Common Writing Mistakes: Talking to Youself

This is part three in my “Common Mistakes Made By New Writers (like me)” series. Part one discussed information dumps and part two talked about battling backstory. Feel free to check out those posts as well, but it is not necessary to read them in any paticular order.

Today we will tackle another common problem: talking to yourself. Any writer will tell you that they frequently talk to themselves. I think that’s actually the sign of a creative mind. The problem is when your characters begin talking to themselves.

At the 2010 Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference, I attended a wonderful workshop taught by Beth Adams, an editor with Guidepost Books. She mentioned that characters who spend too much time talking to themselves is a sign that a writer is being lazy. Don’t make the mistake of telling (see upcoming post on “telling”) the reader everything a character is thinking or feeling.

Now, a touch of this is acceptable. But it is much more effective to show the reader a character’s thoughts by their physical reactions, their dialogue with others and by the choices that they make.

Here are two examples. Which one do you think is more powerful?

“That Jakob is such an arrogant jerk,” Maggie muttered under her breath.
or
Hearing Jakob’s words, Maggie flushed — the heat creeping all the way to her clenched jaw.

I’ve struggled with this in Shaken, because it is written in first-person. It seems natural to write from the inside of my character’s head. I have gone through and removed many of her thoughts and words, replacing them with her reactions and decisions. I am pleased with the difference. It makes my character feel more authentic. I actually feel like readers will be more “inside her head” because they will be feeling along with her, instead of her just telling them everything.

So, your assignment? Look at a piece of your writing. How often do your characters talk to themselves? Rather than sending them off to the loony bin, see if you can find a better way to show their thought process. Good luck!