Activity 5 — Developing Internal Monologue (Characters' Thoughts and Feelings)

Teacher's Notes

Activity 5 is something to add to the middle or early part of your story. You've written dialogue, action, and description. Now I want you to go INSIDE one of the characters and tell us her or his thoughts. We call this INTERNAL MONOLOGUE. Now is a good time to put in some feelings, a memory, or anything you might have left out of the story. It is also a good time to tell more about the character.

Try to make it be like a person actually thinking inside. For example, maybe your character is in trouble or worried about something. "Uh-oh," I groaned to my friend. "This sounds like trouble." My body started to go hot and cold. This is the end, I thought. All my plans are for nothing! Oh man, I am in for it now. I'll be grounded for a week!

You may put the internal monologue in quotations or in parentheses, or you may prefer to underline or italicize it. Sometimes it gets no punctuation at all. It's a good way to give your story a little more DEPTH and FEELING. It could be funny, too, of course, if the story is funny.

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