Karen and Laura raise interesting points about the language and idiom of introspection and narrative which have long perplexed me. Should introspection be written in the same language and idiom as the character who's doing the thinking? What about narrative?
Most puzzling to me is how you distinguish narrative from introspection. Sometimes it's obvious, but sometimes, I think the edges are very blurry. Here's a few examples from my own work, and I'd be interested to see whether people class them as introspection or narrative:
1. He could trace the point at which he became a junkie back to a nanosecond in time. It hadn’t been the day he’d discovered red kryptonite; hadn’t even been the day after he’d recovered from that first hit. No, it had been the split second after Wells had told him that, after a year of searching, Lois was nowhere to be found.
2. The trouble was, oblivion didn’t always stop conveniently when it was time to go to work. Sometimes he was late, and sometimes he was still a little too oblivious when he got to work. Worse still, oblivion sometimes wore off too soon during the working day, leaving him struggling against a near-overwhelming tide of despair during the afternoon.
This wasn’t in the plan, if plan there was. No, the idea was to be totally pain-free at home, but for the effects to dilute down to a cosy feeling of well-being during the day.
3. He pondered George’s question. It was hard to imagine his life without Superman, but he supposed that logically, he’d been sort of okay when he’d just been plain old Clark Kent – he hadn’t needed a Lois Lane back then.
4. George was on cloud nine when he heard. “Way to go, buddy!” he said. “She sounds great.”
She was. Clark really liked her. She was as sharp as a razor, held strong convictions – not all of which he agreed with, but enough that they could find common ground – had a good sense of humour and shared a lot of his eclectic tastes in music and movies. Not only that, but she looked pretty stunning, too. Shoulder-length, wavy blonde hair, intelligent blue eyes, fine, youthful features and generous lips.
5. He stared balefully at his phone. It had been lurking there for days, daring him to pick it up. Today, he’d tried taking a shower, changing out of his work clothes, watching part of a ball game on TV, but it still sat there clamouring at him to pick up the receiver and dial. The darned thing even had her number programmed into its memory. No excuse not to phone her right this minute, really.
Yvonne
