The Weather Inside a Character

Interiority on the Page

We often mistake ‘interiority’ for a character’s internal monologue—the literal thoughts they think. But true interiority is the weather of the body. Today, I took a scene where a character was experiencing profound grief and I removed every instance of the word ‘sad,’ ‘crying,’ or ‘sorrow.’

Instead, I focused on the coldness in her knuckles. I focused on the way the air in the room suddenly felt too heavy to pull into her lungs. I focused on the specific, vibrating silence of the hallway. When we name an emotion, we categorize it and, in doing so, we diminish it. We tell the reader, ‘This is grief,’ and the reader says, ‘I know what that is,’ and moves on.

But if we describe the physical sensation—the tightening of the throat, the sudden, inexplicable itch of wool against skin, the way light seems to hurt the eyes—we force the reader to experience the emotion alongside the character. We don’t want the reader to know the character is sad; we want the reader to feel the air turn cold. Write the sensation, and the emotion will follow.

The Monroe Minute Write grief without using “sad” or “crying.” Focus on a physical sensation.

Until the next page,
Sloane S. Monroe

Sloane Shay Monroe

I don’t write to idealize love, but to explore it honestly, with emotional precision and depth.