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Round brackets, or parentheses, crop up less frequently than many punctuation symbols in fiction writing, but that doesn’t mean we must ban them. This post explores two ways to make them work effectively.
What are round brackets?
This is what they look like: ( )
They always come in pairs, and act as alternatives to paired dashes or commas in fiction. They have other functions in non-fiction writing but I’ll leave that discussion to a non-fiction editor! Compare these examples:
All of the above are grammatically correct, though paired brackets (like dashes) are stronger than commas, and more interruptive to the eye than both commas and dashes, probably because they’re used less frequently and associated more with non-fiction work.
Every writer will do well to ask themselves how their choice of parenthetical styling will affect the rhythm and clarity of their prose. Every writer will also do well to ask themselves whether readers will be annoyed by them. Like serial commas, adverbs and the singular they, round brackets rarely pass a reader or an editor without evoking opinion. More on that later. Brackets, full points and capitalization
Regardless of which English you’re using – British or American, for example – the rule is the same:
If the bracketed information is included as part of a sentence, the full point comes after the closing bracket. The bracketed clause takes a lower-case initial letter unless it starts with a proper noun.
If the bracketed information stands as a sentence in its own right, the full point comes before the closing bracket. The bracketed sentence takes an initial capital.
Danger, Will Robinson!
Round brackets in fiction garner strong opinion, usually negative.
The most-cited reason I’ve seen – and it’s a valid one – is that they pull readers out of a story. Given that there’s no reason on earth why you’d want to pull a reader out of a story, tread carefully. Still, given that they’re not grammatically wrong, it’s only right that we should consider the ways in which round brackets might work in your fiction. The two I’ve seen most often are as follows:
Round brackets in fiction: Satire
For an example of how round brackets can be used for satirical purposes, we need look no further than Dickens.
In Our Mutual Friend (Wordsworth Editions, 1997), the viewpoint is omniscient. The scene is an ostentatious banquet hosted by the Veneerings. Dickens uses round brackets to set off narrative asides that poke fun at the guests and show them as the bumptious fools he believes them to be – and wants us to. Here’s an excerpt from p. 11:
In other words, the crest is a farce.
And one of the diners, a Mr Twemlow, is obsessed over whether he is Veneering’s ‘oldest friend’, though he would never admit to being bothered by such a thing. Dickens’s bracketed snipe (p. 12) leaves us in no doubt about the man’s snobbery; it interrupts the dialogue of Lady Tippins, a frightful show-off whose ‘my dear’ sends Twemlow into a tizzy:
This approach is unlikely to find favour with readers who bought your high-octane thriller expecting a rollercoaster ride. The external narrator’s voice is overwhelming, and in most contemporary commercial fiction it will slow readers down, drag them out of the story, and infuriate them.
Round brackets in fiction: Viewpoint shifts
Take a look at this example from Stephen King’s The Outsider (p. 252; Hodder, 2018):
The brackets are effective here precisely because they’re interruptive. The narrative viewpoint in this section is third-person; we see the world as Holly, the private investigator, experiences it.
Given that it’s third-person, our finding out something that Holly hasn’t considered shifts the narrative distance. Such a shift might jar under other circumstances because it yanks us out of Holly’s head. King, however, is a master of viewpoint, and he writes his characters with a rich immediacy. Still, he finds ways to introduce flexibility seamlessly, and in this case it’s with round brackets to introduce his omniscient narrator. The parentheses allow an external narrator to enter the story just for a moment – an all-seeing eye that tells us what Holly didn’t think – but that voice is cocooned safely within those round brackets, and is gone as soon as the reader’s eye passes over the closing symbol. King’s an experienced writer. If you’re not, I recommend holding a single character viewpoint and steering clear of bracketed interruptions from another narrator. Here are four ways we could recast the King excerpt:
Spaced en dash
With that taken care of, Holly went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered a light meal – no way was she paying room-service prices. Closed-up em dash With that taken care of, Holly went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered a light meal—no way was she paying room-service prices. Semicolon With that taken care of, Holly went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered a light meal; no way was she paying room-service prices. Full point With that taken care of, Holly went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered a light meal. No way was she paying room-service prices. Round brackets in fiction: Dialogue
In Fix Your Damn Book! How to Painlessly Self-Edit Your Novels & Stories (Gift Horse Productions, 2016), James Osiris Baldwin advises never using round brackets in dialogue because they break ‘the fourth wall’.
What’s the fourth wall? It’s originally a theatrical term but in our case refers to the imaginary barrier between the characters and the audience. It’s good advice. It makes no sense to give an external narrator space inside a character’s speech. That’s why in the earlier Dickens example, the interruption comes between the speech-marked dialogue rather than within it. Summing up
There’s nothing grammatically wrong with using round brackets. Stylistically, however, they could be a misfire. If you use them in your fiction, think care and rare: understand the impact they have on story and viewpoint, and use them infrequently.
About Louise Harnby
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) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
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Is your dialogue pushing your novel forward or making the reader feel like they’re eavesdropping on a mundane conversation at the bus stop? Here’s how to ensure your dialogue pops.
What good dialogue isn’t
Good dialogue is the icing on the cake of a well-structured novel. Bad dialogue will mar a well-structured narrative and bury a story that is barely hanging in there. Before we look at what makes great dialogue, let’s look at what dialogue isn’t:
What dialogue is not
3 components of effective dialogue
‘Dialogue should be the character in action,’ says John Yorke in his must-read Into the Woods (p. 151). Yorke’s talking about the art of screenwriting but the advice is just as pertinent for novelists. I recommend you read it even if you have no intention of writing for the screen because it’s a masterclass in storytelling, whatever the medium.
When we stop thinking about dialogue as words spoken – as conversations – and instead frame it in terms of characters, we create something that’s fit for a novel. What does your dialogue tell readers about who your characters are, how they’re feeling, and what their motivations are?
3 components of effective dialogue
1. Character voice How characters speak tells us about who they are, what makes them tick – their fears, frustrations, hopes and dreams, identity, preferences. Perhaps their speech is abrupt, rude, measured, polite, sweary or seductive. When we change the way a character speaks, we change their voice. And that means we change them.
2. Character mood
How characters speak tells us how they’re feeling. Dialogue that conveys emotions allows us into their heads, even if they’re not the viewpoint character.
3. Character intent
How characters speak tells us what they want to do. Perhaps they’re asking questions for the purpose of discovery and understanding whodunit (doctors, lawyers, PIs and police officers regularly use dialogue in novels to this end), but dialogue can express a multitude of motivations. Ask yourself what your character wants every time they open their mouth. Unreliable dialogue
What a character expresses through dialogue need not match their true voice, mood or intent. Unreliable dialogue is powerful precisely because it jars the reader by masking the truth (which the characters themselves may even have buried).
Imagine this scenario: John has been kidnapped by Jane. They met in a club where she spiked his drink. He started to feel unwell and she offered him a ride to the Tube station. He never made it. He’s been held captive for several days, during which time he’s been physically abused and deprived of food. He’s frightened out of his wits, and weak to boot. The dialogue between John and Jane could go as follows: John raves and rants, telling Jane her behaviour is monstrous, that Jane’s going to pay for her actions and that he’s going straight to the police as soon as he’s escaped. Jane responds in fury, telling John he deserves it all and how there’s no way he’ll ever escape. Or the dialogue could be unreliable. John might be polite, sycophantic even, as he thanks her for the water she provided, compliments her on her appearance, or asks her about her life. Through that speech, we are shown his desperation. It’s about keeping her on side and calm in order to save himself. And Jane’s verbal response might be chipper, seductive even. Through that dialogue, we are shown her psychosis. The result is a sinister verbal exchange that allows us to explore the inner workings of the characters’ minds without it being forced down our throats via an all-to-obvious narrative that’s centred around the viewpoint character. Breaking free of viewpoint limitations
Most novelists opt to hold third- or first-person narrative viewpoints. That means the story in a chapter plays out through one person’s perspective.
When authors drop viewpoint, readers end up playing a game of narrative table tennis in which they bounce from one character’s head to another. We know who everyone is (voice), what everyone’s feeling (mood), and what everyone wants (intention) all of the time. Readers become disengaged because they don’t have time to immerse themselves in any one character’s experience. Good dialogue allows writers and readers to break free without head-hopping. Through dialogue, readers can intuit the voice, mood and intention of multiple characters, yet the singular narrative viewpoint remains true throughout. That keeps the reader engaged and the writing taut. Purposeful dialogue in action
Example 1
Here’s an excerpt from Lee Child’s Never Go Back (pp. 457–8). I chose it because I’ve also seen the movie, which allowed me to compare my experience of the screen dialogue (and the advice Yorke gives) with the novel’s, and because there are no action beats, only two speech tags and no narrative. It’s just dialogue between a teenage girl and Jack Reacher.
Note on what reader already knows
Following a lawsuit filed by Candice Dayton, Jack Reacher believes that the teenager in the scene, who’s running for her life, may be his daughter. He also cased out the diner and the staff the evening before, so the servers’ faces are familiar.
What we learn
This is characters in action, expressed through speech. Child makes every line count towards the chapter denouement. If he was tempted to introduce narrative and action beats that ensured we’d get it, it doesn’t show. In fact, they would have been interruptions and slowed the pace. Instead, he trusts us to do the work because the dialogue gives us everything we need. Example 2 Here’s an excerpt from The Poison Artist by Jonathan Moore (pp. 244–5). I chose this because of the contrast between Kennon and Emmeline’s speech.
Note on what reader already knows
There’s another man in the room with torture devices attached to him; he’s twitching. Caleb is the viewpoint character, but he’s handcuffed and out of play. Nevertheless, we have access to two more characters’ voices, moods and intentions through the dialogue.
What we learn
This, too, is characters in action, expressed through speech. Moore draws us deep into the transgressor’s mind – even though she’s not the viewpoint character. Her dialogue, juxtaposed with Kennon’s exhausted near-silence, generates a powerful scene that oozes with sickly tension. Example 3 Here’s a third example from Harlan Coben’s Run Away (pp. 68–9):
Note on what reader already knows
Simon and Ingrid are married. They hold Aaron – a corrupt and possessive addict who’s been murdered – responsible for their daughter’s breakdown.
What we learn
Again, through speech we see the characters in action. The contrasting voices and moods show us Simon and Ingrid’s different intentions. There’s no need for more than a peppering of supporting narrative. Summing up
Free dialogue enrichment tool
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About Louise Harnby
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) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
A vocative expression is one in which a person is directly referred to in dialogue. It needn’t be someone’s name; it could be a form of address that relates to their job or position, or a term of endearment, respect or disrespect. Here’s how to work with them.
The purpose of vocative expressions
Vocatives serve several purposes in fiction writing:
1. They help readers keep track of who’s saying what to whom. This is especially useful when a character is talking to two or more people.
2. They can enrich characters’ emotions by conveying a deeper sense of urgency, frustration, surprise or patience.
3. Readers can learn quickly about how characters relate to each other. Does one rank higher or defer to the other? Perhaps they’re friends, lovers, or loathe each other.
Overuse that distracts
Overusing people’s names and titles can be grating. Vocatives aren’t the only way of signalling who’s being talked to – you could use action beats (See: What are action beats and how can you use them in fiction writing?). And if there are only two people in a scene it will be unnecessary to continually use direct forms of address.
Think about the natural speech you hear in your everyday life. Most of the time, people don’t use vocative expressions excessively. Follow their lead in your novel. Compare the following examples: The Big Sleep, p. 140:
Butchered version:
The original version is much cleaner. The vocative in the first line helps to convey Vivian’s sarcasm. After that, Chandler lets us do the work and the conversation sounds natural.
How to punctuate vocatives
Commas are usually required for clarity.
If the vocative expression comes at the beginning of the sentence, place a comma after it:
If the vocative expression comes at the end of the sentence, place a comma before it:
If the vocative expression interrupts a sentence, place a comma before and after it:
A vocative at the beginning of a sentence might also stand alone, in which case it will be followed by a full stop (period) or exclamation mark:
When missing punctuation changes meaning
Punctuating vocative expressions incorrectly can lead to ambiguity. Compare the following examples of dialogue. Notice how the missing comma changes the meaning from expressions of address to instructions to carry out acts of violence.
Lower-case or upper-case initials?
Should you use lower-case or upper-case initials when addressing a person in written dialogue? It depends.
People’s names Names are proper nouns and therefore always take initial capital letters in the vocative case.
Terms of respect, endearment and abuse
Vocative terms of respect and endearment take lower case when used generally. Examples include: madam, sir, m’lady, miss, milord, mister; buddy, sweetie, darling, love, dear; and dopehead, fuckwit and plenty more I’d love to write here but won’t!
When terms of respect are used in conjunction with names, they become proper nouns and take upper case. Endearments and insults usually remain in lower case because they’re used adjectivally.
Titles of rank and nobility Titles of rank and nobility take initial capitals when used vocatively. Examples include: Your Majesty, Commander, Constable, Agent, Lord, and Detective Inspector.
Compare these with narrative text and dialogue that include indirect address forms. If the relational titles are used as names (proper nouns), we retain upper case. If we’re using common nouns with determiners (a modifying word that references a noun such as ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘each’, ‘her’ and ‘my’) we use lower case.
Titles indicating a relationship When used as a form of direct address, relational titles take upper case. Examples include: Mother, Uncle, Dad, Auntie, Grandma and Papa.
Again, compare these with narrative text and dialogue that include indirect address forms. If the relational titles are used as names (proper nouns), we retain upper case. If we’re using common nouns with determiners, we use lower case.
Summing up
Use vocatives as follows:
Use appropriate punctuation to set off forms of address in order to avoid ambiguity. And be judicious – overuse will distract and irritate readers. And, thank you, dear reader, for getting to the end of this article! (See what I did there?) Cited works
About Louise Harnby
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) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
If you’re looking for ways to inject some drama into your novel’s sentences, omitting filter words could be just the ticket. Do so judiciously though. Including them can add texture to mood and voice.
What are filter words?
Filter words are verbs that increase the narrative distance, reminding us that what we’re reading is being told by someone rather than experienced, or shown, through the eyes of the character.
Examples include noticed, seemed, spotted, saw, realized, felt, thought, wondered, believed, knew, decided. I see more extensive filtering in books written by less experienced novelists who’ve not yet learned to trust their characters’ voices, who are uncomfortable about playing with devices such as free indirect style, or who are still learning the craft of injecting drama into narrative. I’ve taken some examples from published fiction and introduced filtering so you can see the difference, and how by avoiding filter words the writers have brought immediacy to their narratives: Example 1: Roz Watkins, The Devil’s Dice, p. 1 Original unfiltered
Filtered by me
Example 2: Clare Mackintosh, Let Me Lie, p. 15
Original unfiltered
Filtered by me
Example 3: Val McDermid, Insidious Intent, p. 14
Original unfiltered
Filtered by me
When filter words distract
Filter words – particularly when they’re used as a narrative staple – tap the reader on the shoulder and say, ‘You’re not in this book. Someone else is experiencing this.’ They’re a reminder that doing is being done.
Of course, we as readers know this to be true. Still, there’s nothing like immersing yourself in a character’s journey. Here’s an extreme example I made up:
The text is horribly laboured – overly cluttered with doing being done. When confronted with a novel filled with filtering, readers will be tempted to skim, which means they might miss something crucial. A worst-case scenario is that they’ll give up because it’s not an enjoyable experience.
Now let’s tighten it up by removing the filter words:
We’ve lost none of the detail but now the prose is more emotionally immersive. We can better feel John’s predicament because we’re not repeatedly told that he’s doing the doing. It’s narration that feels less narrated.
When filter words add texture
I’m not suggesting you ban all filter words. When used intentionally they have a layering effect that can enrich a novel.
The Mackintosh example above is in first person. I think my filtered version works; it’s just different. Or perhaps it would be stronger with only one of the filters. Either way, one might argue that it imparts a deeper sense of the character’s scouring the envelope for clues. I still prefer Mackintosh’s approach because I like my crime fiction on the nose, but the experiment demonstrates that filter words aren’t wrong or right, but rather devices you can use to play with the reader’s experience of your story and the characters moving around within it. Here’s an example from Philip Prowse’s Hellyer’s Trip, p. 194:
Prowse uses a filter word here: knew. He then follows through with free indirect style to close the narrative distance and take us right inside the character’s head while still maintaining a third-person viewpoint.
So let’s look at what happens when we remove ‘He knew’.
I think the unfiltered version works very well but it does change the feel of the writing. Gone is the sense of deliberation. All four sentences are immediate. To my ear, the rhythm accelerates. And although there’s a feel of telling with the inclusion of ‘He knew’ in the published version, there’s also an increased sense of despondency, as if the character has had time to think this over and arrive at this knowledge.
I mentioned character voice above. Here are two examples from Play Dead by David Rosenfelt:
Rosenfelt’s writing is tight. He never drops a beat. When he uses a filter word it’s with intention. Those who’ve read the Andy Carpenter series will know that this fictional attorney’s voice drips with a delicious acerbity, and the character thinks, acts and speaks with purpose.
When we’re told he realizes something it’s because the author wants us to have a sense of dawning awareness, not because he couldn’t be bothered to cast the sentence in a way that avoided it.
Most of the time, Rosenfelt avoids filter words: ‘I’m so pissed …’ not ‘I feel so pissed …’; ‘He spends most of the time …’ not ‘I listen to him …’. However, he chooses to tag ‘I don’t think’ onto the beginning of the final sentence rather than going with something like ‘My silent treatment isn’t bringing him to his knees.’ And, actually, the protagonist’s thinking is what deepens the voice and the immediacy.
Summing up
To keep your prose tight, look out for filter words that tell of doing being done. Then consider whether a gentle recast without them will improve your prose. How does the revised text make you feel? Is the meaning still clear? Is the mood you’re seeking evident?
If the prose feels more dramatic and immersive, you’ve done your novel and your readers a favour. If you lose something in the revision, like voice, mood or intention, reintroduce your filters at the appropriate points. About Louise Harnby
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) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Action beats are short descriptions that come before, between or just after dialogue. Here’s how to use them in your fiction writing.
What do action beats do?
Action beats enrich characters’ voices by telling us about their emotions, their movements and their intentions while they’re speaking. They can even tell us who’s speaking and whether their speech is reliable or not. And they can ensure that readers don’t become bored.
In that sense, we can think of them as alternative narrative ‘voices’ that enrich our perceptions of, or engagement with, the characters. 1. The voice breaker Long chunks of dialogue can be off-putting. Action beats can act as rhythm moderators that break up the speech and its tagging.
2. The emotional voice
Action beats can be mood indicators. In real life, we express what we’re feeling or sensing – for example, sadness, pain and frustration – with our bodies as much as our voices. Emotions manifest physically. In fiction, complementary action beats can enrich the reader’s understanding of character emotions but without clumsy dialogue tags or adverbial modifiers that distract from the dialogue. Here are some examples:
3. The physical voice
Perhaps you’ve heard of the term ‘talking heads syndrome’. When there’s a lot of dialogue, the reader can end up dislocated from the environment, as if the characters are speaking in a vacuum or floating in white space. In ‘The Dreaded “Talking Heads Syndrome”’, writer James Boyle discusses an example from a writer in his critique group: ‘... [they] wrote a scene for a mystery story in which a detective is arguing with her boss. Though somewhat trite, the dialogue was realistic and believable, but there was virtually no description of their surroundings, no description of how the characters react to their environment.’ Action beats ground the dialogue by quickly giving it physicality – a geographical region, a room, a time of day, the weather conditions, even a body. They keep the reader grounded in the scene, which helps retain immersion. Here are a few more examples:
4. The alternative voice
What a character says via dialogue and what they mean or think might be very different. Action beats can act as an alternative voice that indicates reticence or unreliability. They say what the character can’t or won’t. The examples below show you how it works:
5. The voice indicator
Action beats and dialogue run on from each other because they’re connected. That means we can use beats instead of tags; they tell the reader who’s speaking. Once more, I've given you some examples below:
How to lay out action beats and dialogue
Because action beats relate to dialogue, we can run them on rather than creating a paragraph return.
Here’s an example from Alexander McCall Smith’s The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (p.125):
How to punctuate and format actions beats
Before the dialogue
The action beat ends with a full point. An opening speech mark follows. The first word of the dialogue takes a capital letter.
Note that I’ve styled this with single quotation marks, but doubles might be your preference, especially if you’re writing in US English.
After the dialogue
The dialogue finishes with a full point followed by a closing speech mark. The first word of the action beat takes a capital letter.
Again, I’ve used single quotation marks, but doubles are fine too. It’s a style choice.
Within the dialogue
You have several choices about how to handle this depending on where the beat goes and what punctuation style you choose. Example 1: Mid-sentence In this case, the beat interrupts the dialogue mid-sentence, which lends emphasis to the word ‘This’. If you’re writing in British English style, you might prefer spaced en dashes and single quotation marks. This is how it looks:
If you’re writing in US English style, you might go with closed-up em dashes and double quotation marks. This is how it looks:
Notice the lack of initial capital letters and the omission of commas in both examples. Example 2: Between complete sentences In this case, the beat interrupts the dialogue between sentences. This is how it works:
Notice that because the sentences in the dialogue are complete, we punctuate and capitalize according to the Before the dialogue and After the dialogue examples above. Overuse, repetition and cliché
As is always the case with good writing, devices such as action beats, free indirect speech, dialogue tags, and anaphora work best when the reader can’t identify a writing pattern. Instead, mix things up so that your reader doesn’t guess which literary tool’s coming.
Pay attention to whether you repeat particular action beats, particularly clichéd ones. If your characters often purse their lips, furrow their brows, rake their hands through their hair, spit on the ground, or roll their eyes while they’re speaking, it’s time to think of alternative ways to express despair, disgruntlement or annoyance. Summing up
Use action beats to enrich the emotionality of your characters’ speech and add interest to your writing. Think about how they can anchor the dialogue in a physical space, and whether they’ll provide an alternative to a speech tag so we know who’s saying what. However, watch out for oft-repeated phrases that turn beats from pop to pattern.
Cited sources
About Louise Harnby
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) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
This article offers guidance on how to self-edit your fiction writing so that accents don’t become the primary story.
Everyone has an accent
Do your characters speak with an accent? All of us speak in ways that are distinctive; we just don’t notice our own accents because they’re ours and we’re used to them.
Oxford Dictionaries defines accent as ‘A distinctive way of pronouncing a language, especially one associated with a particular country, area, or social class.’ Authors who are inexperienced at writing accented language can be tempted to use phonetic spelling. But writing accents is difficult; so is reading them. Most experienced authors and editors will therefore caution against this approach. Furthermore, spelling and pronunciation are two different things. Says Beth Hill in The Magic of Fiction (pp. 409, 394):
Avoiding the inexperienced-ear trap
My husband was born in Belgium. He speaks fluent French. My friend Alain was born in southern France. He also speaks fluent French. They can hear strong differences in their pronunciation. Alain knows that Johnny’s accent is Belgian though he can’t tell what part of Belgium Johnny was born in. Johnny can tell that Alain is from France, and can even identify that he’s from the south, but not where in the south.
I have enough French to get by, but it’s limited. When I hear Johnny and Alain speaking French to each other, I can’t hear the difference in their accents because my ear isn’t experienced enough. I also have friends and family from Yorkshire, England. To me, their accents sound the same, but I know they’re not. Nor are the turns of phrase they use. That’s because people in Yorkshire don’t all speak the same, even if those of us with inexperienced ears think they do. And I don’t speak identically to every other person born in Buckinghamshire, or use the same turns of phrase. And there’s the first problem. The ways accents are rendered by a writer will be influenced by their experience of that accent. If their experience is limited, any attempt to mimic it in writing could seem absurd to a reader with a more experienced ear. It could even turn into parody, and a bad one at that. Consider how much we’re influenced by others. Many of us talk to and listen to voices from all over the world. Speech is elastic and we often borrow from each other – not just words and phrases but pronunciation too. What each of us defines as accented, or not accented, will depend on where we’ve been, who we know, and what we’ve heard. When phonetic spelling trumps story
Conveying accents through phonetic spelling can lead to phonemes trumping action.
Here’s a mangled example of a French person speaking English. The spelling is phonetic:
If the protagonist detective is French, and every time she opens her mouth this is what we have to read, our focus won’t be on the plot.
The most important thing about the sentence above is what it tells us: a corpse was found in a section of the woods that had been given the all-clear. Which means either the area wasn’t cordoned off and guarded, or the team didn’t check the area properly. That’s not what the reader will be focusing on. Instead they’ll be digging their way through a multitude of zeds. It’s a distraction that pulls the reader out of the story. Plus, we need to ask whether that phonetic spelling renders the speech authentic. I’d argue it’s a horrible inauthentic caricature that has no place in any work of fiction that isn’t intended to mock. My friend Alain mastered the th phoneme within a few weeks of living in the UK. Yes, his English was – and still is – accented (just as mine is to others), but if he was my detective, the most realistic way I could render this line in his mouth would be:
Which is just like I’d say and spell it in English. And so would my Scottish friend Denise, and my Canadian friend Janet, and my American friend Carrie, my German friend Nicole, my Yorkshire-born friend Helen ... you get the picture.
We all have different accents, but conveying them with phonetic spelling is distraction not enrichment. Deliver what you promised and what’s interesting
If your reader thought they were buying a mystery, a thriller, a romance or sci-fi opera, they might be disappointed to find out they’re reading something else.
Lessons in how your Dutch, Indian, Welsh or British protagonist or transgressor pronounces words are not what they paid for. Furthermore, is your character’s accent really their most interesting trait? That they’re from a particular region or country might be enriching backstory. It might even play into the plot line. But is their accent key to the story? If it’s not – if it’s no more relevant than how they take their coffee – it needn’t go on the page, and if it does, it need only be in passing. Respect your audience now, then and from wherever
There’s more than one way of speaking English. Just because I speak in a certain way, doesn’t make it standard. It’s just my way of speaking.
But there’s a bigger problem. Seeking to render pronunciation ‘authentically’ can reinforce discrimination:
Writers need to examine their own biases (however unintentional) when they convey accents, and other characters’ perceptions of them. Plus, at the very least, overworked or badly done written accents can sound like mockery. And even if you think your writing is amusing, your reader might not.
Years ago, I worked on a book in which the protagonist – for whom we were rooting – mocked his German arch-enemy for his ‘ridiculous’ pronunciation of a w as a v when speaking English. Actually, it was the protagonist and the author who ended up looking ridiculous because there is no ‘correct’ way to pronounce a w that can be universally applied across the planet. If one character’s mockery of another’s accent is central to the plot, that might be an opportunity to introduce phonetically spelled written accents briefly, but it will be a device that shows the mocker as ignorant and closed-minded. If that’s not your intention, and it doesn’t drive the novel forward, don’t include it. Make things easy for your reader
The best novels make us forget we’re reading them. We’re so immersed in the story that we don’t notice we’re processing words on a page.
Every time a writer forces us to decipher how a word sounds, they risk dragging us out of their book. If a book is littered with accented narrative and dialogue, we might not even get to the immersion stage. Say Mittelmark and Newman (p. 151):
‘Ah, but what about Irvine Welsh?’ you might say. This review on Goodreads reflects my own experience of Trainspotting:
Yes, he’s a great writer and it’s a great book, but I found it hard work. And I’m not always in the mood for hard work. I read for relaxation.
If you think your audience is like me and this reviewer, think twice about whether you want to go down this route. Plus, it’s unlikely that any writer will be able to pull off what Welsh does if they’re writing accents and dialect that aren’t their own. Other ways to convey accent – light flavouring
Here's more advice from Mittelmark and Newman (p. 151): ‘When doing any kind of accent, whether regional dialect, foreign accent, or a characteristic like a lisp, it is important to remember that a little goes a long way.’
So how might we gently nudge the reader to imagine a character’s accent in a way that avoids literally spelling it out? Here are 6 ideas:
1. Snippets of another language If the character’s from another country, you could add in a few of their native-language words here and there. Agatha Christie peppered her Poirot novels with mais ouis and mon amis (and Sophie Hannah has followed that style in her Poirot continuation mysteries). Christie didn’t go over the top though, and nor does Hannah. In Closed Casket, Poirot speaks at length, sometimes over several pages, and there’s no hint of a non. Less really is more. You could also introduce words from the character’s original language in moments of stress. Bear in mind, though, that lots of swear words (e.g. fuck) have an international appeal, so even a non-native English speaker might prefer this over their own language. I confess to being a little bemused when I read Poirot’s French snippets. He speaks English fluently, as this short excerpt from The ABC Murders (p. 3) demonstrates:
The French therefore seems a little out of place. Poirot is able to use metaphor artfully, yet reverts to his native language for a simpler phrase. To some readers it will look a little contrived and old-fashioned.
Still, it’s Christie, and she published this book in 1936. Fair enough. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right for your contemporary novel. 2. Noticing another’s accent Another character might notice someone’s accent – perhaps a Brit enters the scene in a novel set in the US, and the American protagonist notices the way they pronounce a hard t. In this case, it’s an observation that tells us something about the Brit’s voice, and from then on the reader can imagine their idea of how that would sound. No more need be said about it. This approach is best done early on. A character might frame another’s accent in terms of thoughts about how they themselves struggle to roll an r with the ease that the Parisian they’re listening to does. Or your character might convey another’s country of origin by pointing out how excellent their English is and how, for example, their Swedish or Russian accent is barely discernible. 3. Idiom and localization Localized or idiomatic words and phrases can also provide triggers for a reader that help them imagine accent. So perhaps your visiting Mancunian momentarily throws the people they’re hanging out with in Baltimore when they use the terms pissed or pants. And a character could identify another’s accent in the narrative by way of appreciating it. Again, it gives readers just enough information to do their own imagining. Check with people in the know if you use this approach. Say Mittelmark and Newman (p. 107): 'When you use idioms incorrectly, it makes you sound as if you come for a different culture than the reader, and possibly a different planet.'
However, this warning might be something you can use purposefully if it’s suitable for your plot.
4. Contractions and dropped consonants You could sprinkle the dialogue with just a few dropped consonants or contractions to convey accent (’appen, innit, ain’t, nowt, t’other). Again, less is more. It shouldn’t stand out more than the story. 5. Grammatical structures that trip in translation Learn about other regional and grammatical structures that you could introduce once in a while. Says Now Novel:
Still, take care not to overdo these to the point of caricature and cliché.
6. Stories from other places Bring in other details that characterize a person’s place of birth – a detail about the environment, culture or food preferences, for example. Some years ago I was in Oslo in winter. I was cold and commented on the woeful weather to my friend. He replied: ‘Here in Norway, we say there’s no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing.’ Another half-Norwegian friend (I know quite a few Norwegians!) once told me about one of her favourite childhood snacks, Svolvær postei (it's a kind of fish paste). We scoffed our way through several tins of the stuff one delicious afternoon. That, not her pronunciation, is what sticks in my mind when I think of her Norwegianness. For the novelist, those kinds of small details might be a more enriching way of conveying a person’s heritage than butchering the spelling of their dialogue. Why focus on that accent?
One final thing to consider is why you would focus on one character’s accent and not every other’s. Remember, everyone speaks with an accent, whether our own ears recognize it as such or not.
So imagine you’re an American living in the US. You’re in a cafe. Most of the people around you are from the US and pronounce words the way Americans do – which is to say, differently but broadly with an American accent. You don’t notice this because these accents are familiar to you. Then four Brits join your table and begin to speak. You notice their accents because they stand out for you. However, the four Brits think their accents are uninteresting because they’re familiar with their own pronunciation. Your American accent is the one that stands out. Now imagine that cafe is your novel and the people are your readers. What’s interesting – what stands out – depends on who’s doing the listening. The contemporary reader watches movies and TV, and listens to radio and podcasts. All of us are exposed to multiple voices and accents. We're used to noticing them, absorbing them and moving on. When I’m reading Ian Rankin’s Rebus novels, which are set in Scotland, I’m not given frequent reminders that the primary characters speak with Scottish accents. When I’m reading Harlen Coben’s Myron Bolitar novels, which are set in the US, I’m not told that the characters speak with American accents. Why would the authors made a big deal of a Belgian, Indian, Swedish or British accent but not a Scottish or American accent? That’s not to say it wouldn’t be interesting to know where those people come from if that’s relevant to the story, and it might serve to ground the viewpoint character’s perceptions of their own nationality and pronunciation, but it wouldn’t excuse phonetic renditions of people talking differently. Consider, therefore, whether it’s necessary to make an issue of one of your character’s accents just because their pronunciation stands out to your ear when you’ve been happy to ignore the ‘home’-accented voices in your book. Any mention should be purposeful. Summing up
It isn’t necessary to write accents. There are other more interesting ways to show where someone’s from.
Focus on the story you’re telling and how you’re going to move it forward rather than worrying how the speakers pronounce their vowels and consonants. If you give the reader a little background and a light peppering, they can do all the imagining for themselves. If you still feel compelled to convey accents in your fiction, do so purposefully and sparingly, especially if they’re accents that you’re not familiar with. And watch out for caricature, parody and bias. Cited works and related resources
About Louise Harnby
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) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
If you write fiction, chances are your characters will be thinking. This article shows you several different ways of conveying what’s going on in their heads.
There is no rule
First off, there is no rule. Instead there are standard ways and not-so-standard ways of conveying thoughts in fiction.
Rules are problematic because they lead writers down a prescriptive road that can render their fiction difficult to read, and lacking in aesthetic on the page. Method 1: Quotation marks
The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) has this advice (13.43: ‘Unspoken discourse’):
This is undoubtedly my least-favourite option. I recommend you use the speech-mark style with caution. I can’t remember the last time I saw this approach used in commercial fiction coming out of a mainstream publisher’s stable. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been, of course!
I dislike it intensely, and many fiction publishers seem to be choosing other methods by preference, but those aren’t good reasons to avoid it. Your style is your choice. The best reason for avoiding it is that using speech marks could confuse your reader. The beauty of speech marks – or quotation marks – is that they indicate speech. When you put speech marks around a character’s thoughts, your reader will immediately assume they’re reading the spoken word. Look at the CMOS example above. Only when we hit thought Vera do we realize she’s not speaking at all. She’s thinking. Some authors might be tempted to use a different speech-mark style to indicate a thought. Again, this is confusing. Your reader might assume that you’ve not edited for consistency, as this example demonstrates:
If, like me, you want something a little cleaner, something that won’t pull your reader out of the story because you led them down a speech-based garden path only to pull them up short at the gate, here are a few alternatives.
Method 2: Italic text
You can render your thoughts in italic text. For short thought streams, this is a common approach.
Let’s return to the CMOS example and see what it looks like:
The advantages of this style are as follows:
However, some readers find that large chunks of italic strain their eyes. I’m one of them. I’m much more likely to skim over huge passages of italic because it’s not a pleasant reading experience. If that text is masking a clue, or a key character trait, information about an important event or something else that holds the plot together, it’s essential that the reader accesses it. Look at the Vera example again. There are two thought tags – thought Vera and she told herself – just to ram the point home that she’s thinking. Some readers and writers might consider two tags overkill, but they do help to break up the italic text and don’t jar as much as they might. But imagine if Vera’s thought stream had gone something like this:
That’s a lot of italic to get one’s retinas around. If you have a long stream of consciousness, you might prefer another method.
Method 3: Normal body text
This style forgoes speech marks and italic, and sticks to normal text. This is how it looks with the longer Vera example:
The advantage of this style is that it’s easy on the eye. However, some readers might be jarred by changes in tense.
If your narrative is set in the past tense and set in the third person (as in this example with Vera) and you use the same text style for present-tense direct thoughts, then in a longer thought stream you could pull your reader out of the story. And if this happens frequently, your prose will be riddled with flip-flopping tenses that are at best frustrating and at worst confusing. Method 4: Free indirect style
Another option is to use free indirect style (sometimes called free indirect discourse or free indirect speech). This style offers the essence of first-person thought but through a third-person viewpoint.
The advantages of this style are as follows:
Let’s return to Vera to see how this works:
The free indirect style does keep the narrative distance close but it’s still not quite as immediate at the present-tense first person. So is there anything else we can do?
Method 5: Mix it up
A more creative option might be to combine direct and indirect thought styles.
In the example below we begin with two sentences that use the italic style for the present-tense first-person thought, and we retain the thought tags to break up the text. Then we move into roman text but cast the thought stream in the free indirect style, which matches the main narrative: third-person past tense.
The advantages of this style are as follows:
Summing up
As with many sentence-level decisions in fiction writing, rendering thoughts is about style choices rather than a single prescriptive rule. Choose the solution that fits your story best. This might mean making different decisions at various points in your novel depending on what’s going on.
Consider combining approaches if you have longer thought streams and want to be sure of retaining reader engagement. And, finally, avoid speech marks when it comes thoughts. They’re called speech marks for a reason and are best reserved for talking and muttering! Cited works and related resources
About Louise Harnby
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) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Readers want to know what characters look like. Writers want to show them. Here are some tools that will help do it with subtlety rather than a sledgehammer.
Why shopping lists don’t work
We like to know what characters look like because it allows us to picture them in our mind’s eye. That helps us invest.
The author wants us to invest in them, immerse ourselves in their journey, because then we’re more likely to keep on reading. Still, no reader wants all that information hurled at them as if they’re reading a shopping list, and certainly not in a way that’s cliched or mundane. That’s nothing more than an information dump. Here are some ideas for how you might unveil your characters’ physical descriptions in ways that are relevant and interesting. I’ve used examples that I’ve enjoyed from published works of crime and speculative fiction. First things: Pick and choose what to tell
I said above that readers like to know what characters look like. Actually, we don’t necessarily need this detail to immerse ourselves in a character’s experience.
This became obvious when I read I Am Missing by Tim Weaver. I love the David Raker series, and have read most of the books in it. I can’t recall whether and where Weaver has given me a physical description of his missing-persons investigator, but he certainly didn’t in I Am Missing. And you know what? I didn’t care a jot. Weaver uses first-person past-tense narratives, which means we uncover the mystery with Raker. We see what he saw, wonder what he wondered, run when he ran. His fear, pain, shock and relief are ours. That’s where the immersion comes, rather than in knowing that he’s X feet tall or has hair the colour of whatever. Which is to say, you might not need to tell us about the physical appearance of a character to draw us deep into the story. And even if you do want to give your readers a sense of what a character looks like, we don’t need to know everything. Tell us what’s interesting, what gives us an insight into the way they think or feel, or things they notice that will be relevant later in the story. Green eyes might be more interesting if they’re surrounded by bags that show tiredness, or creped lids that give a clue to the character’s age. Long elegant fingers might be more deserving of a mention if the owner picked away at their cuticles and made them bleed, perhaps because of anxiety. Choose the right space
If you decide you want to put a character’s physical traits in front of the reader in one fell swoop, you could follow Roger Hobbs’s approach. Ghostman is a gritty, punchy thriller. Hobbs’s writing is fast and taut.
Five pages into the novel (p. 8) we’re given a description of Jerome Ribbons. Hobbs fires a lot of information at us – skin, height, weight, strength. This is no shopping list, though. Ribbons is about to carry out a casino heist, and Hobbs uses a description of the character’s physical traits to show us that he’s physically and mentally capable of the crime. It’s a case of the right words in the right space.
Show us through another character’s eyes
There’s no better time to show what someone looks like than when a viewpoint character sets eyes on them. We’re already in the viewpoint character’s head, thinking and seeing with them. Their observations are reliable, and it feels natural for the reader to be confronted with descriptions of what’s visible, and why it’s noticeable.
Here’s another excerpt from Ghostman (pp. 31–2). Jack is the protagonist, and the viewpoint character in this chapter. We see what he saw, and know what he knew. More telling, we learn something about how this character’s appearance belies his nature.
Make your character self-reflect
A viewpoint character’s self-reflection is another useful tool for character description, especially when it includes contrast … that was then, this is now. We don’t feel like we’re reading a shopping list. Instead, the details tell us a story of change – whether that is positive or negative.
In The Wife Between Us (p. 11), Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen weave Vanessa’s current hair colour, height and weight into a narrative about the challenges she endured when her marriage to a wealthy hedge-fund manager broke down.
Think about what you do when you look in a mirror.
If your character is seeing themselves reflected in a window or mirror, have them notice things about themselves naturally. Create an out-of-place setting
Might you set a character’s description in a scene where they look out of place?
Philip K. Dick doesn’t use any clever descriptors for Bill Black in Time Out of Joint (p. 19). Instead, the interest comes from how his manner of dress, hairstyle and gait appear old-fashioned to the viewpoint character, Ragle. It’s less a case of what he looks like than why he looks strange. No matter – the reader knows what they’re looking at.
Show us the viewpoint character’s emotional reactions
Describing how another character’s appearance makes the viewpoint character feel is another trick.
In Bad Luck and Trouble (p. 32), Lee Child uses rather mundane adjectives to describe Neagley, but the emotional impact on the plucky and usually granite-like Reacher, and Child’s typically no-nonsense sentence structure make this description anything but dull.
In the above example, Reacher feels awkward. You might use other emotional reactions as a way to open the door to natural-sounding physical description: envy, disgust, desire, for example.
Unveil through dialogue
Character descriptions needn’t come solely through the narrative. Dialogue is perfect for unveiling too because it pushes the details front and centre.
In I Am Missing (p. 13), Tim Weaver constructs a discussion between Raker, the protagonist investigator, and his client, Richard Kite. Weaver uses the conversation to show the scarring on Kite’s face.
Of note here is that the author chooses to give us little else about what Kite looks like – hair or eye colour, for example. It’s clever because this character is suffering from dissociative amnesia – unable to recall large chunks of information about himself. He is lost.
The author keeps such tight control over the physical description that we are drawn deeper into Kite’s loss of self, and Raker’s struggle to find any clue to who he is. As I read, he remained almost faceless in my mind’s eye. All I could picture was the harm he’d suffered. Writers can and should be picky about what they choose to include, and omit, in order to draw a picture and evoke a mood. Summing up
Do your best to avoid descriptions of characters that read like shopping lists or police reports. Instead, wrap the details around emotions, contrasts, and journeys of change.
See you next time (said the blue-eyed fiction editor with a bob, who wore size-nine shoes and was five foot eight). Cited works and further reading
About Louise Harnby
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) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
This post shows you how you can use commas and conjunctions to alter the rhythm of a sentence. Changing the rhythm can help your readers immerse themselves deeper in the mood of your narrative and the emotions of your characters.
Standard grammar advice
Standard grammar advice – the stuff we learned when we were kids – calls for lists with three or more items (or phrases or clauses) in a sentence to be separated by a comma, and for a conjunction to be inserted before the final item:
Or, if your preference is to use the serial (or Oxford comma):
The use of this one conjunction is called syndeton, and it moderates the pace. When it comes to fiction, standard grammar works very well for the most part. However, there are other accepted literary devices you can use to help your readers feel the scene you’ve written in a different way: asyndeton and polysyndeton. I’ve used examples from crime fiction in this article but the principles apply across genres. More on syndetic constructions
Syndeton is everywhere. It’s the most oft-used way of constructing a sentence with multiple clauses, and it works well because it aids clarity: this thing, that thing and that other thing.
Here’s an excerpt from At Risk by Stella Rimington (p. 369):
And here’s an example from Jo Nesbo’s first Harry Hole thriller, The Bat (p. 250):
The second excerpt is taken from a chapter in which the head of the crime squad, Neil McCormack, delivers a long speech to the protagonist, Harry Hole. Harry has just spent nearly an hour delivering his own monologue, updating McCormack on everything that’s happened so far.
The mood of the entire scene is one of contemplation and resignation. The characters give each other the space to talk without rushing. Their behaviour feels controlled, and the way they talk is measured. The grammatical structure of the sentence (syndetic) is a good choice because it moderates the speed at which we read, and reflects the mood. Omitting conjunctions – asyndeton
Authors might choose on occasion to change the mood of a sentence by deliberately removing the conjunction. Separating all the items with only commas accelerates the rhythm.
That speeding-up can have a variety of effects:
Let’s go back to the Nesbo example and see what happens when we change it:
By omitting the conjunction and inserting a comma, a sense of frustration and urgency is introduced. It’s subtle, certainly, but that’s the beauty of it.
If Nesbo had wanted to convey more immediacy, he could have elected to make these small changes. They would have altered the rhythm and showed (without spelling it out) that McCormack’s tone had changed or the pace of his speech had increased. Here are two examples from Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Directive (p. 274 and p. 355):
In the example above, Ludlum could have introduced ‘and’ after/instead of the final comma of the first sentence with no detrimental effects, but I think its omission brings a sense of urgency and determination to the writing that reflects the tension of the scene.
In the excerpt below, he uses asyndeton to evoke a sense of futility, frustration and anger. The reader is forced to become bogged down in the senseless loss of life from a bullet to the head:
Asyndetic constructions can be particularly effective in noir and hardboiled crime fiction. These genres don’t shy away from the dark underbelly of their settings. The characters are often as damaged as the gritty environments they work within, and a sense of hollowness and futility underpins the novels.
Here’s an excerpt from The Little Sister (p. 177) by the king of hardboiled, Raymond Chandler:
Imagine that second sentence with ‘and’ after (or instead of) the final comma. It would ruin the flow and remove the utter sense of despair and hopelessness. Chandler doesn’t overdo it though. He saves his use of the asyndetic for the right moments rather than littering his pages with it.
Using multiple conjunctions – polysyndeton
Another technique for altering rhythm is that of using multiple conjunctions. Polysyndetic constructions are interesting in that they can work both ways:
In the following example, Chandler (p. 103) shows us two different groups of people waiting in a reception area that the main character, Philip Marlowe, has entered. By using a conjunction between each adjective describing the hopefuls, he enhances the brightness of their mood. This in turn tells us more than Chandler gives us in terms of words about the other group. We can imagine their boredom and frustration:
There’s a powerful example of the polysyndetic in Kate Hamer’s The Girl in the Red Coat (p. 151). Hamer uses it to enrich a child-character’s voice. Carmel has been abducted and is experiencing a kind of dislocation as she plays with two other children. The multiple conjunctions serve to emphasize the overwhelming giddiness. There’s almost no time to take a breath:
Beware the comma splice
Asyndeton should not be confused with the comma splice.
A comma splice describes two independent clauses joined by a comma rather than a conjunction or an alternative punctuation mark. I recommend you avoid it because some readers will think it's an error and might leave negative reviews. The standard-punctuation column in the table below shows how the authors have got it just right. The right-hand column shows you how the non-standard comma-spliced versions would appear.
Author: Ludlum, p. 355
Author: Rimington, p. 238
Author: Chandler, p. 119
Made-up example
Summing up
I hope this overview of syndeton, asyndeton, polysyndeton and the comma splice will help you to discover new ways of playing with the rhythm of your own writing while keeping the punctuation pedants at bay!
Resources and works cited
About Louise Harnby
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) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
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 and thrillers.
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. It’s also referred to as free indirect style and free indirect discourse.
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:
Let's look at three contrasting third-person narrative styles in action so you can see how free indirect speech works:
Indirect/reported
Direct/quoted
Free indirect speech
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:
Espionage author Philip Prowse employs a similar shift in Hellyer’s Trip (p. 194):
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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 (psychic) 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.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5
Example 6
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:
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. More resources
About Louise Harnby
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) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Sentence length can affect tension. This post looks at how overwriting can mar the pace of a novel and frustrate a reader, and how less can sometimes be more.
How anxiousness can lead to overwriting
Around eighty per cent of the books that end up in my editing studio are in the crime fiction genre.
One of the most common problems I encounter is overwriting. That’s not because the authors are poor writers. It’s because they’re nervous writers. It takes a lot of hard graft to put enough words on a page to make a book. Yet it takes an equal amount of courage to remove them ... or some of them. ‘What if the reader just doesn’t get it?’ ‘What if they’ve forgotten what I told them above?’ ‘What if I haven’t provided enough detail?’ ‘What if I just love both ways I’ve said that?’ These are the kinds of questions that result in anxious authors bulking up their prose. In a bid to help you trim the fat, I’m going to explore the following:
Trusting your reader
The issue is sometimes one of trust – in the author’s own writing and in the reader’s ability to fill in the gaps. Some genres of fiction lend themselves well to more flowery prose that goes off at a tangent for a moment ... a little narrative indulgence for the purpose of artistry or even titillation.
Crime fiction, however, is all about the page turn. That doesn’t mean that the description isn’t rich, but there is an expectation of forward momentum. Avid readers of the genre love it for the thrill of the ride. Great characterization is key, of course. We want the protagonist to draw us in, the antagonist to pique our curiosity, and the supporting cast to deepen the picture, but ultimately we want to know whodunnit. And that means we want words that help us understand what’s happening, why, where, who’s doing it, whom it’s being done to, why it’s being done, and how it feels. And we only need to be told once. We might need a little clarifying nudge here and there but we’re capable of extracting a lot with less than you might think. Feisty fragments and snappy shorties
If you’re trying to evoke tension in your reader, short sentences and fragments can be very effective. Look at the following examples and notice how the authors keep their narratives lean.
Here’s an excerpt from Gone Bad by JB Turner:
Turner gives us just enough to set the scene – when, where, who and what – but no more. He trusts us to fill in the gaps.
He might have given a more detailed description of the forest – its sounds and smells. He might have delved deeper into Cain’s emotions, or helped us to picture the backpack by detailing the colour, make, number of pockets and zips, and where the ammo was being held. He could have told us, word for word, how Cain loaded the gun, how careful he was, which bullets he used. But he doesn’t. Turner leaves it to us to imagine the woods, to see in our mind’s eye the loading of the rifle, and to sense the cold hard determination of the shooter. And the backpack gets no more than a passing mention, because to do more would slow the pace and act as a distraction. And the result is just right – Goldilocks would approve. Now consider the choppy fragments in Jens Lapidus’s Life Deluxe:
Lapidus loves the colon more than any other author I’ve come across! It’s a hard piece of punctuation but it works because the characters we’re being introduced to lead hard lives. They’re always looking over their shoulders, thinking in short snaps, weighing up what’s in front of them ... and what might be behind.
Lapidus dares to trust us, dares not bore us. And because of, rather than despite, the short sentences and fragmented prose, reading the scene is an immersive experience for the reader. I recall a sense of taut fatigue as I read this book, like I was right there, ever watchful, on my guard. This author’s deliberate punctuation choices and choppy style mean the word count is reduced but the tension is heightened. He doesn’t pad his narrative with purple prose and stage direction. Like Turner, he trusts us to do the work. Damage by dilution
Consider your own writing. Leave your draft alone for a few days. Then return to it and see what happens if you take a more reductive approach to a scene.
It's all about balance at the end of the day. Not too much but not too little. Howard Mittelmark & Sandra Newman write:
I’m not suggesting you remove information the reader needs to know, but asking you whether there is material your reader doesn’t need to know, material that might bore them or hold them back.
Neither am I suggesting you avoid creating emotive scenes that are high on tension. Rather, might you build this tension with shorter, tighter sentences that demand your reader do some of the work? And I’m not suggesting you should limit every sentence in your book to five words – not at all. I’m suggesting that you might use this technique when you think it would work, when it would push your reader forward, when fewer words – the right words – would work as well or better than more, especially if you know you tend to overwrite. Letting go of what you love
For some authors it’s not about trust, but about not wanting to let go. Perhaps you found two delicious ways to say the same thing and now you can’t bear to cut either. Or you constructed a stunning paragraph but it’s interrupting the conflict or the action.
In The Magic of Fiction, veteran editor Beth Hill says:
Hill asks authors to grab ‘the liberty to cut words as freely as you added them’ and then to enrich what’s left.
It’s tricky for some beginner writers, I know, but repetition and interruption mean there are redundant words in your writing. And to make your novel sparkle, you need to let go of them because they’re not adding something new, they’re not in the right place, or they’re in the way. Take courage. Try it with and without. You might be surprised. Cited works and further reading
If you'd like to access more tips and resources for self-publishers, visit the resource library on my website. Try these in particular:
About Louise Harnby
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) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Here are 8 problems to watch out for in your writing. Fix these to raise your game and lift your writing to the next level more quickly. Attending to them at draft stage will reduce your third-party editing costs further down the line.
1. Make time hushing to polish rather than rushing to publish
Some new authors are so desperate to publish that they omit the drafting stage. Hush time means putting the book aside for a while and revisiting and self-editing with fresh eyes. If you don’t go through the drafting stage, you’re less likely to spot problems with plot, pace, readability and repetition.
And that means your book will not be ready for the later stages of editing like copy-editing and proofreading. 2. Keep your writing lean
Is there too much interruptive detail?
Some beginner writers don’t trust their readers to fill in the gaps. This results in writing that gives too much interruptive detail. The narrative becomes laboured, boring even. There are some excellent examples in Christina Delay’s 5 Steps to Avoid Overwriting (Jami Gold blog); it’s what Gold calls ‘giving too much stage direction’:
Gold recommends getting straight to the point – unless, of course, something important happens in the detail that’s key to moving the story forward. If it’s just detail that mimics the mundanity of real life, strip it out.
Is there unnecessary repetition? Watch out for repetition, especially ‘wow’ words. If Jo thunders down the hallway, her face like thunder, you have a problem. If the reader is told that Mike is ‘in agony’ and ‘agonized’ several times in one paragraph, trim the fat (and think of some synonyms!). High-intensity scenes of fear, danger, desire or confusion are those most prone to repetition and over-explanation in beginner writing, usually because the author is worried that the reader might not understand what the character’s experiencing. Gold calls these ‘emotionally overwrought passages of purple prose’. When drafting, consider creating a list that features key moments of disclosure and emotion/response. By mapping these moments, you can see whether the descriptions lie in close proximity to each other, and whether you’ve already provided enough detail earlier in the book. Then you can cut accordingly. Less is more. Are you telling twice? Telling twice is another consequence of not trusting the reader to fill in the gaps.
The bold text in the example above simply repeats what we already know and it’s therefore superfluous. It’s another issue to watch out for at self-editing stage. Removing this kind of detail makes the writing leaner and sharper. 3. Avoid flops in logic
Flops in logic happen when writers try to avoid conjunctions (probably because they’ve been told that conjunctions are boring and shouldn’t be overused). This can lead to grammatical hiccups that disfigure the writing and trip up the reader.
In the first example, we have a character seemingly doing two things at once – running through one place while he’s making his way inside another. And to the discerning reader, the first phrase will even seem to modify the second (Roy bolted into the bedroom in a manner of running barefoot along the corridor). The second, edited version introduces a conjunction that brings logic and clarity to the sentence. Conjunctions are a perfectly natural way to join connecting action clauses that happen one after the other, and don’t need to be avoided simply on principle. Don't be afraid to embrace them! 4. Embrace contractions
The use of contractions isn’t always appropriate, particularly when the writer wants to introduce formality (e.g. in a historical setting or in academic non-fiction) or emphasis. However, in contemporary novel writing, the narrative can feel laboured if contractions are excluded, especially in dialogue.
In real life, people don’t say things like ‘we are going’ and ‘I would have liked to’ so it’s often better to offer the contracted form. If in doubt, say the words out loud. If the likes of ‘we’re going’ and ‘I would’ve liked to’ sound more natural in the context of your book, then use contractions. Readers won’t notice if you do, but they might stumble if you don’t. 5. Use exclamation marks sparingly
Take care not to overuse exclamation marks. Too many can be distracting and overwhelm the text. Exclamation marks can detract from the gravity of a statement, making it sound upbeat when a different mood was intended – tension, fear, anger, danger. If you’ve used the right words to convey the mood, the exclamation mark will often be superfluous.
If you do decide that an exclamation mark is necessary, don’t use more than one. Compare the following:
Read them out loud and decide which one best conveys the speaker’s disbelief. I think the first does the job perfectly well. The second introduces a light-heartedness that may or may not be appropriate. The third is overkill. 6. Use appropriate speech tags
Some beginner authors resist overusing he said/they/said/she said constructions, even though they’re the most discreet way of tagging.
Take a look at these examples; the bold versions are clean, effective examples of dialogue tags that won’t trip up the reader.
I'm not saying you should only ever use 'said' – just apply a little caution! 7. Format later rather than sooner
Focus on making your book look beautiful after the bulk of the editing has been done. Fancy fonts and heavily designed text are difficult to work with at editing stage.
Furthermore, the layout might have to be reworked if there are major additions or deletions to the text during structural editing and copy-editing. Word’s styles palette is sufficient prior to the design stage. You (or your copy-editor) can introduce consistency to the different elements of the book (chapter titles, headings, quoted matter, main text, captions etc.) in a way that’s clear and simple. 8. Be realistic about what’s possible in one pass
Some beginner writers think that one pass – a ‘final proofread’ carried out by a third-party professional – is enough to guarantee absolute perfection. It’s not. The mainstream publishing industry doesn’t believe it’s possible, and nor should the independent author.
If you hire a professional to proofread or copy-edit your Word file, and that file has not been through previous rounds of extensive and meticulous editorial revision, there will likely be thousands of amendments: spelling, grammar, syntax and punctuation errors and inconsistencies layout problems with regard to spacing and paragraph indentation; inconsistency with regard to character names and traits, and across word forms. Don’t expect your editor or proofreader to say, ‘I’ve made 8,000 revisions to your document, compiled 67 queries, spotted four problems with character-history consistency, noticed two character-surname changes, offered 200 suggestions for alternative wording, and I guarantee that, in spite of this, I have not missed one single literal or contextual error.’ Get as many fresh eyes on your work as you can afford. If budget’s an issue, that’s fine, but make sure your expectations reflect this. Good luck with the self-editing process! More resources
About Louise Harnby
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) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
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