Getting inside the MC's head. Is it essential for a good story?

[AG31]

Several threads in the last little while have brought me to this idea via different routes. An important dynamic in a story is the degree to which the author enables you to get inside the mind of the MC. The threads are:

@ElectricBlue 's question about how readers deal with 1st person narratives by people who are unlike them. My reply to this is that part of the fun is in learning about the interiority of other kinds of people.

Then there's a short, short story, posted in AH just today by @MaximTerhune that I thought did an admirable job of putting me inside the narrator's head. Even though I didn't give it much credit for writing style, I gave it credit for authenticy. I may go back and update my post on authenticity to point to getting in the MC's head.

@comegently 's post about present tense expanded to discuss 2nd person and generated a couple of other threads which got me thinking about this issue.

My questions is, do all stories sink or swim depending on the degree to which the reader can get inside the head of the MC? I wasn't able to think of examples where that wasn't an important element. Do you have some?

 

[MaximTerhune]

I appreciate you saying what I wrote was admirable and giving my story credit for having some authenticity. I plan to take the criticism and write something new.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm trying to think of an example of a story with a main character in which the author does not delve into the main character's thoughts, and I can't think of one. So, isn't this true by definition? If a character is a main character then the author is probably narrating that character's thoughts, either through first person POV or third person POV, and if the author fails at doing that then the story probably sucks, right?

 

[AG31]

I'm trying to think of an example of a story with a main character in which the author does not delve into the main character's thoughts, and I can't think of one. So, isn't this true by definition? If a character is a main character then the author is probably narrating that character's thoughts, either through first person POV or third person POV, and if the author fails at doing that then the story probably sucks, right?

I'm guessing that some high action thrillers don't spend much time in getting you inside the MC's head. But I can't think of any off hand. I do know I get bored enough to quit reading if chases and explosions and blizzards go on too long. Telling how cold the MC is getting or how hard they're being hit isn't necessarily getting you inside their head.

 

[SimonDoom]

Here's a contrary example, perhaps. The Sherlock Holmes stories. Holmes is the main character in that he is the detective and the interesting character in the stories. But Watson is the narrator. We get inside Watson's head but we never truly get inside Holmes's head except to the limited extent Holmes communicates his thoughts to Watson in the form of dialogue. But I would say the stories work extremely well.

Agatha Christie stories about Hercule Poirot are somewhat similar in that the stories are told in the third person but we never truly get inside Poirot's head. Christie constantly keeps us guessing about what he's really thinking. But that's the point of the story, as with Holmes. We are kept on the edge of our seat throughout the story wondering what the main character is thinking, and we don't know until the end. The story would be spoiled, otherwise.

I'm not sure that narrative style works as well with erotica. With erotica we usually want to be immersed in the main character's feelings about their erotic experience.

 

[RetroFan]

I think it is essential for a good story to get into the thoughts of the MC whether first or third person, and it can be challenging and fun for the author too.

In first person, it was fun writing my LW story 'Cheating On A Cheating Wife' which is narrated in first person by the creepy cuckold husband who is a completely unreliable narrator. Some readers did pick up that the husband was an unreliable narrator but it didn't make them like the story or me for writing it any more. In fact the opposite was probably true.

I seem to have a thing for the 1950s, and loved getting into the minds of narrators Ian from 'Banging Cousin Becky In Blackpool' which is set in 1955 and 'Cindy's Close Encounter' which is narrated by Cindy and set in 1959, especially pretty cheerleader Cindy as she gets to meet aliens.

Most fun though was in my lesbian 'PTA Queen Bee & Teen Rebel' stories I wrote a few years back. These are in third person but go into the thoughts of quite a few of the characters. One of them is Todd, a lazy 300 pound high school senior and a bully at school, in the community and at home. Todd is so stupid that he actually thinks about himself in the third person, and it was so much fun to get into the head of this dim-witted slacker and demonstrate his idiocy and how he sincerely believes his plans for carrying out and avoiding the consequences of bullying (one of the latter examples being hiding in the women's toilets) are fool-proof.

 

[Cagivagurl]

Several threads in the last little while have brought me to this idea via different routes. An important dynamic in a story is the degree to which the author enables you to get inside the mind of the MC. The threads are:

@ElectricBlue 's question about how readers deal with 1st person narratives by people who are unlike them. My reply to this is that part of the fun is in learning about the interiority of other kinds of people.

Then there's a short, short story, posted in AH just today by @MaximTerhune that I thought did an admirable job of putting me inside the narrator's head. Even though I didn't give it much credit for writing style, I gave it credit for authenticy. I may go back and update my post on authenticity to point to getting in the MC's head.

@comegently 's post about present tense expanded to discuss 2nd person and generated a couple of other threads which got me thinking about this issue.

My questions is, do all stories sink or swim depending on the degree to which the reader can get inside the head of the MC? I wasn't able to think of examples where that wasn't an important element. Do you have some?

The one element I look for in stories is emotion. I want to feel what the characters are feeling. I want to experience through your story what the characters are feeling. Joy, sadness, disappointment, anger, frustration. As a reader, I need to understand why they act as they do. I have to walk in their shoes. It doesn't matter which perspective you choose to write in. As a reader I want to feel something.
If the story doesn't make me feel something, then I'm probably out after the first page.

Cagivagurl

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'm trying to think of an example of a story with a main character in which the author does not delve into the main character's thoughts, and I can't think of one.

Agatha Christie's mysteries The Murder of Roger Ackroyd aka Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? and Endless Night are each told from the perspective of the murderer. I think she gives the reader some superficial thoughts from those MCs, but leaves out the ones related to them being the murderer, until the big reveal at the end.

Len Deighton's thriller The Ipcress File is told in first person, but focuses on what the narrator sees and is told without giving out very much about his own thoughts. He figures out various plot points long before he passes this on to the reader. I remember one part in the book where somebody tells him something that doesn't make sense; for something like a hundred pages I thought Deighton had made a mistake, until the narrator revealed that he knew this guy was a fake because what he'd said didn't make sense.

So, it does happen, but it's an unusual storytelling choice. In those cases it's done with a specific purpose, and the MC's thoughts are eventually revealed. I could see it being done without a reveal, in a story where the MC's thoughts/motivation are intentionally left opaque to provoke interesting "why did they do that?" questions.

But most stories, erotica in particular, work better with reader empathy for the MC, either via explicitly describing their thinking or by giving enough cues that the reader can figure it out.

[edit: ah, I see you posted a similar addendum around the same time I was writing this]

 

[SimonDoom]

Agatha Christie's mysteries The Murder of Roger Ackroyd aka Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? and Endless Night are each told from the perspective of the murderer. I think she gives the reader some superficial thoughts from those MCs, but leaves out the ones related to them being the murderer, until the big reveal at the end.

Len Deighton's thriller The Ipcress File is told in first person, but focuses on what the narrator sees and is told without giving out very much about his own thoughts. He figures out various plot points long before he passes this on to the reader. I remember one part in the book where somebody tells him something that doesn't make sense; for something like a hundred pages I thought Deighton had made a mistake, until the narrator revealed that he knew this guy was a fake because what he'd said didn't make sense.

So, it does happen, but it's an unusual storytelling choice. In those cases it's done with a specific purpose, and the MC's thoughts are eventually revealed. I could see it being done without a reveal, in a story where the MC's thoughts/motivation are intentionally left opaque to provoke interesting "why did they do that?" questions.

But most stories, erotica in particular, work better with reader empathy for the MC, either via explicitly describing their thinking or by giving enough cues that the reader can figure it out.

[edit: ah, I see you posted a similar addendum around the same time I was writing this]

I thought Roger Ackroyd didn't QUITE work. It was clever, and a fun twist at the end, but as a reader I felt like I was being played with a bit too much.

Another similar example of that is Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent. It's a murder mystery/murder trial story, told in first person by the accused, and the narrator doesn't reveal who the killer is until the end of the book. It's a very well written book, but it seems a little gimmicky to me.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

There are entire media (notably stage plays) where you almost never find out the protagonist's thoughts directly.

"Inside the head" is a relatively recent invention in the arts. Look at (arguably) the first novel, Tale of Genji (partly erotica!). Characters and their personalities are visible to the reader, but the text doesn't seem to say things like, "Murasaki felt an agonizing dread," very often. Character is implied to the reader by dialogue and action.

-Annie

 

[pink_silk_glove]

How essential it is depends on the story.

A first person story I would think it would be essential for sure. it certainly would be difficult to engage the reader is you did not get inside a first-person narrator's head. First person can be quite limiting but the big advantage is that you essentially are deep inside the narrator's thoughts and emotions. If you do not take advantage of that, your tools become very limited.

In a third person head-hop story, it might be less important, but of course it depends which character's head and when.

Now, in proper motive driven plot, the best way to show the motive is to get into the heads and hearts of the characters, so I would say that in writing generally, it's pretty darned important.

Of course it's also one of those rules that you can bend or break like any other. Just be smart about it when you do.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I thought Roger Ackroyd didn't QUITE work. It was clever, and a fun twist at the end, but as a reader I felt like I was being played with a bit too much.

I think I've talked before about how this can be a problem with twists. Authors often invest so much in setting up a clever twist that they neglect what it's costing their characterisation, and sometimes the tradeoff isn't worth it. I remember one story here which I thought was significantly undermined by investing too heavily in a twist that didn't need to be there; there were several points along the way that could've been improved by incorporating the full truth about the MC, rather than trying to save it up as a surprise.

It's more viable in mystery where readers will often accept putting the cleverness ahead of characterisation but it's really hard to make a story erotic for readers who can't relate to the MC.

 

[Bramblethorn]

There are entire media (notably stage plays) where you almost never find out the protagonist's thoughts directly.

Although soliloquys are not uncommon, and exist largely for the sake of revealing thoughts that can't plausibly be revealed through dialogue/action.

Both have their place. There are times when dialogue/action are a simpler way to reveal a character's thoughts than narrating them, and times when dialogue/action ends up feeling forced (because it is forced, as a way of providing exposition).

"Inside the head" is a relatively recent invention in the arts. Look at (arguably) the first novel, Tale of Genji (partly erotica!). Characters and their personalities are visible to the reader, but the text doesn't seem to say things like, "Murasaki felt an agonizing dread," very often. Character is implied to the reader by dialogue and action.

Here's a translation of a 15th-century novel - not quite as old as Genji, but pretty old.

The count found himself at the advanced age of fifty-five, and moved by divine inspiration he decided to withdraw from the practice of arms and make a pilgrimage to the holy land of Jerusalem. This virtuous count wanted to go, because he felt sorrow and contrition for the many deaths he had caused in his youth.

It doesn't get into characters' inner thoughts as heavily as many modern books would, and often it just relies on action, dialogue and context to convey emotion, but it does narrate character/thoughts quite often. So I wouldn't agree that this is recent.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I can't think of any piece of literature where you don't get a sense of someone, whether that be the narrator or character(s). If writing didn't have that, it would be an instruction manual (known here as Tab A into Slot B).

 

[Bramblethorn]

I can't think of any piece of literature where you don't get a sense of someone, whether that be the narrator or character(s). If writing didn't have that, it would be an instruction manual (known here as Tab A into Slot B).

Some SF comes close, where the point of the story is less "you'll care about these people" and more "let me show you wonders from my imagination". There's usually still some sense of character, but it may not be load-bearing.

 

[AG31]

Agatha Christie stories about Hercule Poirot are somewhat similar in that the stories are told in the third person but we never truly get inside Poirot's head.

Agatha Christie's mysteries The Murder of Roger Ackroyd aka Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? and Endless Night are each told from the perspective of the murderer. I think she gives the reader some superficial thoughts from those MCs, but leaves out the ones related to them being the murderer, until the big reveal at the end.

Yup. I just now logged on to AH to say that, though I hadn't read Agatha Christie for decades, I think I didn't know much about Miss Marple's or Hercule's thoughts. I think that's why I never did take a strong liking to Agatha Christie.

I'd summarize my insight here to say that if we don't get inside the MC's head, they'd better be entertaining.

 

[AG31]

There are entire media (notably stage plays) where you almost never find out the protagonist's thoughts directly.

Yes, but to reference yet another recent thread, the theater is a prime example of showing rather than telling, and you can give the audience access to a character's mind by showing.

 

[AG31]

I can't think of any piece of literature where you don't get a sense of someone, whether that be the narrator or character(s). If writing didn't have that, it would be an instruction manual (known here as Tab A into Slot B).

"A sense of someone" can be getting inside their head, but, as I just realized a few minutes ago, you can get a sense that they're entertaining. Probably not what you meant, but sufficient for an enjoyable story, I think.

 

[AG31]

There's usually still some sense of character, but it may not be load-bearing.

Nice turn of phrase. Is it yours, or just something I've happened to miss over the years?

 

[SmokingFap]

Here's a contrary example, perhaps. The Sherlock Holmes stories. Holmes is the main character in that he is the detective and the interesting character in the stories. But Watson is the narrator. We get inside Watson's head but we never truly get inside Holmes's head except to the limited extent Holmes communicates his thoughts to Watson in the form of dialogue. But I would say the stories work extremely well.

Agatha Christie stories about Hercule Poirot are somewhat similar in that the stories are told in the third person but we never truly get inside Poirot's head. Christie constantly keeps us guessing about what he's really thinking. But that's the point of the story, as with Holmes. We are kept on the edge of our seat throughout the story wondering what the main character is thinking, and we don't know until the end. The story would be spoiled, otherwise.

I'm not sure that narrative style works as well with erotica. With erotica we usually want to be immersed in the main character's feelings about their erotic experience.

I'm certainly not the accomplished author that all of you all are on here. I always write in third person, with more attention paid to the main character. I tend to write my stories letting the reader decide what might be going on inside the characters heads based on their conversations and actions. I might isolate a certain thought or desire if I think it's important, but otherwise I want my reader to think, "What would **I** be thinking in this situation?" But every writer has their own style and modus operandi, and every reader assimilates a story through their own perspective and even mood at the moment.

 

[AG31]

I'm certainly not the accomplished author that all of you all are on here. I always write in third person, with more attention paid to the main character. I tend to write my stories letting the reader decide what might be going on inside the characters heads based on their conversations and actions. I might isolate a certain thought or desire if I think it's important, but otherwise I want my reader to think, "What would **I** be thinking in this situation?" But every writer has their own style and modus operandi, and every reader assimilates a story through their own perspective and even mood at the moment.

I think it's irrelevant how one accomplishes getting the reader into the character's head for purposes of this discussion. What matters is whether the conversations and actions you mention do the job.

 

[SimonDoom]

Some SF comes close, where the point of the story is less "you'll care about these people" and more "let me show you wonders from my imagination". There's usually still some sense of character, but it may not be load-bearing.

I would characterize almost everything by Isaac Asimov this way. I'm in awe of his imagination and superhuman productivity as a writer, but not as a drawer of characters.

 

[madelinemasoch]

My questions is, do all stories sink or swim depending on the degree to which the reader can get inside the head of the MC? I wasn't able to think of examples where that wasn't an important element. Do you have some?

No. Cormac McCarthy wrote great literature without much interiority at all. He uses a lot of imagery drawing upon nature especially, but there's not much description in some of his novels, either. He doesn't even use quotation marks. I think breaking this many rules takes a higher level of skill, especially the lack of interiority part, but it's something you can work at, if you want to.

 

[SimonDoom]

No. Cormac McCarthy wrote great literature without much interiority at all. He uses a lot of imagery drawing upon nature especially, but there's not much description in some of his novels, either. He doesn't even use quotation marks. I think breaking this many rules takes a higher level of skill, especially the lack of interiority part, but it's something you can work at, if you want to.

I think this is an insightful comment about McCarthy. He's a superbly descriptive author, but many of his characters come across as inscrutable. You see what they do and what happens to them and the effects of their actions but you don't feel like you really "know" them or understand what makes them tick. I'd say that's true about Blood Meridian regarding the kid, Glanton, and the judge. It's true about Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. It's less true of the main character in All The Pretty Horses but it's still somewhat true.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I can't think of any piece of literature where you don't get a sense of someone, whether that be the narrator or character(s). If writing didn't have that, it would be an instruction manual (known here as Tab A into Slot B).

I don't think we ever get inside Gandalf's head in LOTR. We get a sense of him, but that isn't what I mean by "inside his head".

-Annie