Feelings and Thoughts vs Actions and Dialogue

[Flaze]

So after discussing this with a friend of mine and @Beth Pavell; and thinking about it myself I arrived at a crossroads in regards to something.

When we write we describe not just the surroundings but we also describe our characters actions and what they do is what helps to sort of form the scene and the environment that they find themselves in.

Now I myself like to describe my characters thoughts and feelings while also describing their actions, but my friend kept telling me that if I wanted to really get the reader involve in the scene it was better to focus on the character's action. And well, I'm not quite sure of which would work better in itself.

So what do you guys think? is it okay to focus on the character's feelings or is it better to let actions speak for themselves?

 

[Lugion]

I think it's appropriate to describe the feelings and thoughts of your POV character. It helps the reader get inside their head better than just leaving them to figure out what they think and feel via their actions and dialogue. Other characters, however, I feel are best left to actions and dialogue.

 

[Life]

While I think both are very important, actions, for me, take the cake here.

The thing I like about only using actions in a scene and no dialogue/thoughts is that it doesn't give one direct answer. By letting actions describe what's happening, the reader gets to get more involved mentally and can build their own head-cannon/believes, that while may not be the truth, are just in-general fun and thought provoking.

If that even makes any sense...

 

[Beth Pavell]

The ideal is to let your dialogue and actions do the talking for feelings and thoughts. When it comes down to incidental thoughts/feelings that aren't necessarily part of a hugely dramatic or emotional scene I would be reluctant to just spell it out every time. The same applies to secondary or supporting characters - if the main character has annoyed the nurse at the Pokémon Centre, I wouldn't advise switching to the nurse's perspective to spell that out. Instead her dialogue, or description of her reaction, should really convey that point. In a sense, that kind of "restriction", if you want to call it that, can be freeing. If the viewpoint character can't quite tell what the nurse is thinking, you as the author can get away with being vague about it too.

It's undoubtedly a lot easier to get away with this kind of "Tell, don't show" when it comes from the viewpoint character. When the reader already knows that the narration is coming from one character's perspective, it doesn't feel nearly as odd to be told what they're thinking/feeling. Sometimes, the story just requires an internal monologue to get right into a character's head, and right into them as a person.

I don't generally like to cite examples from my own work, but since in The Long Walk I regularly write from one character's POV it seems appropriate. At the end of Chapter Nine there's an extended moment where Eve is thinking - apparently talking to herself but the purpose is really to spell out to the reader where Eve is, emotionally speaking. Then in the last scene of Chapter Ten it's from Eve's perspective again - it's an emotional scene, but I can't just flick between my characters and tell the reader exactly what they're feeling. Instead Eve's thoughts come in detail and Josh's are told through his actions and dialogue

 

[Persephone]

I mostly agree that it's better to actually demonstrate a person's attitudes and mental states through action, but I think that the statement deserves some disclaimers and modifiers to be fully accurate. Especially when writing first person, I enjoy exploring discrepancies between how people claim to feel or what they claim to believe, what they say, and what they actually do about something. While you can get a feel for a character's behavior from what they do, how they justify it and what they would like to do add different levels, as does dialogue, which is fundamentally a way for a character to tell someone else what they would like that person to believe about their thoughts and attitudes.

What I'm saying is that when done correctly thoughts, dialogue, and actions tell similar but not identical stories. I highly doubt there is anyone in the real world for whom what they would like to be, what they like others to believe about them, and what they actually are align perfectly.

For example, a character in a first person work who regularly confesses to being an excellently moral person but goes on a killing spree of innocents that he tries to justify in dialogue would be incomplete without any component of it. Obviously, there are some cases where thoughts are a bit harder to get at, in which case dialogue and actions must be used almost exclusively, but I would never actually confuse them with thought itself.

And I'm really tired so I'll stop and hope that made sense.

 

[CrystaI]

IMO I think such choice depends on the narrative of the story, and the situation of the scene(s).


In case of 1st-person narration, since everything of the fic is viewed and told from the thought of one specific in-story character, the author thus can only access to the mind of one specific character. You can clear understand what the thought and feeling of that POV character, but not any other characters. So for other characters, you can only describe their feelings though their actions/reactions, body language and tones of the dialogues. For the POV character, describe his/her feeling just as it is inside the POV character's head if the author wants to do so at such moment.
The exact same principle applies also to 3rd-person limited narration, just that remember there will not be any monologue for in-depth explanation for the focus character, so the author will need to tell the feeling of the focus character in another paragraph and in 3rd-person narrative.

For 3rd-person objective narration, you told the story from the perspective of an invisible character looking at all the other characters. You don't have any access to the inner mind of any of the in-story character, so you are limited to describe the feelings of the characters though the visible physicals only.


However, when it comes to 3rd-person omniscient narration, the author has full knowledge of the minds and thoughts of every single characters, so the author knows exactly what is the feelings and thinkings of a character when a character executing an action, and also the responsive thinking and feeling inside another character during the same moment.
Because 3rd-person omniscient had the most freedom when it comes to narration, where author can describe the character both physically and mentally, thus there need to be a "limit" such that it should not become over-describing, or repeatedly describing the same thing for both physically and mentally.
For me personally, it will be depending on the nature of the scenes, and sometimes situational-wise.

If given a scene that is action-heavy such as during a battle, I tend not to "tell" directly, but rather "show" the feelings and thought of the characters through their actions/reactions, tones of the dialogue, and also the subtle body languages such as frowning, shrugging, bashing, tightening the fist, etc.
If in a situation where it is not much actions, such as inside a room where several characters holding a meeting, I'll tend to "tell" the feelings and thought of the characters. Sometimes I'll also describe the atmosphere of the room where is it tensed up, relaxing, antagonistic, etc. in order to give the overall feeling during that scene. Especially if there is not much subtle body language from the character for "showing" the feelings, "telling" will become the major.
But in the case where I would like an emotional impact, for example in order to produce the extreme horrific feeling when meeting a super-terrific monster deemed to be the incarnation of "death", then "showing" by describing the horrific physical appearance of the monster and the shruddering of the character is not enough, but "tell" directly what the characters are feeling at that current moment will also amplify such emotional atmosphere.


Though in general speaking, I prefer a little bit more towards "showing" rather than "telling" the feelings and thoughts of the characters.

 

[Jimmy95]

I think both are good for good fanfiction. Need to have idea of what the characters are thinking like they are doing things too.

 

[kintsugi]

I think my idea has already been said previously in the thread, but the type of narrator really determines everything. I write SRBS with a heavy-handed first person narrator, which basically means that my character describes, like, every relevant thought that's going through her mind. There's a heavy emphasis on emotions in her narration, and I would argue that she spends more time reacting to a situation than she does in describing the situation itself. While there's a fair share of dialogue, the tags mostly boil down to "said," and sometimes there's an adverb or a participial phrase in there when I get lazy with the writing she feels like some elaboration is necessary.

THAT BEING SAID, I've found that a lot of first-person stories, predominantly those in the YA genre (ie The Hunger Games, although I've heard that Divergent follows the same trend) tend to have a lot less inner narration and a lot more action. Personally, I find this to be a bit jarring--there are a bunch of scenes where the narration calmly adds "and then

Spoiler

died" and I'm like "OMG

Spoiler

JUST DIED AND YOU JUST TOLD ME THAT BUT WHAT WHAT WE NEED TO REACT TO THIS, KATNISS,

Spoiler

IS DEAD" (blatant exaggeration, but I don't want to nitpick).

And that being said being said being said, I think that the amount of feelings/thoughts vs actions/dialogue in a first person narration hinges also upon the personality of the narrator, and I could justify going both ways. The narrator/protagonist of SRBS--and, since I can't keep using self-referential examples, we could also consider Hazel, at least from the first half of The Fault in Our Stars--analyzes and reflects more than, say, Katniss or Tris, so it makes sense that the first two narrators would focus a lot more on their inner struggles than their external ones, and I'm okay with both types of that because it fits in with the personality of the narrator.

it just occurred to me that the first three/four first-person narrators that came to mind are from YA, which probably says miles about the amount of guilty pleasure reading I've been doing as of late

Third person is a completely different ballgame, though, and you can't quite fall back on the "teh narrator's feelings" argument. I would argue that a limited/viewpoint third person narrator has the same conventions as a typical first person narrator, albeit with some quirks (and the added bonus that you/author can point out only actions of other characters that your viewpoint character would notice), but third person omniscient, although far less common in literature, is a completely different beast. I considered this for a while before coming to a somewhat-iffy conclusion that, hey, it still depends on the kind of story that you're telling. As Pavell mentioned somewhat earlier, blatantly describing feelings/thoughts of a character feels like a lot of telling ("he felt sad"/"she couldn't believe this was happening" vs actual reactions do seem a bit cumbersome), but it also helps establish the character a lot more firmly, a lot more quickly, and with a lot less ambiguity.

Furthermore, long tracts of inner narration tend to bog things down, and the author should be aware of the pacing during the story--a designated "action" scene, for example, might require a lot less inner dialogue/feeling-thought description during some parts to convey how quickly it happened, and then the characters can mill around in shock afterward and go on long philosophical meanderings inside of their heads; conversely, they can be stunned by the events and not be able to muster up a coherent thought at all, although that's always riskier to write.

I can't help but wonder why[/i[ literature is so reliant on recounting the feelings/thoughts--even though we do praise the "show, don't tell," till kingdom come, any amount of inner narration is, arguably, some degree of telling. And yet other forms of storytelling, such as comic books, television, and movies, almost rarely have this inner narration at all (to my knowledge, the echo-filled thought-simulating voiceover started getting phased out a while ago), but the characters portrayed through these mediums are just as complex, understandable, and fleshed-out as their literary counterparts. My best guess is that the visual nature of these mediums makes it easier to conflate actions with feelings/thoughts (not having to explain that Joey is sad as he says something because he can have a sad face on while saying it), and that the dialogue is carefully crafted here to make the feelings/thoughts behind them fairly obvious anyway.

tl;dr: I have no freaking clue exactly why, but it seems like having a bit of both in the right situation is still awesome and all. Also, television will put us out of business one day and that makes me sad.

 

[AetherX]

However, when it comes to 3rd-person omniscient narration, the author has full knowledge of the minds and thoughts of every single characters, so the author knows exactly what is the feelings and thinkings of a character when a character executing an action, and also the responsive thinking and feeling inside another character during the same moment.
Because 3rd-person omniscient had the most freedom when it comes to narration, where author can describe the character both physically and mentally, thus there need to be a "limit" such that it should not become over-describing, or repeatedly describing the same thing for both physically and mentally.
For me personally, it will be depending on the nature of the scenes, and sometimes situational-wise.

Third person omniscient always comes up whenever we discuss POVs but I've never actually read a professionally written novel that uses it. I've seen it used in fanfiction a couple times, and it's always terrible because of this very reason. Directly describing the feelings of every character in a scene is too much. I would argue that describing a single character's feelings is the absolute maximum anyway.

Pretty much everything else I have to say has already been said by others. Balance is key. Don't describe the feelings of anyone but the POV character. Explicit description rather than showing through actions lessens the impact of the emotion. For little things like a character being annoyed at something, it's fine, but when

Spoiler

dies you need to show rather than tell.

 

[kintsugi]

Third person omniscient always comes up whenever we discuss POVs but I've never actually read a professionally written novel that uses it. I've seen it used in fanfiction a couple times, and it's always terrible because of this very reason. Directly describing the feelings of every character in a scene is too much. I would argue that describing a single character's feelings is the absolute maximum anyway.

I feel like the closest example that comes to mind for me is The Book Thief, which, while focused primarily on Lisolette, is narrated by Death, who behaves about as omnisciently as an abstract, all-encompassing concept can be. That being said, I haven't read TBT for a while so I can't say how strictly third-person omniscient it is (aforementioned heavy emphasis on Lisolette noted), and I also know that TBT's narrated-by-death-schtick is seen as fairly unique among literature, so I'm guessing strict omniscient is uncommon.

Going back to old stuff from curriculum, Pride and Prejudice seemed largely omniscient, as did mostly everything that Tolstoy wrote. Most of Hemingway's stuff seems to lean omniscient as well, although Hemingway rarely directly gives anyone's feelings, let alone everyone's.

Oh and relevant example, this random grammar site I'm reading tells me that Lord of the Rings was third-person omniscient as well. not really relevant, but I just did a marathon and anyway

 

[Legacy]

However, when it comes to 3rd-person omniscient narration, the author has full knowledge of the minds and thoughts of every single characters, so the author knows exactly what is the feelings and thinkings of a character when a character executing an action, and also the responsive thinking and feeling inside another character during the same moment.
Because 3rd-person omniscient had the most freedom when it comes to narration, where author can describe the character both physically and mentally, thus there need to be a "limit" such that it should not become over-describing, or repeatedly describing the same thing for both physically and mentally.
For me personally, it will be depending on the nature of the scenes, and sometimes situational-wise.

Third person omniscient always comes up whenever we discuss POVs but I've never actually read a professionally written novel that uses it. I've seen it used in fanfiction a couple times, and it's always terrible because of this very reason. Directly describing the feelings of every character in a scene is too much. I would argue that describing a single character's feelings is the absolute maximum anyway.

Pretty much everything else I have to say has already been said by others. Balance is key. Don't describe the feelings of anyone but the POV character. Explicit description rather than showing through actions lessens the impact of the emotion. For little things like a character being annoyed at something, it's fine, but when

Spoiler

dies you need to show rather than tell.

Spoiler

This essentially sums up how I feel. Actions and dialog are usually more effective and impactful than describing the POV character's emotional reaction to said actions and dialog. But like AetherX says, balance is key.

 

[PiccoloX]

Sounds like your confusing "feelings" for a lack of narrative. Your character doesn't have to say or have internal monologue to convey feelings. As a narrator you can add things even your character may not fully be aware of to convey their feelings. For example, your character may perform a common action of fear that you can elaborate on why they perform such an action. Has the character been in this situation before? Do they have quarks when they feel a certain way?

As a narrator your describing the characters actions and location and either describing their feelings or having dialog convey the characters personal opinion.

 

[Vivillon]

In most of my stories, I have very little dialog. Almost everything is shown through thoughts, and I feel that this conveys everything just fine. However, since most of my stories are short and are about a character's reactions to a specific event, this may be best for such a story. However, when reading other stories of greater length in which the writer needs to build up and develop their characters and setting more, dialog is much more key and requires adding more balance. Not sure how relevant my input is here, but this I my personal opinion.

 

[Pokemon Gray]

In 3rd-person limited, you could probably get away with internal thoughts or just action and dialogue. I feel leaving out the thoughts of a character does make it more suspenseful [if done correctly] because we don't always know what they'll do. But then there are times when it just feels right to see what MC is thinking.
I'm not sure on this myself, but is it allowable to switch between pure dialogue/action where we are purposefully kept out of MC's head to allowing for thoughts and feelings when it's convenient? Feels like cheating, but then I'm still a rookie.

 

[Persephone]

There are points where this is not only acceptable but advisable. Action sequences come first and foremost, as it is usually better for flow to keep things not held back by internal monologue when trying to make an intense scene. Concealing "finishing moves" in fights until they are used is also rather popular.