One of my subscribers told me they’d been trying to find more info/tips/examples on writing good interiority. They asked if “using direct thought is OK, or if it’s better to lean into interiority instead”.
It’s a simple question with a complex answer — because the issue isn’t which technique is better, but what kind of reader experience you’re trying to create.
Interiority refers to the character’s inner life—their thoughts, feelings, perceptions, memories, etc.—within the narrative. Think of it as seeing “inside” a character.
I’m not saying it’s stating how a character feels: “She felt sad”, or explaining emotions or thoughts: “He did this because he was angry”… “She thought about her mother”.
These just tell about interior status. True interiority shows us how this particular person experiences the world. We observe the character’s choices and feel what they feel.
When agents say things like “I wanted more interiority” or “I didn’t feel close enough to the character,” what they mean is:
I want to be able to live this story, not watch from the outside.
In other words, they want to experience the story through the character.
For example, rather than tell the reader someone is anxious, make them feel the racing thoughts, the second-guessing, the mental spiral.
If your character is sad. Saying, “She felt sad”, is a flat diagnosis that doesn’t convey much. But if you say: “The empty chair was still pulled out, expecting her mother to sit” it gives the reader more texture.
Here’s another example. Let’s look at the same moment three different ways:
Version 1 – Direct Thought
The funeral flowers were wilting. Mom would have hated these, Sally thought. She always said carnations were garbage flowers.
Version 2 – Interior Narration
The funeral flowers were wilting. Her mom would have hated these, Sally thought. She always said carnations were garbage flowers.
Version 3 – Free Indirect Discourse
The funeral flowers were wilting. Mom would have hated these. Carnations—garbage flowers, she’d always said. The kind of cheap bouquet you grabbed at a gas station when you’d forgotten an anniversary.
Free Indirect Discourse (FID)—is when the narration takes on the character’s voice without any “she thought” tags. You’re not told you’re in their head; you just are.
Version 1 isolates the thought—creates a deliberate pause where we zoom into Sally’s consciousness.
Version 2 is the middle ground. It reports the thought but softens the frame—”she thought” tells us we’re in her head, but it’s less jarring than italics. It’s probably the most common approach in fiction.
Version 3 is more inclusive. We get Sally’s voice, and her mom’s words.
Each of these create different effects, different levels of intimacy – and would work depending on what effect you want to create.
So how do you know which one to use?
Use Version 1 when you want a thought to have more impact—when inner and outer life contrast sharply, or when you want to highlight a crucial decision.
It also works great for irony (Sally smiled at her enemy. I will destroy you.) or in fast-paced genre fiction where readers expect those italicized flashes.
Use Version 2 when you want clarity without pulling too much focus. It’s your reliable go-to, clear, unobtrusive, gets the job done. Perfect when you need to convey a thought but don’t want to make a big deal of it.
Use Version 3 when you want sustained intimacy—when you’re settling into a character’s perspective for a while and want readers to be fully emersed. It’s the most sophisticated approach, but can be a little tricky to do well.
Direct thought can also be tricky because newer writers often over use it: I’m so angry, he thought. Why did she say that, he wondered.
That’s not interiority — that’s someone narrating their own therapy session, and I see it a lot, along with:
Using direct thought for exposition: I haven’t seen Jim in five years. Not since he moved to Denver for that tech company.
Try: Five years since Jim moved to Denver. Five years since she’d seen him.
Losing the character’s voice: A rough-edged mechanic and a philosophy professor shouldn’t sound the same.
Using thought tags when action would do better: She looked at the painting. It’s beautiful, she thought.
Try: She looked at the painting. Beautiful.
Or let the action imply the meaning: She stood transfixed by the painting.
So, again, what should you use?
The goal isn’t choosing between direct thought and interiority. The goal is making readers stop observing your character’s thoughts and start experiencing them.
Interiority is how readers understand what happens and why it matters.
In the above examples, all three (direct thought, interior narration and FID) ARE interiority—they’re all ways of accessing the character’s inner life. You’re not choosing between direct thought OR interiority; you’re choosing which technique serves the moment best.
Bringing the reader in and allowing them to experience things alongside the character is so much more rewarding than just simply being told they happened.
When I become so absorbed in a story that I no longer see the words, I know the writer has nailed it.