, military-style dissection of the problem in hand.
 
If Child had elected to use FIS, it might have looked like this:
 
Had they seen him? Of course they had. Close to certainty. The mugger saw him – that’s for damn sure. And those other guys were smarter than any mugger. [...] But had they been worried? No, they’d seen a professional opportunity. That’s all.
 
It’s a good reminder that choice of narrative style isn’t about right or wrong but about intention – what works for your writing and your character in a particular situation.

3. Deeper insight into characters
A third-person narrator is the bridge between the character and the reader. As such, it has its own voice. If there’s more than one viewpoint character in your novel, we can learn what we need to know via a narrator but the voice will not be the same as when the characters are speaking in the first person.
 
FIS allows the reader to stay in third-person but access a character’s intimate world view and their voice. It closes the distance between the reader and the character because the bridging narrator is pushed to the side, but only temporarily.
 
That temporary pushing-aside means the writer isn’t bound to the character’s voice, state of mind and internal processing. When the narrator takes up its role once more, the reader takes a step back.
 
Furthermore, there might be times when we need to hear that character’s voice but the spoken word would seem unnatural:

  • Perhaps they don’t have time to verbalize (a high-octane escape scene).
  • Maybe they’re on their own and talking to themselves isn’t a known trait.
  • Speaking out loud would give them away.
  • Dialogue would seem forced because a character wouldn’t give voice to the words in real life.
 
FIS therefore allows a character to speak without speech – a silent voice, if you like.
 
Think about transgressor narratives in particular. If you want to give your readers intimate insights into a perpetrator’s pathology and motivations, but are writing in the third-person, FIS could be just the ticket.
 
Here’s an example from Harlan Coben’s Stay Close (chapter 25). Ken and his partner Barbie are a murderous couple bound together by sadism and psychopathy. Ken is preparing for the capture and torture of a police officer whom he believes is a threat:
The cop, Broome, entered the house. Ken wanted to curse, but he never cursed. Instead, he used his favorite word for such moments – setback. That was all this was. The measure of a man isn’t how many times he gets knocked down; it’s how many times he gets back up again. He texted Barbie to stay put. He tried to listen in but it was too risky. [...]
     What more could any man want? He knew, of course, that it wouldn’t be that simple. He had compulsions, but even those he could share with his beloved. What was he waiting for? He turned back toward the house.
Harlan Coben: Stay Close

This excerpt is from an audiobook. While listening, I could hear how the voice artist, Nick Landrum, used pitch to shift narrative distance.
 
The book’s entire narrative is in the third-person, but Landrum used a higher pitch when presenting the narrator voice. Ken’s dialogue, however, is in a lower pitch, and so is the free indirect speech of this character – we get to hear the essence of Ken even when he’s not speaking out loud.
 
If you’re considering turning your novel into an audiobook, FIS could enrich the emotionality of the telling, and the connection with your listener.
 
A closer look at narrative distance
To decide whether to play with free indirect speech, consider narrative distance and the impact it can have on a scene.
 
Look at these short paragraphs, all of which convey the same information. All are grammatically correct but the reader’s experience is different because of the way in which the information is given, and by whom.
1
Dave glanced at the guy’s hand and spotted the absence of the signature tattoo. It forced him to consider the integrity of the intel he’d been given. Again. And it bothered him.
Third-person: A narrator reports the situation and what the character’s thinking.
Most distant. There’s shallower emotional connection between the reader and the viewpoint character. The narrator’s voice is more clinical and dominates.
2
Dave glanced at the guy’s hand and spotted the absence of the signature tattoo. ‘Christ,’ he muttered under his breath, not for the first time questioning the integrity of the intel he’d been given.
Third-person: A narrator reports the situation and most of what the character’s thinking.
First-person: A character reports a little of what he’s thinking.
Less distant. The dialogue burst gives voice to the character, which introduces tension.
3
Dave glanced at the guy’s hand and spotted the absence of the signature tattoo. Christ, he thought. Maybe my intel’s been compromised yet again.
Third-person: A narrator reports the situation.
First-person: A character reports what he’s thinking.
Closer. Readers might find italic thoughts and tags disruptive, or believe that such well-structured thoughts aren’t authentic.
4
Dave glanced at the guy’s hand and spotted the absence of the signature tattoo. ‘Christ, maybe my intel’s been compromised again,’ he muttered.
Third-person: A narrator reports the situation.
First-person: A character shares his concerns out loud.
As close as (3) above. Dialogue might seem forced, unnatural, spoken purely to help the reader understand what the problem is.
5
Dave glanced at the guy’s hand. No signature tattoo. Christ, had his intel been compromised again?
Third-person: A narrator reports the situation, and a character reports what he’s thinking via free indirect style.
We’re right inside the character’s head but there’s no cluttering italic, speech marks or tagging. The free indirect style feels natural precisely because it’s rendered in the third-person and yet it holds the intimacy of a first-person experience offered in (3) and (4).
6
I glanced at the guy’s hand. There was no signature tattoo. Christ, had my intel been compromised again?
First-person: A viewpoint character reports the situation and what he’s thinking.
Closest. We’re right inside the character’s head, there’s no clutter, and the narrative feels completely natural. However, this only works if you’ve chosen a first-person narrative for this viewpoint character throughout the book, which you might find limiting.
Your choice will depend on your intention. Think about your character, their personality, the situation they’re in, which emotions they’re experiencing, and the degree to which you want your reader to intimately connect with them.
 
Consider the following examples in relation to the table above:

  • Is the scene fast-paced and do you want to keep your sentences lean and keen to reflect that pace? The viewpoint character might not have the mental space to articulate fully rounded thoughts or speech because they’re in a fight or trying to escape. In that case, the free indirect style of 5 might suit you. So might 6 if you’re writing in the first person.
  • Is the viewpoint character hiding, observing something going on but invisible to those around them? If they feel in command but are taking care to remain unnoticed, 2 might offer you the required tension while enabling you to retain tight control over the narrative via a narrator.
  • If your character has the space to think but is panicking, you might prefer 3 or 4. Anxiety can lead people to articulate complex thoughts, even voice them out loud, in the search for clarity.
  • If your viewpoint character’s personality is cooler, more detached, you might prefer the emotional disconnectedness of 1.
  • And if you’re writing in the third-person, but want the reader to feel intimately connected with the viewpoint character, you might swing back to the free indirect style of 5.
 
Wrapping up
FIS is used across genres, but I think it’s a particularly effective tool in crime writing because of its ability to simultaneously embrace brevity and communicate intimacy.
 
Jon Gingerich sums up as follows: ‘Free Indirect Discourse takes advantage of the biggest asset a first-person P.O.V. has (access) and combines it with the single best benefit of a third-person narrative (reliability). It allows the narrator to dig deep into a character’s thoughts and emotions without being permanently tied to that person’s P.O.V. Done correctly, it can offer the best of both worlds.’
 
If you haven’t yet played with it, give it a go, especially if you’re looking for ways to trim the fat.
 
Further reading
  • ‘A beginner’s guide to narrative point of view in crime fiction.’ Louise Harnby, 2018
  • ‘The Benefits of Free Indirect Discourse.’ LitReactor, 2012
  • Hellyer’s Trip by Philip Prowse. Kernel Books, 2018
  • Insidious Intent by Val McDermid. Little, Brown, 2017
  • Stay Close by Harlan Coben. Whole Story Audiobooks, 2012
  • The Hard Way by Lee Child. Bantam Press, 2006
  • The Silenced by Stephen Lloyd Jones. Headline, 2018
​
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.

She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
14 Comments
Chris Graham link
29/7/2018 01:08:22 pm

Hi Louise,

As well as introducing authors to readers, my blog contains curated content to inform writers and be a resource hub for them.

With that in mind, may I have permission to publish a linking post to this article (and possibly other future articles)

I endeavour to use no more than 10% maximum of any article text as an extract introduction, plus, I include the article author name, photo (if available) and a topic related image, provided it is free to use.

Please check out examples already posted on my site, to see what I mean.

Chris Graham (aka The Story Reading Ape)

Reply
Louise Harnby link
29/7/2018 04:54:56 pm

Hi, Chris. Thanks so much for asking. I'd love to be included in your curated posts according to the terms you've outlined. You can get a headshot from my bio page here: https://www.louiseharnbyproofreader.com/bio.html. The images I use on my blog posts are free so help yourself.
Feel free to get in touch if you need anything else.

Reply
Chris Graham link
2/8/2018 09:54:26 am

GREAT - Many thanks, Louise - it's now scheduled to go live TODAY, 2nd August, at 6:00PM, London, UK time (1:00PM EST)
Chris

Louise Harnby
2/8/2018 10:53:50 am

Thanks, Chris! You're an example of really good curation practice.

Reply
Chris Graham link
2/8/2018 06:08:41 pm

Thanks, Louise 😎

Reply
Jazzfeathers link
3/8/2018 09:00:44 am

Such a great article. I don't often encouter articles about FIS. Is it only my impression, or this is a technique that is not used very much today? I often see writers resort to first person, present tense instead, where I think FIS if far more effective and fexible.

Thanks so much for sharing.

Reply
Louise Harnby
3/8/2018 11:11:54 am

Thanks, Jazzfeathers!

I see it quite a lot in mainstream-published crime fiction, but I wonder if some first-time authors are nervous about using it because of the shift in narrative distance. I work directly with indie authors, and it's something I often suggest introducing to tighten up wordy prose. And, so, it may be that if a writer hasn't studied the craft of writing formally, FIS isn't something they've considered adding to their toolbox.

I was actually inspired to write this post because one of my clients (a first-time novelist) asked me to check whether he'd used FIS correctly, but he's someone who spends time learning about writing technique. He'd done a great job and it really enhanced the narrative. He didn't overdo it, just peppered his novel with it, and it worked beautifully.

I agree with you on the effectiveness and flexibility issues. And it's far less cluttering in terms of speech tags and italicized thoughts!

Reply
Matt
21/1/2019 03:34:53 pm

Thank you for this. I've been seeking to learn more about Free Indirect but there doesn't seem to be much out there (any additional suggestions?).

One question: what's your opinion on using italics for emphasis with Free Indirect?

So you might have example 5 from above, where you're inside the character's head without italics for the bulk of it, but then you'd use italics for a thought you want to emphasize, or maybe it's a 1st person thought?

Thanks!

Reply
Louise Harnby
21/1/2019 06:42:50 pm

Have you read this, Matt? I think it will answer your questions about PT thoughts vs free indirect style, and how to render for clarity: https://www.louiseharnbyproofreader.com/blog/how-to-write-thoughts-in-fiction

I noticed the dearth of posts about this issue, too, which is why I was so keen to tackle it!

Reply
Antal from Hungary link
18/7/2020 03:05:07 pm

Dear Louise - thank you especially for the sum up of the 3-reasons-to-use-free-indirect-speech-in-your-crime-fiction blog.

Just to come to your judgement I copy here a 225 words long paragraph:
------------
Should I tug myself to stoves of the keg? Yes, yes I must. Terror rolls me over and over - that is for damn sure. I see the nails in me. Those pagans stud nails into me and roll me in this keg off from the mountain. They are mad. Oh how cool, the breeze fronds my blood-stuck hair from my face. My head bounces on a rock. What is that river below? My balance impaired, my coordination lost. I am rolling, bouncing. Are those cars? And that statue? Where do I roll? Oh, what a thud. A thud of blood. Blood, blood everywhere. And you? Grinning? Grinning at me? Bruising my head like that of a snake? How funny. How sad. How indifferent. I lost my body sense in this dreaming swirl. No pain, no anguish in this vortex life. My T-shirt is wet. Blood or sweat?

Alex scans around the dorm. Blimey, the washbasin. He shakes his head. The towel is there. I must tackle it. He rolls out from below his wet sheets and reels toward the washbasin.
The pictures of his dream still vibrate weaker and weaker as twilight dances into darkness. Some crazy out there in the yard of St Andrews kick yelling a ball. Intensive lovemaking penetrates through the walls from the neighboring dorms. I will never accomplish my ninety pages in this bloody dig.

--------
As a note: the objective of the paragraph is to motivate Alex to meet someone
Besides, Alex is a contemplative character - and the dream works as a seed preparing the topics for his contemplations.
------------
The question: does FIS work in present tense?

Reply
Louise Harnby
19/7/2020 10:11:13 am

Hi, Alex. Free indirect speech retains the base tense AND narrative style. So if you're writing in third-person present, and introduce first person, it's a thought, not free indirect speech. If you're writing in first-person present, it's just normal narrative, not free indirect speech.

Yes, free indirect speech can be used with a present-tense narrative but it would look like this:

He'll never accomplish ninety pages in these bloody digs.




Reply
Aditya
14/8/2020 12:19:47 pm

Thanks for the wonderful post. I'm a 17 year old working on my first novel and FIS just came naturally to me when I started writing a few months ago. I'm slightly worried that the inner monologue of the MC written in FIS might blend with the action and confuse the reader, especially in fast paced action scenes. Please review this small except below :
Gaius unsheathed his sword, grinning at her pale face as she desperately searched for a weapon. A sword, a dagger, a freaking flower pot... anything! She looked into his eyes, searching for any hint of sympathy as he raised the metallic blade above his head, the fluorescent ceiling lights reflecting off its surface and blinding her. No! She couldn't die!
The thunderous sounds of her thumping heart filled the otherwise silent room.
"Sorry Claire... but you need to be sacrificed." He said, excitement dripping from his voice.
She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping this was a nightmare. It had to be!
The air was cool and dry, yet tense like a blanket suffocating her. Seconds felt like eternity as she waited for the inevitable, the feeling of her neck slicing off her body. Ouch!
With a whoosh metal sliced through the air. She held her breath... Was it over? No pain?
Reluctantly she half-opened her eyes, which immediately went wide. What the hell?
Thanks. As you might have observed, I am struggling with blending the internal monologue with action.

Reply
Louise Harnby
14/8/2020 01:08:13 pm

Hi, Aditya.
You'd need to hire an editor if you want them to work on your prose. I offer free general guidance via my blog but that's as much as I can give away for free. Sorry!

Reply
Aditya
14/8/2020 01:33:53 pm

Thanks for the quick response Louise. I understand and do not expect specific guidance for free. I'll continue to follow your blog though. Thanks!




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