WEBVTT 1 00:00:28.610 --> 00:00:45.079 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Welcome everyone. We will get started in just a moment. I just want to give a little bit of time for Everyoney to trickle in. If you can see and hear me once again, please drop your name and location in the chat. 2 00:00:45.890 --> 00:00:55.369 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and we even have one of our future speakers in the chat with us today. Hi, Suzanne. we'll hear from her later this week. 3 00:00:59.870 --> 00:01:09.530 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Alright. I see so many locations already. South Carolina, North Carolina, Canada, Ohio, Missouri, New York. 4 00:01:09.740 --> 00:01:19.850 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: It looks like everybody can see and hear me. Just fine as always. We love to see where everybody is joining us from. We love having such an international audience. 5 00:01:20.310 --> 00:01:29.419 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: I'm going to go through just a couple of housekeeping items, and then we will get started straight away with our next speaker, Savannah 6 00:01:29.990 --> 00:01:44.970 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: so replays for today's events, and Monday through Thursday's sessions will all be on the regular romance writers. Week. Hub, you can get to that with links a link that I am going to drop in the chat for you right now. 7 00:01:45.620 --> 00:02:09.119 Those will be up by tomorrow morning at the latest, for today's sessions. We are at the mercy of zoom processing time and Youtube and all of that. But we will get those up there along with audio transcripts and any available session slides, and any special promo links from our speakers. So whenever you go to the Hub, navigate through the schedule, and you will see all of that information in the dropdown. 8 00:02:09.250 --> 00:02:20.469 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: The replays are available for everyone Monday through Thursday, until March first, and after that they will be for premium and premium pro members only. 9 00:02:20.470 --> 00:02:43.240 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: We do have a premium day on Friday. So while Monday, through Thursday's events, are free for all to attend, Friday will be gated to premium and premium pro subscribers only. So if you would like to gain access to those, you can upgrade your account by Friday morning. And you will receive instructions via email for how to access those sessions and as well as those replays 10 00:02:43.240 --> 00:03:11.759 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and going premium or premium pro helps us continue to do events like these. So if you are considering trying out premium or premium pro, now is a great time to do so, because we do have an offer for all attendees. That is good until March first for 25% off a yearly subscription for premium or premium pro, and the link to that is on the hub, and whenever you click that link you can compare the 2 plans, see the different features available. 11 00:03:11.890 --> 00:03:36.839 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and decide which one you would like to try but that is available until March first. So if you would like to upgrade, now is a great time to do so, and if you'd like to keep talking romance writing. We'd love to have you over in our private online writing community. You can log in just with your pro rating aid account information. It'll sync you right up, and then you can jump over to the live event, chat and see the conversations already taking 12 00:03:36.840 --> 00:03:44.619 place there. There's a lot of folks there already, and it's a great time to chat about romance writing. So we encourage you to check that out 13 00:03:45.080 --> 00:04:08.649 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and reminders for this session. If you have questions specifically for Savannah, we do ask that you use the QA. As the chat moves very quickly, as you can see, questions do easily get lost there. If you would like to chat with fellow attendees today in the chat, we do encourage you to do that. If you would like, but just make sure on the drop down arrow in your message. It says everyone, and not just 14 00:04:08.650 --> 00:04:16.620 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: the default, which is host and panelists. So if you want everyone to see your message. Please make sure you select everyone, otherwise it will just come to us. 15 00:04:18.070 --> 00:04:34.550 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So I am so pleased to introduce Savannah Gilbo to you. Savannah has been at many of our writers, events, and we're so happy to have her back. She is a certified developmental editor and book coach who helps fiction, authors write edit and publish stories that work. 16 00:04:34.550 --> 00:04:54.119 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: She's also the host of the top, rated fiction writing made easy podcast where she delivers weekly episodes full of simple, actionable, and step by step strategies that you can implement in your writing right away. When she's not busy crafting her own stories you can find. Savannah curled up with a good book, a cozy blanket, and her 3 furry partners in crime. 17 00:04:54.150 --> 00:04:57.629 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Thank you so much for joining us today. Savannah! 18 00:04:57.910 --> 00:05:18.350 Savannah Gilbo: Hi, everybody! I'm so excited to be here. Speaking of my 3 free partners in crime, I have 2 of them in here, and one was just dreaming. So if you hear yips or little barks, don't be surprised. He's okay. But you'll probably hear or see them at some point throughout the training. So I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen. If that's okay with you, Michelle. 19 00:05:20.580 --> 00:05:43.219 Savannah Gilbo: let's see, I'm gonna guess it's okay. Alright. So we're gonna talk today about writing interiority, Aka, how to reveal your characters in our life on the page. Give me a yes in the chat. If you know what interiority is. Or if you've heard this word before, say, no, if you haven't, we're gonna get into this. It's gonna be really fun. There's gonna be examples, there's gonna be audience, participation and all that stuff. 20 00:05:43.230 --> 00:05:59.300 Savannah Gilbo: Okay? So as you can see in the chat that's moving 1,000 miles an hour. We have some yeses, some no's. I love that. So we're gonna get into all the details. I'm gonna go ahead and turn off my video. I'll see you guys at the end for QA. But we'll get right into the presentation. And yeah. 21 00:05:59.300 --> 00:06:21.679 Savannah Gilbo: I'm Savannah Michelle gave me a nice little intro. I'm an editor and a book coach. I have a podcast called fiction writing made easy, that I know some of you have tuned into, and I've helped hundreds of writers write engaging stories by using the same process that I teach in my notes to novel program. So we're gonna learn. We're gonna learn some of. You know some of the stuff I teach in there today, which is pretty fun. 22 00:06:21.680 --> 00:06:46.180 Savannah Gilbo: If you would like to connect with me on Instagram, you can find me@savannah.gilbo. If you take a photo of today's training while you're watching it and share it on your stories, I will re share on my stories. If you tag me so if you'd like a little shout out, and you wanna show me where and how you're tuning in from. I would love to see that I would also love to see any pet friends. You guys have birds, cats, dogs, horses. 23 00:06:46.210 --> 00:06:50.329 Savannah Gilbo: mini, goats, whatever they are. I love them. So go ahead and share those 24 00:06:50.910 --> 00:07:15.899 Savannah Gilbo: alright. So let's dig into the training. What are we doing here today? Right? We're we're writing novels. We wanna write novels. If you wanna write the kind of novels or stories that move readers and create lasting emotional resonance, then it's really important that we become masters of emotion. So showing emotion in our characters, evoking emotion in our readers and everything in between. 25 00:07:16.560 --> 00:07:43.299 Savannah Gilbo: So in this training, I'm gonna show you how mastering a little thing called interiority will help you craft a story with the depth that we all want, that engages the reader emotionally from start to finish. Okay, so here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna talk about 3 ways to write emotional reactions. So our characters, emotional reactions. I'm gonna spoil this part of the presentation already. One of them is interiority. And it's the thing I want you to focus on. 26 00:07:43.350 --> 00:07:57.299 Savannah Gilbo: Number 2. We're gonna take a deep dive into interiority. So what it is, why, it matters and things like that. We're going to look at a lot of examples of what interiority looks like. So this is the audience participation part which will be really fun. 27 00:07:57.450 --> 00:08:19.139 Savannah Gilbo: Then we're gonna look at, how exactly does interiority add that kind of depth, and emotion and all that stuff to our stories. We're gonna look at 2 case studies. And then we're gonna have some time for QA. So if I do go a little fast. It's just because I wanna have time for that. QA. At the end. And I know you guys get a replay. So we're gonna boogie on through it. 28 00:08:19.220 --> 00:08:35.139 Savannah Gilbo: Alright. So how to write emotional reactions in our characters, right? We need to show how our characters are emotionally reacting to a lot of things to evoke those kind of reactions in our reader. Okay, so there are 3 main ways. You're going to do it. Number one. 29 00:08:35.409 --> 00:08:52.700 Savannah Gilbo: You can tell the reader what the character is feeling, so you can literally name the emotion. And we'll look at an example of this in a second number 2. You can show emotions via body, language, bodily sensations, and or physical tells. So we'll look at an example of this in a second as well. 30 00:08:52.740 --> 00:09:03.140 Savannah Gilbo: and then number 3. You can show readers what the character is thinking in response to something external. So this is interiority. And we're gonna dig into this one the most 31 00:09:03.460 --> 00:09:16.680 Savannah Gilbo: alright. So I'll leave that up for a second, because I know we have some notetakers. You guys are my people shout out to anyone that has a drawer full of unused notebooks and pens and pencils they collect cause. That is me, too. 32 00:09:17.110 --> 00:09:43.780 Savannah Gilbo: Alright. So we're gonna dig into this first one. Okay? So you can. In some cases you can tell readers how your character feels. You don't wanna rely on this too much but basically, what this looks like is, you can say something like Maggie feels sad right? Sometimes. That's enough to convey what we need, and it's fine. Sometimes. However, we don't want to use it all the time. And the reason is because, as a reader, we have no idea why Maggie is feeling sad, right? 33 00:09:44.030 --> 00:09:54.220 Savannah Gilbo: We might know something bad happened, because usually when we feel sad, it's because of something bad, right? But why is Maggie sad? Specifically, we have no idea. 34 00:09:54.220 --> 00:10:17.019 Savannah Gilbo: Also, it's really hard to show an increase in the severity of sadness, using just words. Right? It's as soon as as soon as you say someone sad. What's the next word that comes to mind. Is it devastated, is it? You know what comes after that? And then it gets kind of dramatic pretty quickly, right? So that's number one. I don't want you to rely on this too much, but you know it's an option for you. 35 00:10:17.250 --> 00:10:46.520 Savannah Gilbo: Number 2. You can use body language and physical tail tells. Okay, so this looks like you know. slamming fists on the table. You know. The smirk, whatever whatever the body language of physical tells are, but it's tricky to rely on this as well, because a lot of emotions are obviously just felt internally, without any visible signs. So it gets it gets hard, and it can kind of put you into a corner once you've kind of used all the physical tells 36 00:10:47.070 --> 00:11:13.580 Savannah Gilbo: alright, so emotions can be shown via body, language, or physical tells without a person being consciously aware of that emotion too. So you know, this is just something to keep in mind, because it can lead readers and other characters to misinterpret your characters, emotions for good or for bad. Right? So it's it's just a tricky one to get right. It's definitely something we want to do in our drafts. But it's not the only thing we want to rely on. 37 00:11:13.640 --> 00:11:24.310 Savannah Gilbo: So look at this example. It says. Jane's eyes were dull and lifeless. She felt a pain in her chest. Despite her sluggish heartbeat, her body felt like it was going to collapse on itself. 38 00:11:24.680 --> 00:11:29.800 Savannah Gilbo: Okay? So I mean, it's it's fine, right? But do you know what Jane is feeling? 39 00:11:30.030 --> 00:11:44.760 Savannah Gilbo: She has dull and lifeless eyes, and she feels like her body is going to collapse in on itself. But we don't know what any of this means, or how Jane is actually feeling, or why, so we don't understand the source of these emotions, and it doesn't land 40 00:11:44.930 --> 00:11:49.399 Savannah Gilbo: the way that an author of this paragraph probably intended it to 41 00:11:49.950 --> 00:11:59.970 Savannah Gilbo: so physical reactions. They are visibly helpful, but they don't always convey what a character is feeling in the moment, especially if those feelings are complex. 42 00:12:00.140 --> 00:12:14.139 Savannah Gilbo: Okay, so it's also really easy to rely too much on cliches, or slip into that really escalating melodrama when you use too much body language, too many physical sensations or physical pelts. 43 00:12:14.360 --> 00:12:29.030 Savannah Gilbo: It's also why body language can only go so far. And it's why you shouldn't rely on body language and physical tells to convey emotion. Okay, so we definitely wanna use these right? But it's not the only thing we wanna rely on. 44 00:12:30.270 --> 00:12:58.499 Savannah Gilbo: Now. Number 3, this is I spoiled that. It's interiority, right? So you can convey character emotions via interiority. This is going to be the fastest, most effective way you can get readers to connect with your point of view characters. And that's just because being privy to someone's inner life makes us feel connected to them, especially when we're readers of a book, right? It feels like we're the only one that knows those private things. So it really strengthens that connection between character and reader. 45 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:28.000 Savannah Gilbo: Now, I mentioned earlier that I am an editor. I'm a developmental editor and most of the manuscripts I edit lack this kind of interiority. So there they might be good stories right? In general. But if you if you write a story that only just describes what happens in the plot, or you know, you have a lot of those physical signs of what someone's feeling it. Your story will probably fall flat, even though inside your head, you know, kind of that emotional landscape. And 46 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:34.370 to you it feels like a really rich emotional tale. If we're not getting that on the page, the story is going to feel flat. 47 00:13:34.460 --> 00:13:48.540 Savannah Gilbo: so it does not matter how dramatic the events of the plot are without a sense of kind of what the characters are thinking and feeling, or how they're processing things. Readers aren't going to have a reason to keep turning the page, and 48 00:13:48.820 --> 00:14:06.209 Savannah Gilbo: without the right balance of interiority, verse, action. Your characters are not going to feel believable, which I know is a goal that a lot of us want. Right? We want to write characters that feel like they could be real people so we wanna aim for that balance we wanna use. I like to think about it is use 49 00:14:06.260 --> 00:14:22.680 Savannah Gilbo: use number 3. The most we're going to kind of go backwards. Use number 3, the most use number 2, the second most, and number one the least. So number one was just kind of stating out right. You know. Maggie feels sad. It's telling the emotion. Sometimes we can use that. We just want to use it very sparingly. 50 00:14:23.100 --> 00:14:49.770 Savannah Gilbo: Alright. So we're gonna track some of the key points I'm talking about on this slide. We're gonna see it a lot throughout the training. But you know, interiority key point number one, interiority includes your characters, emotion and the processing of emotions. So it's just kind of taking those external events and bringing them back to your character. What did this event, or what did this situation mean to them? How did it affect you know? How did it affect those characters? 51 00:14:49.780 --> 00:14:54.689 Savannah Gilbo: All right. So we are going to take a dive a deep dive into interiority. 52 00:14:54.950 --> 00:15:13.189 Savannah Gilbo: This is what you all came here for today? Alright. So what is interiority? Is it narration? Is it anything in the text except dialogue? Is it direct thoughts and italics? Is it, you know, different than writing emotion? Is it something else entirely like? What is it right 53 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:27.770 Savannah Gilbo: before we get into a definition, I want you to just consider how movies and TV shows are made. Okay, so they have actors, costumes, makeup lighting settings, music, all these different things that make us feel something. 54 00:15:27.990 --> 00:15:49.800 Savannah Gilbo: The only thing we have are our words right? You know it's a blessing and a curse sometimes right? It's our super power to right. Our words can reach depth that no other medium can. And it's into the characters. Psyche, which you know again brings us close to the character, because we're seeing that look into their psyche that 55 00:15:49.840 --> 00:16:00.840 Savannah Gilbo: you know, movies and TV shows and all that can't always give us. Okay, so here's our definition. This is what interiority is. It's on the page, access to a protagonist 56 00:16:00.970 --> 00:16:04.330 Savannah Gilbo: thoughts and feelings as they process information. 57 00:16:04.550 --> 00:16:12.350 Savannah Gilbo: Okay, so interiority is on the page, access to a protagonist's thoughts and feelings as they process information. 58 00:16:12.900 --> 00:16:37.250 Savannah Gilbo: All right. So what does on the page access mean? This means that readers get direct access to a protagonist's conscious and unconscious mind as they process information. So this sounds like a lot, but it's really just their thoughts and feelings so consciously. They think about memories, impressions, opinions, questions, right? These are things that occur within the protagonist awareness. 59 00:16:37.650 --> 00:16:53.510 Savannah Gilbo: unconscious things are repressed memories, automatic reactions, things that are happening kind of outside the protagonist where awareness. So I'll leave that up for just a second, because I know there's kind of a lot of things. You'll probably want to scribble down on this page, and I'll grab a sip of my coffee. 60 00:16:56.610 --> 00:17:08.520 Savannah Gilbo: Alright. So these are all the things that we need to be privy to or need to give our readers access to? Okay. So our our protagonist, conscious and unconscious mind as they process information. 61 00:17:08.569 --> 00:17:18.459 Savannah Gilbo: So what does this mean to process information? And what is information? Well, information can pretty much be anything. So if you, you've probably heard this 62 00:17:18.650 --> 00:17:36.139 Savannah Gilbo: this advice around the Internet that you know you, we want a reaction and an action. We want a cause and an effect. Right? So information is the action part of the action reaction equation. It's the cause part of the cause and effect. It's just something that triggers something else. So 63 00:17:36.380 --> 00:17:51.049 Savannah Gilbo: this could be, your protagonist sees a dog right? If I'm the protagonist of your story, and I see a dog, you bet I am reacting to that dog. It could be that the protagonist meets their new neighbor. So it's just something, you know, new in the environment that they're going to react to. 64 00:17:51.070 --> 00:18:13.730 Savannah Gilbo: Maybe they receive a phone call. Maybe they are. Maybe they're asking someone to be an extra in their movie or someone? Asked the protagonist. Right? It's just something that's happening maybe the protagonist is interrupted during a big test. Right? So it's just any, literally, it's all the stuff that can happen in your story. It's anything that's a stimulus for some kind of reaction. 65 00:18:13.930 --> 00:18:30.090 Savannah Gilbo: Alright, so this is I gathered this from all these various places on the Internet about how our brains work. This is how we process information. You don't necessarily have to write this down. But or, you know, take a screenshot if you want. But basically over here in this pink or orange column. 66 00:18:30.220 --> 00:18:41.070 Savannah Gilbo: This is kind of our unconscious emotional makeup. Alright. So we as right now, as humans, we exist with biases, curiosities, fears. 67 00:18:41.070 --> 00:19:00.469 Savannah Gilbo: inner obstacles, desires, blind spots, like whatever makes up our worldview based on how we were raised where we came from. All this stuff, right? It's just stuff that is in our unconscious that you know for better or worse, is there? So this is kind of the first bucket we, something happens and our unconscious reacts. 68 00:19:00.470 --> 00:19:19.219 Savannah Gilbo: Then we kind of have these involuntary reactions. So me, memories come out. We have urges, our attention goes somewhere. So we look at something versus something else we might react to something like we like it or don't like it. Right? Our preferences. We have thoughts starters. So that just means like. 69 00:19:19.700 --> 00:19:30.919 Savannah Gilbo: you know, I see a dog. And I start to think about something right? It just triggers a thought sensations, associations, instincts and recognition. So these are just involuntary reactions 70 00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:35.279 that come because of our unconscious emotional makeup. 71 00:19:35.400 --> 00:19:54.469 Savannah Gilbo: And then after that, we start to form conscious opinions, realizations, epiphanies, decisions, assumptions, judgments and evaluations. So it's like, you know, because the thing over here happened. And it went through our unconscious emotional makeup. We had these involuntary reactions. Now our conscious mind takes over. 72 00:19:54.470 --> 00:20:08.569 Savannah Gilbo: And we have that first level, you know, reaction. And then after that we can start forming things like questions, plans. We can anticipate things. We can recalculate plans, we can theorize, we can fantasize or project into the future. 73 00:20:08.580 --> 00:20:26.440 Savannah Gilbo: Right? So this is just kind of how our brains work. And I want to show you this, because a lot of times I read drafts where it's like the character reacts starting here, and then they go to here. And then maybe we go to here and we totally skip this right? Or maybe we just start here, and that's all we have, right? So there's 74 00:20:26.780 --> 00:20:47.990 Savannah Gilbo: there's kind of an order for how? How? We'll wanna show our characters processing things and what this looks like in the feedback I give to writers is like, you know. Why did she go to this thought over? You know something else first, like I was reading a draft yesterday, and and the character kind of ha was telling us her assumption. So 75 00:20:47.990 --> 00:21:03.890 Savannah Gilbo: someone got kidnapped, and she was saying, Well, I assume it's the people that you know want this secret from me whatever. And I was like. Why is she already going to this without kind of reacting first and letting it go through that this process that we're seeing on screen. So 76 00:21:04.140 --> 00:21:19.880 Savannah Gilbo: you know, not something to worry about during your first draft. Just wanted to point this out, because I think it helps to see it unfold on the page. And it's usually, you know, these reactions that tend to be more than we think we need to put on the page. But, as we'll see in a second, you know, usually we need more. So 77 00:21:20.100 --> 00:21:39.379 Savannah Gilbo: key point because of everything we just talked about. Interiority is going to be partial. So it's gonna be subjective and partial to your character, right? Cause? We can't. If I go back to this slide, this is not gonna look the same for every single character, right? It wouldn't look the same for every single person who is on this presentation today. 78 00:21:39.380 --> 00:22:03.619 Savannah Gilbo: Right? So it's partial. It's subjective to your character, and as readers, we interpret interiority very different than information. That's neutral. So you know, neutral is just you know a fact, right like, we'll see an example of this later. But if your protagonist is neutral, and if their interiority is neutral, they're going to be boring, and your story is going to be boring. Okay? So 79 00:22:03.950 --> 00:22:06.000 Savannah Gilbo: what I mean by this is that 80 00:22:06.530 --> 00:22:35.240 Savannah Gilbo: each person we have a preferences, we have things that we're going to react to. We have things that we're going to feel strongly about where other people, people, people won't right. So if we give our protagonist kind of this neutral world view. They're not gonna feel real. And it's gonna be a little bit unbelievable. Okay? So interesting people are biased. They have opinions. They have values, preferences, wounds, unique worldviews, and all these different things. Right? So just keep that in mind. 81 00:22:35.240 --> 00:22:52.990 Savannah Gilbo: you know, I like to say, what if you think you're doing this already? You can probably still turn it up a little bit in volume and then you'll probably hit the sweet spot all right? So key point narration can be neutral. But interiority is always partial. It's always bias. And it's always subjective. Okay. 82 00:22:53.340 --> 00:23:02.919 Savannah Gilbo: so this means that interiority or being able to write good interiority needs to stand on the shoulder of both character, development and plot. 83 00:23:03.050 --> 00:23:17.680 Savannah Gilbo: And that's because interiority. It's rooted in a characters perspective. And no 2 people. Psyches are the same, right? So you do need to do the character work before you can write interiority. That's gonna be effective. And it's gonna have 84 00:23:17.730 --> 00:23:41.419 Savannah Gilbo: you know that that give readers that reaction they want. Okay, interiority also can only exist in relation to something or someone. So our thoughts. They're private but they are rooted in or triggered by something else, or someone else, and sometimes even ourselves. So we respond. Right? I said, it's like the cause and effect or the action reaction. 85 00:23:41.420 --> 00:23:49.159 Savannah Gilbo: We respond to things because something else triggers it. Okay. So same thing with interiority. We'll look at at some examples right now. 86 00:23:49.180 --> 00:23:53.569 Savannah Gilbo: All right. So I'll leave that up. I know we're taking some notes. Grab a sip of my coffee 87 00:23:56.350 --> 00:24:20.430 Savannah Gilbo: alright. So what does interiority look like this is where we're going to. Kind of get interactive. All right? So these are these are the tools I want you to use when I, because I'm going to ask you to tell me if things are interiority, or if they're not, so, we can either say Yes, they're interiority and or no, they're not just to keep it easy for you guys, all right. So to determine whether something's interiority, you can ask yourself. 88 00:24:20.540 --> 00:24:49.999 Savannah Gilbo: could a camera capture what's happening? And then, could anybody in the world view that footage and report exactly what's going on? So, for example, a man walks into a red door. Could we all view that and say that there is a man walking through a red door? Probably right? I mean, it's not gonna be an exact science, who knows what people will come up with? But yes, we could right. And then you can also look at is the passage neutral? So is there none of that character filter. 89 00:24:50.220 --> 00:25:03.079 Savannah Gilbo: you know. That's making it not neutral. So if you can answer yes to both of these questions, that means the passage that you're looking at in a text is not interiority. Okay? So here we go. We're going to play a game. 90 00:25:03.290 --> 00:25:18.009 Savannah Gilbo: I'm going to read you the sentence, and you're going to tell me if it's interiority or not. Alright. So it says. This place seems more like a historic hotel than an apartment complex, with its expansive columns and marble floors. Is this interiority or not? 91 00:25:19.530 --> 00:25:47.869 Savannah Gilbo: Okay, I see, basically, everyone's saying it's not. But it actually is. And here's why. So it seems more like a historic hotel, so someone could come in and not say that right? This is through the characters perspective they could also think about something different when they walk in the door. So you know, let's pretend this is me, I might think, wow! It looks like a historic hotel, even though I know it's an apartment complex and has expansive columns and marble floors. 92 00:25:47.870 --> 00:26:10.829 Savannah Gilbo: But you could walk in and think, wow! That desk is really built poorly right, or you could walk in and think it's freezing in here right, and not even see the architecture. So we're seeing this through the characters. We're getting the characters impression here. Okay, so this one's tricky. We're starting out with a tricky one. And all of these examples are from ugly love by Colleen Hoover. 93 00:26:11.170 --> 00:26:18.820 Savannah Gilbo: All right. Next one I find the panel and press the button for the eighteenth floor. Then look up at the mirrored wall of the elevator. 94 00:26:19.790 --> 00:26:47.080 Savannah Gilbo: Interiority or not. Okay. So most of you are getting this one right? This is not. This is just neutral movement. So you know, in theory, we could all look at a a film of this, and say she finds the panel. She presses the button for the eighteenth floor, and then she looks up at the mirrored wall of the elevator. So you know, of course, people are good. There's always gonna be someone that wants to argue. But in general, like, let's say, 95% of us would say, this is not interiority, right? 95 00:26:47.480 --> 00:27:01.849 Savannah Gilbo: All right. So how about this one? His legs are sprawled out in front of him, and he is leaning back with hit, leaning with his back propped up against Corbin's door, his this should say chin. His chin is tucked into his chest, and he's snoring. Is this interiority or not? 96 00:27:02.160 --> 00:27:20.679 Savannah Gilbo: Okay, you guys are getting this. So this is not interiority. It's just neutral description. We could all view this through a camera and kind of say the same. Same description, right? How about this? This guy isn't wearing any type of uniform, but I can't help but notice that his jeans and black T shirt do fit him very nicely. 97 00:27:21.450 --> 00:27:44.820 Savannah Gilbo: Alright, yeah, you guys got this. So this is interiority. It's showing us where her attentions going right? To the fit of the T-shirt, and what he's wearing and things like that. Okay, so you guys got that? That's great. Alright, let's look at some more examples. So we're gonna dig into fable by Adriene Young. So this one says we're we were still sailing north almost half a day off course on route to durn on the route to durn 98 00:27:44.960 --> 00:27:46.649 Savannah Gilbo: interiority or not. 99 00:27:47.050 --> 00:27:55.710 Savannah Gilbo: Okay, look at you guys, you guys are getting it. So this is not. It's just a fact. Right? They're still sailing north. They're almost half a day off course on the route to dern. 100 00:27:56.090 --> 00:28:09.849 Savannah Gilbo: all right. How about this? All 4 of them stared at me as a silence stretched over the ship, leaving only the sound of the wind sliding over the canvas sails above us. They were baiting me, pulling at my edges to see what I was made of, and I didn't blame them. 101 00:28:10.340 --> 00:28:26.030 Savannah Gilbo: Okay, yep, look at you guys, you're getting this. So this is interiority, right? Cause she's evaluating her surroundings. She's showing us her impression of what the people around her are doing right, so this couldn't exist without putting it through that characters lens 102 00:28:26.150 --> 00:28:33.949 Savannah Gilbo: all right. How about this? He snapped his fingers, and the coin flew into the air over the side before it plunked into the water below. 103 00:28:35.030 --> 00:28:45.460 Savannah Gilbo: Okay, look at you guys, you're getting you guys are so good. This is not. It's just neutral movement or description, right? A camera could capture this. And we could all describe this. You know. 104 00:28:45.530 --> 00:29:01.970 Savannah Gilbo: similarly enough to get the point across. How about this. They were trying to put me in my place trying to degrade me. Because with traders everything was a test. Okay, yep, you got it. So this? Is it just an assumption? Right? It's a judgment of their behavior. And she's assuming something. 105 00:29:02.010 --> 00:29:04.600 Savannah Gilbo: About what she's judging. 106 00:29:04.970 --> 00:29:23.050 Savannah Gilbo: Okay? So we have a few more examples. Hopefully, this is fun. I've got 2. I think I have 2 more books that we're gonna go through. So a court of thorns and roses by Sarah J. Mass. All right, interiority or not. The trampled snow coating the road into our village was speckled with brown and black from passing carts and horses. 107 00:29:24.770 --> 00:29:34.290 Savannah Gilbo: Okay, lots and those in the chat. You guys are right. It's just neutral description. We could all kind of view this image, and we would probably say something similar. 108 00:29:34.430 --> 00:29:41.139 Savannah Gilbo: How about this? The weapons on her gleaming and wicked were enough to make me swallow and stop a good 2 feet away? 109 00:29:42.250 --> 00:29:54.480 Savannah Gilbo: Okay, yep, this is interiority, right? It's showing us her instinct and kind of how she's processing things. So it's you know, through her lens that we're seeing this person with weapons. 110 00:29:54.570 --> 00:30:06.769 Savannah Gilbo: How about this? My stomach turned behind us. My sisters seemed so fragile, their their pale skin so infinitely delicate and shredable against something like the mar tax. We'd never stand a chance. 111 00:30:08.240 --> 00:30:23.509 Savannah Gilbo: All right. Yep. So that's you know, an evaluation of what's going on. She's calculating their chances of survival and things like that. Guys are getting an a plus on all this so far I love it. How about this? My father was dozing in his chair, his cane laid across his gnarled knee. 112 00:30:24.690 --> 00:30:44.850 Savannah Gilbo: Okay, so this one? Yep, it's not. It's just kind of neutral description you could, depending on. You know how you read this you could say that gnarled makes it subjective, but you know I think we we might all, if if it truly isnarled, we might all see that right? So I said, this is not 113 00:30:45.210 --> 00:30:59.920 Savannah Gilbo: all right. Last is last example here. So this is from the invisible Life of Addy Lou, by VE. Schwab. And this, says the summer sky, where it shows through the canopy trees, is smooth to a velvet black, marked only by a low hanging moon. 114 00:31:01.490 --> 00:31:03.239 Savannah Gilbo: Yeah, this one's hard. Right? 115 00:31:03.560 --> 00:31:16.809 Savannah Gilbo: So I said that this is not because it's just kind of description, right? So we might all say this in a different way. But what's the gist of it? Right? You know the the light doesn't make it through 116 00:31:16.950 --> 00:31:28.149 Savannah Gilbo: the trees, you know. I guess we could say something similar right? But it doesn't necessarily mean that this could only exist through Addy's perspective, that one's a little harder. 117 00:31:28.480 --> 00:31:35.789 Savannah Gilbo: all right. How about this one? Adeline rises, studying her hands, looking past the dirt for some sign of transformation. 118 00:31:37.100 --> 00:31:47.299 Savannah Gilbo: Okay, yep, most of you got this right. So this is interiority. She's just. It's her intent right. She's looking at her hands, evaluating. She's looking for some sign of transformation. 119 00:31:47.880 --> 00:31:56.909 Savannah Gilbo: all right. How about this? She licks her lips, expecting to taste blood, but the mark left by the stranger's teeth is gone, swept away with every other trace of him. 120 00:31:57.780 --> 00:32:09.459 Savannah Gilbo: Alright, yeah, if you got this one too. So this is expectation right? She's expecting to taste blood, but the mark left by the stranger's teeth is gone, so she's showing us her expectation, and and how she was wrong. 121 00:32:10.410 --> 00:32:19.060 all right. The front door hangs open, spilling white onto the path, and she can hear her mother humming in the kitchen, her father chopping wood around the side of the house. 122 00:32:20.670 --> 00:32:49.169 Savannah Gilbo: Okay, I think I tricked you guys with this, some of you, some of you got it right. So this is interiority, I think, because it's showing her area of focus, or the ha! Hierarchy of where her attention goes. So you know, she opens that she goes to the open door. She hears her mother so she's kinda tuned in. If we're observing this with a camera we might not know what she hears right and then she kinda zooms in, or her hearing zooms into her father chopping wood. 123 00:32:49.170 --> 00:33:10.829 Savannah Gilbo: We wouldn't know what she hears right, and I see Richard. That's an interesting point, cause you said that's the same as me. I don't think so be I mean, you could argue that, but I don't think so because a gnarled knee potentially we could all see a knee that looks messed up right like maybe it's got scars all over it. I don't know exactly what she meant by gnarled but we don't know what she's hearing. 124 00:33:10.890 --> 00:33:28.350 Savannah Gilbo: right? So depending on. If we're looking at an image, we don't know what she's hearing you know, that we get this through her head. So again, this is not like an exact science, but hopefully, I mean, I don't need to say hopefully, you guys are getting it. I see you guys getting it in the chat. So that's that's really cool. Alright. So 125 00:33:28.560 --> 00:33:37.529 Savannah Gilbo: key point here is interiority requires narration. So it requires stuff happening around it. Right? We said it. It happens. 126 00:33:37.740 --> 00:33:52.379 Savannah Gilbo: it happens in response to something, but not all. Narration requires interiority. So that's what we just saw. Right? Sometimes you can just have description. It's very neutral, right? And other times it's not neutral. It's through a character's perspective. 127 00:33:52.530 --> 00:34:12.099 Savannah Gilbo: So I saw some questions in the chat, and I have an FAQ. Slide, for this is interiority the same as point of view. It's not right. So how much access you give readers to your character's Psyche doesn't depend on the stylistic point of view choice. So it doesn't matter if you're writing first or third person. 128 00:34:12.290 --> 00:34:23.540 Savannah Gilbo: It, you know you won't write more or less interiority depending on the the point of view you've chosen. So point of view. First, second, third person. That's a stylistic choice about how you're delivering 129 00:34:23.570 --> 00:34:29.249 Savannah Gilbo: the the text right? But interiorities about access to the character's thoughts and feelings. 130 00:34:29.350 --> 00:34:38.979 Savannah Gilbo: And Erin, this is so interesting. So I see you in the chat. I agree with Richard. Sounds can be descriptive. There's no emotion, that's true, but we're in her perspective. Right? So 131 00:34:39.520 --> 00:34:44.369 Savannah Gilbo: if we weren't and a camera was looking at this, we wouldn't know what she hears. 132 00:34:44.550 --> 00:34:58.559 Savannah Gilbo: Okay, we wouldn't know that she's focused on her mom, humming in the kitchen first, and then her father chopping wood around the house. So she's showing us where her attention is going through her perspective. So that's why I count it as interiority. 133 00:34:58.890 --> 00:35:18.569 Savannah Gilbo: But again, we don't all have to agree right? That's kinda kind of the fun thing about writing all right now. A question I get asked a lot, too, is yeah. And Andrea, if you're watching a movie, you would. Here, that's true. But we wouldn't know where her attentions going first, second, and third, right? So it it's a really hard one to parse through. Because. 134 00:35:19.010 --> 00:35:36.940 Savannah Gilbo: yes, we could all hear this. We could also hear birds chirping. We could hear the river babbling right, but she's showing us where her focus is going. So just my 2 cents there, all right. So isn't interiority telling. It can be telling right? It? It can be literally saying, 135 00:35:37.080 --> 00:36:01.980 Savannah Gilbo: you know, just telling right. It's telling us what someone is focusing on right. But it can also be showing. So a good story will have both showing and telling whether you're talking about interiority or any other writing tool. Okay, so we are going to have a balance of both in our stories, no matter what, but giving us an insight. Look at how your characters subjectively processes information is not optional. 136 00:36:02.310 --> 00:36:22.989 Savannah Gilbo: And again, why is it not optional? Because this is what this is, the secret sauce of a novel right? It lets us into someone's mind and shows us how they're processing things. All right. So why does interiority matter? Well, we kind of talked a lot about this right, but I want to punctuate it. So what makes us, as readers connect with a character? 137 00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:36.550 Savannah Gilbo: And it's it's a worthwhile question to think about because we're all going to have different answers right? But if we were to say, if I was to ask you in a scene with 3 or 4 characters. What makes us connect with one of them more? 138 00:36:36.920 --> 00:36:51.370 Savannah Gilbo: Is it how they behave so? Is it their actions? Is it what they're saying, or their dialogue? Is it how they look, or their description? Is it their role in the scene, or like their position in any environment, that we're seeing them in? Right? 139 00:36:51.800 --> 00:37:11.480 Savannah Gilbo: So what somebody says or does. It is, of course, going to reveal a lot about them. Right actions do speak louder than words sometimes, but why they do, what they do or what what they're motivated by, and how they perceive things, so, what they feel and think, and you know how they process those feelings and thoughts. 140 00:37:11.630 --> 00:37:31.750 Savannah Gilbo: How they perceive what they do reveals even more. Okay. So this is, this is interiority in a nutshell. And like, I said earlier, being the only one who knows these things, since the reader is the only one privy to a protagonist inner life that makes us feel really connected to the character. 141 00:37:31.850 --> 00:37:56.410 Savannah Gilbo: Alright. So I saw a lot of you guys saying this in the chat. That kind of it is the interior that pulls you in. I agree. This is that is a big draw for me as a reader as well. And we're here to talk about romance right? We do need to see interiority and romance. We need to see you know how meeting this other person, whether we wanted to meet the love of our life or not affects us. Right? So very, very important in romance. 142 00:37:56.410 --> 00:38:13.490 Savannah Gilbo: And so you know the key point. If you take nothing else away for this from this presentation. The primary function of interiority is to help readers connect with your characters, and that connection is what's going to allow you to evoke those emotional reactions in the reader. 143 00:38:13.770 --> 00:38:19.319 Savannah Gilbo: and it's, gonna you know. Give them that lasting impression of your novel and make them feel all the good things 144 00:38:19.690 --> 00:38:48.409 Savannah Gilbo: alright. So like I said, I won't go too deep into this now, but novels are the only storytelling medium that allow us to see in someone's mind and follow along as they make sense of what's happening in the plot, and as they make sense of things as they feel things, then their reader does too. So this on the page. Processing is what it means to write interiority, and if you leave it out, readers are going to feel cheated, or they might not even make it that far into your book, because it's gonna feel a little flat. Okay? 145 00:38:48.430 --> 00:39:12.439 Savannah Gilbo: So if you want to write the kind of stories that move readers which I know we all do. This is why interiority is so important. We need to see how the characters are reacting and processing, what's happening around them, and how? What the plot or the events of the scene affect your character. And this is what's gonna help you evoke emotional reactions in readers and give them that experience they're looking for. Okay. So 146 00:39:12.750 --> 00:39:23.399 Savannah Gilbo: that's kind of like the big picture. Right? That's the like nebulous. This is what it's gonna do. But let's talk about the smaller level. So like at a scene. Right? 147 00:39:23.590 --> 00:39:45.369 Savannah Gilbo: Why is interiority important? Well, it helps us establish focus. So it reveals to the reader who or what a character is paying attention to in private right? Because, like we saw in this is the perfect thing for the Addy Larue example, she was focused on her mom and then her dad, right, though. That's where her focus was. And then we're going to find out why, as we read on 148 00:39:45.770 --> 00:40:04.090 Savannah Gilbo: it also establishes motive or helps to share that with the reader. So it reveals why a character is focused on someone or something, or why they're doing or saying something or not. Right. So it helps to share motives with the reader. And make them root for your character because they understand the motive 149 00:40:04.500 --> 00:40:26.850 Savannah Gilbo: alright. It also helps to establish intensity. So it reveals how much attention a character is paying to something or someone, and it can show how intensity grows or changes. So the best example of this is in that show from on Netflix called you. If you guys have seen that, so the main character. He gets obsessed with women, right? So he. 150 00:40:26.850 --> 00:40:52.469 Savannah Gilbo: and then bad things ensue. But but you know his intensity over time. It goes from like curiosity. Right? He sees a girl he's interested in. Then he watches her and he gets really interested in the things that she's interested in. Then it becomes a fixation, and then eventually it becomes an obsession right? So the intensity of the feelings and thoughts are changing over time and interiority lets us show that to the reader. 151 00:40:53.430 --> 00:41:22.739 Savannah Gilbo: Alright. So let's see, it also can help us. Help help us reveal to readers how trusting a character is on the inside versus how they act? You know, because we're we can all act in one way, but that doesn't mean it has to match what's inside. It can also help show how trust changes over time as well. Right? So over time, maybe the outside actions will start to match, how a character feels inside, and the reader can see this because they're privy to both 152 00:41:23.380 --> 00:41:40.870 Savannah Gilbo: effective interiority can reveal a character's expectations of what will happen. So this is both like before the scene kicks in the gear, and that conflict occurs. And after right? So that's sometimes just a mismatch of expectation. And what happens 153 00:41:40.970 --> 00:41:51.990 Savannah Gilbo: is what creates conflict, right? Not all conflict has to be bad stuff happening on the page. It's just something that goes kind of against the grain of your character's expectations. Sometimes. 154 00:41:52.050 --> 00:42:01.339 Savannah Gilbo: just like real life, right? Effective interiority also establishes what your character wants to be kept private. And this is fun. Because 155 00:42:01.370 --> 00:42:21.450 Savannah Gilbo: when we know someone wants to keep things private, and then the private thing starts to become public. This is what helps tension rise and stakes rise as well. So without that it's really hard to write. May, or, you know, raise the stakes and the tension. Okay, so I'll leave that up because I know we're taking notes, and I'll grab a sip of coffee. 156 00:42:24.310 --> 00:42:25.190 Savannah Gilbo: Okay. 157 00:42:25.470 --> 00:42:46.720 Savannah Gilbo: so just to kind of recap this in a different way on the surface, right? We we know. I think you guys just listen to a presentation on scenes right? So this is perfect on the surface is seen as a character in a setting, experiencing conflict. Right? So whatever definition of scenes we can we subscribe to, this is kind of the gist of what a scene is. 158 00:42:46.770 --> 00:42:58.160 Savannah Gilbo: but there's much more to a scene than just this stuff. Right? So a scene can also show us all those things we just talked about a character's private expectation going into the scene. 159 00:42:58.170 --> 00:43:17.080 Savannah Gilbo: A character's true opinions or feelings regarding what's happening in the scene. The people involved the settings they're in, and even themselves. So this could include things like you know how they feel about their insecurities, how their insecurities come out, even if they're, you know, not totally aware of that. And things like that. 160 00:43:17.240 --> 00:43:24.069 Savannah Gilbo: It can also show us a cara characters, private focus behind their expectations. So again, why, they're 161 00:43:24.230 --> 00:43:30.119 Savannah Gilbo: expecting something to happen, and what that expectation, going right or wrong, means to them. 162 00:43:30.230 --> 00:43:54.510 Savannah Gilbo: It shows how they're privately processing the conflict and disturbance. So even if they're processing it out loud, there's still parts that are gonna be the reader is will only be privy to right that they're not saying out loud. And then it shows, and the characters new expectations going forward based on the conflict and disturbance. So there might be public expectations, right? Like, 163 00:43:54.610 --> 00:44:10.850 Savannah Gilbo: let's just say, like, okay, we if we're writing like a fantasy story that has a strong, romantic arc, right? Maybe it's like this is a scene where they did a little battle. And so we have new expectations. We're gonna keep going on our journey. But what are the characters? Private expectations about how they go forward? Right? 164 00:44:10.890 --> 00:44:12.909 Savannah Gilbo: If we're writing something like 165 00:44:13.400 --> 00:44:23.410 Savannah Gilbo: like a calling Hoover book, right or just a straight up romance a character might expect the guy, or the love interest to. 166 00:44:23.910 --> 00:44:35.540 Savannah Gilbo: you know, hold true to their promise and not contact me anymore, because I said not to right. But then secretly, maybe they're hoping that they won't listen right? So we can play with all these things to 167 00:44:35.590 --> 00:44:43.649 Savannah Gilbo: our scenes really impactful. All right? So we're gonna look at another example, because I love examples. And this one is from it ends with us by 168 00:44:44.420 --> 00:45:06.159 Savannah Gilbo: basically, what I have here is, anything in black is just kind of straight narration. Anything in green is interiority. So I'm gonna read this. And I want you to one notice the amount of green. So the amount of interiority, and then 2, imagine what W. It would be like if we didn't have the interiority. Okay? So I'm just gonna read this. 169 00:45:06.530 --> 00:45:22.790 Savannah Gilbo: It says I'm pulling the I'm pulling the lid off the top of one of the shoe boxes when my cell phone rings I reach across the couch and grab it. When I see that it's my mother. I press my face into the couch and fake cry into a throw pillow. I bring the phone to my ear. Hello! 170 00:45:22.790 --> 00:45:39.780 Savannah Gilbo: There's a 3 s, 3 3 s of silence, and then, Hello, Lily! I sigh and sit back on the up on the couch. Hey, mom, I'm really surprised. She's speaking to me. It's only been one day since the funeral. That's 364 days sooner than I expected to hear from her. How are you, I ask? 171 00:45:40.220 --> 00:45:42.079 Savannah Gilbo: She sighed dramatically. 172 00:45:42.130 --> 00:45:51.769 Savannah Gilbo: Fine! She says. Your aunt and uncle went back to Nebraska this morning. It'll be my first night alone since you'll be fine, Mom, I say, trying to sound confident 173 00:45:51.810 --> 00:46:02.429 Savannah Gilbo: she's quiet for too long, and then she says, Lily, I just want you to know that you shouldn't be embarrassed about what happened yesterday. I paused. I wasn't not even the slightest bit. 174 00:46:02.540 --> 00:46:19.629 Savannah Gilbo: Everyone freezes up in a while. I shouldn't have to. I shouldn't have put that kind of pressure on you, knowing how hard the day was on you already. I should have just had your uncle do it. I close my eyes. Here she goes again, covering up what she doesn't want to see, taking blame that isn't even hers to take. 175 00:46:19.690 --> 00:46:24.510 Savannah Gilbo: Of course, she convinced herself that I froze up yesterday, and that's why I refused to speak. 176 00:46:24.550 --> 00:46:44.889 Savannah Gilbo: Of course she did. I have half a mind to tell her it wasn't a mistake. I didn't freeze up. I just had nothing great to say about the unremarkable man she chose to be my father. But part of me does feel guilty for what I did specifically, because it's not something I should have done in the presence of my mother. So I just accept what she's doing and go along with it. Thanks, Mom. Sorry I choked. 177 00:46:45.480 --> 00:47:06.959 Savannah Gilbo: Okay, so imagine if we didn't have that green? Right? So this what I want to point out is what's going on on the outside versus what's going on on the inside. So on the outside. If we were watching a camera right? And we we just heard the dialogue, we would see that Lily is sitting on the couch pulling the lid off a shoebox. 178 00:47:06.960 --> 00:47:19.209 Savannah Gilbo: Then her mom calls. So she's answering the cell phone, and she's talking to her mom. And if we look at the conversation we would hear. You know. You'll be fine, mom. Lilly, I just want you to know that you shouldn't be embarrassed. 179 00:47:19.230 --> 00:47:29.940 Savannah Gilbo: Everyone freezes up in a while. Right? Thanks, Mom. Sorry I choked. So we wouldn't get any of this if if we were just looking at what's happening on a film screen 180 00:47:30.080 --> 00:47:31.650 Savannah Gilbo: on the inside. 181 00:47:31.870 --> 00:47:50.200 Savannah Gilbo: We get all of this amazing stuff right? So Lily is surprised that her mom's calling her right, she said. It's 364 days sooner than she thought. She's noticing her mother's silent seconds and interpreting what those mean? She's trying to reassure her mother about being alone by sounding confident 182 00:47:50.200 --> 00:48:05.179 Savannah Gilbo: she's interpreting her mother's behavior and words, and then silently lashing out at her. So she's like having a mini conversation with herself right? Which we all do and then at the end, she's going along with her mom's interpretations of events to not make things worse. 183 00:48:05.500 --> 00:48:14.180 Savannah Gilbo: So this this down here, like all the stuff that gives that scene all the meat and the juice that we feel. That's interiority. 184 00:48:14.200 --> 00:48:30.330 Savannah Gilbo: And that's you know. I hope this is a great example of why we need interiority. Because it's what makes novels special. And it's something that really brings the juice to romance novels, novels of any genre, really, but especially for romance. It's really important. 185 00:48:31.290 --> 00:48:51.329 Savannah Gilbo: Okay? So just some. Let's see where in mind my slides. Here we go. So a key point effective interiority reveals a character's vulnerability by sharing their private thoughts and feelings in a situation as well as what they expect, hope and fear, and how much they trust, what or who is involved. 186 00:48:51.450 --> 00:48:59.600 Savannah Gilbo: Okay? So it does. A lot of stuff. Interiority pulls a lot of weight, lifts a lot of weight in your story. It's very, very important. 187 00:49:00.550 --> 00:49:22.309 Savannah Gilbo: Alright, so I'll leave that up. I know. I know we've got some scribblers, and we're almost done. I have a few more sites, and we'll get into. QA. Let's see. Okay, so everything in excluding dialog. It doesn't mean it's automatically interiority. Some of it, like we saw earlier is just narration or just description. That's okay. We want a balance of everything. 188 00:49:22.440 --> 00:49:29.079 Savannah Gilbo: Interiority can include direct thoughts in italics. So I'll go back to the calling Hoover example, because 189 00:49:29.460 --> 00:49:45.509 Savannah Gilbo: we did have some of that right? So here she goes again. Of course, she convinced herself. Of course she did. Right. So it can be it can be direct thoughts in italics. But it's more complex than that. Okay, so it's it's all the stuff we've seen. 190 00:49:46.220 --> 00:49:59.749 Savannah Gilbo: Now, if you're thinking. Gosh, this sounds hard like it sounds like I'm gonna have to dig deep. And, you know, try really hard to write good quality scenes with interiority. That's true, right? It can be hard. 191 00:49:59.750 --> 00:50:18.720 Savannah Gilbo: but I think, W. I've seen this with the writers I work with. Once. You kind of go there and you get you get that that feel for what good interiority can do for your story. There's no going back like I see it happen all the time where people are like. You know what? I totally see, what was wrong with my old pages. They were lacking interiority. 192 00:50:18.820 --> 00:50:47.659 Savannah Gilbo: So it's gonna take longer, especially at first it's gonna feel more challenging. But this is really what it takes to write quality fiction, and the best way to practice is take a scene from either. Well, I don't wanna say either. Take a scene from a book that's published that you love and take a scene from your draft and highlight interiority versus not, or just the interiority, and compare the difference of the amount cause. I bet you'll see that your draft has a lot less interiority than the published novels that you like. 193 00:50:47.730 --> 00:50:53.940 Savannah Gilbo: And I'm just saying that based on where I've had clients and students do this exercise. And that's usually what happens. 194 00:50:54.230 --> 00:50:56.320 Savannah Gilbo: So you might be thinking, now 195 00:50:56.620 --> 00:51:13.130 Savannah Gilbo: does this does. How much interiority you include depend on your genre and or your writing style? And you could say that yes, but only to an extent. So if you're writing something like mystery which I know a lot of us are romance writers. But let's say you have a big mystery thread, or you're writing mystery. 196 00:51:13.150 --> 00:51:36.840 Savannah Gilbo: A detective might spend, you know, 1 h processing a clue or a crime scene. It could take longer. It could take shorter right? But it's a big deal for the detective that there's a clue in a women's fiction story where the focus is more kind of on that internal character arc and the woman, and how she grows and changes the character, might take a day to process. One thing that someone said or did to her right. So it just might be different 197 00:51:36.840 --> 00:51:52.430 Savannah Gilbo: in a fast action thriller, the protagonist might react and process what just happened in a matter of seconds. Okay, so it it can vary in all of your scenes. It can vary in your story versus somebody else's. But regardless of genre, this is something you really don't want to leave out 198 00:51:52.450 --> 00:52:01.040 Savannah Gilbo: so highly worth the exercise of, you know, going through your own draft and published novels just to see what that looks like and and practicing this 199 00:52:01.250 --> 00:52:11.989 Savannah Gilbo: so hopefully, you feel like you now have some tools to write, effective interiority that will help you reveal who your character is so that readers connect with them and feel invested in their story. 200 00:52:12.220 --> 00:52:17.640 Savannah Gilbo: And I made you guys a little cheat sheet. So I think Michelle posted the link to this earlier. But 201 00:52:17.860 --> 00:52:45.169 Savannah Gilbo: if you go to Savannah, gilbo.com forward slash pwa, you can get this author's guide to writing interiority cheat sheet. So it's got a lot of examples. It's got kind of the key points of what we talked about today. We're also going to get you a copy of the slides. You know, and you'll have the replay. So a lot to dig into, I know. But let's see, I'll leave that up for a second, and then I'll come back on camera. Here we can do some. QA. 202 00:52:45.490 --> 00:52:57.830 Savannah Gilbo: How are you guys feeling? First of all, before we get into QA. Let me know. I saw some of the chat. It was going very, very fast. Okay, I see some goods. Awesome. Thank yous. Okay, great. 203 00:52:57.940 --> 00:53:11.299 Savannah Gilbo: I love it. Okay, we're gonna go. Someone says, I have work to do. Yeah, I think we all do when it comes to interiority. The the writers. So I've worked with hundreds of writers across all genres at this point, and the percentage of them that 204 00:53:11.460 --> 00:53:22.020 Savannah Gilbo: are very natural at interiority, and that just do the right amount is like maybe less than 5%. So it it's hard work for a lot of us. But it makes all the difference. 205 00:53:22.080 --> 00:53:23.559 Savannah Gilbo: So just hang in there. 206 00:53:23.780 --> 00:53:34.989 Savannah Gilbo: all right. So let's see, I'm going to go through the Q. And as we have 8 min, and Michelle let me know if you want me to finish up sooner. If I don't hear from you, I'm assuming I'll go for 8 min. 207 00:53:35.250 --> 00:53:46.870 Savannah Gilbo: Let's see. Okay, we, Katie said. Do we have tips on writing interiority in different point of view. So we talked about that right? Interiority is not optional either way. 208 00:53:47.280 --> 00:53:58.520 Savannah Gilbo: you know, first person, third person we still need interiority, and what I would do is, I would look at some of your favorite books in first person and in third person, and see. 209 00:53:58.890 --> 00:54:04.539 Savannah Gilbo: See the similarities and the differences. I think that's the fastest way that you'll answer this question. 210 00:54:04.880 --> 00:54:15.450 Savannah Gilbo: Patricia. How much interiority is in a typical book. So I wish there was like a somewhere on the Internet that told us that I don't know off the top of my head, but it's probably more than you think. 211 00:54:15.530 --> 00:54:24.209 Savannah Gilbo: and I do encourage you to do that exercise. I talked about where you just open a book and you highlight the interiority. You'll be surprised how much is actually in there. 212 00:54:25.420 --> 00:54:48.650 Savannah Gilbo: Let's see. So interiority seems easier to achieve with first person. This is anonymous. What if you're writing in third person. Do you have tips for writing emotions in third? So if you're writing close, third or third person limited it's pretty much doing it the same way. So we saw some examples. You can go back and look in the replay, or 213 00:54:48.850 --> 00:55:02.169 Savannah Gilbo: you know, pull up the the freebie that you can get by going to Savannah. gilbo.com forward slash pwa and you can look at some of the examples in there. But it's it's basically the same way of doing it. It's just 214 00:55:02.450 --> 00:55:12.930 Savannah Gilbo: a a different lens. So the first person, Narrator versus the third. Now, if you're writing third person omniscient, that's a whole other can of worms right? Because you have the the removed narrator. 215 00:55:13.710 --> 00:55:35.900 Savannah Gilbo: Oh, see, Connie, I see you in the chat. Can there be too much interiority. Yes, so I see this happen sometimes when a writer thinks that they're writing or is writing a character driven story, so it's very internal, very character driven, and there's just not a lot of plot so in to fill up scenes or word. Count people tend to just 216 00:55:35.900 --> 00:55:46.839 Savannah Gilbo: kind of dump these internal internal bits, right? This interiority. And it's more to me it's more of a symptom of. There's probably not enough happening externally 217 00:55:47.000 --> 00:55:49.949 Savannah Gilbo: than it is. There's too much interiority, I mean 218 00:55:50.150 --> 00:55:58.759 Savannah Gilbo: kind of saying the same thing, but it's I would pull out and look at the actual plot to balance that, and then, of course, rely on Beta readers and developmental editors to 219 00:55:59.050 --> 00:56:06.429 Savannah Gilbo: help you find that balance. Let's see. I know I'm gonna run out of time, and we have so many questions. 220 00:56:06.510 --> 00:56:11.210 Savannah Gilbo: let's see. 221 00:56:13.350 --> 00:56:27.739 Savannah Gilbo: Okay, Bernadette says, how do you know if you're writing too much about what a character notices? So I think with everything like this, whether it's info or information. You need to convey world building details back story. What your character's noticing. 222 00:56:27.930 --> 00:56:44.309 Savannah Gilbo: Try to keep it contained to what's relevant to the scene. So an example I like to use is, let's say I'm walking down the street, and I see a car that is the same as my mother's car she had when I was growing up, so that car might bring back a memory right? And then 223 00:56:44.430 --> 00:56:59.099 Savannah Gilbo: I might think about like. I might also be reminded. My mom smelled like roses. And I really want to get that rose perfume I saw like good reminder. Right? What is probably not natural is going so far to be like, and Dad smelled like pine trees right like 224 00:56:59.350 --> 00:57:12.890 Savannah Gilbo: it's kind of like, you know. I there's not a right answer, like only 2 2 thoughts removed for you know how to include interior. But it's kind of just whatever's relevant to what's happening in the moment 225 00:57:13.770 --> 00:57:19.319 Savannah Gilbo: is is what to do, and I know it's like, it's not an exact answer. But 226 00:57:19.920 --> 00:57:25.429 Savannah Gilbo: yeah, sorry. I'm trying to read the chat and read the QA. And answer question. It's too much for my brain. 227 00:57:25.640 --> 00:57:30.469 Savannah Gilbo: Let's see. So Gail says the link goes to 5 questions. 228 00:57:32.370 --> 00:57:44.589 Savannah Gilbo: I'm curious if that's happening for everyone else, because I did check it this morning and it worked. But, Gail, if you want to email us at hello@savannahgilbo.com, and just let us know you're looking for the interiority cheat sheet. We can send you that. 229 00:57:44.820 --> 00:57:59.440 Savannah Gilbo: Yeah. And Kim says, How long is a piece of string. Same idea, for how much is the right amount? Yeah. So I wish there was like straightforward answers to all of this. But you know that's the tip I used for myself. If it's not relevant to the scene, I probably don't need it 230 00:58:00.510 --> 00:58:04.550 Savannah Gilbo: all right. Let's see. Probably get to 2 or 3 more questions. 231 00:58:04.750 --> 00:58:12.550 Savannah Gilbo: All right, Alex says, what in what editing pass would you analyze your manuscripts? Interior ratio? So 232 00:58:13.430 --> 00:58:25.670 Savannah Gilbo: I think this is a great question, because in theory like there's 2 ways. I want to answer this. If you've done the work to get to know your character, and let's say that, like your character in your plot are working 233 00:58:26.250 --> 00:58:28.289 Savannah Gilbo: with your first 234 00:58:28.510 --> 00:58:39.519 Savannah Gilbo: draft, or even your second draft. Right? So you feel comfortable about kind of the foundation of character and plot. Then the next pass I would recommend definitely amping up that interiority. 235 00:58:39.530 --> 00:58:46.809 Savannah Gilbo: If you go through your first and second pass, and you're your plot and your character. You still aren't totally confident in 236 00:58:46.980 --> 00:59:02.700 Savannah Gilbo: you can try to put interiority in. But you're gonna run into walls. So I would say, maybe it doesn't matter what draft you're on, as much as it matters how good you feel about your character and your plot development. Because you need both to write and analyze that interiority. 237 00:59:03.940 --> 00:59:05.240 Savannah Gilbo: Okay. 238 00:59:05.780 --> 00:59:11.340 Savannah Gilbo: let's see what? Yeah, everyone's asking, like, what is too much interiority. So it's kind of like. 239 00:59:11.380 --> 00:59:32.989 Savannah Gilbo: you know, the monologues, or like the where. It's just like pages and pages of inside this character's head. And at a certain point you're kind of like, what are we doing here right like, what? What's the point of what I'm reading about? That's when it's too much. I wish there was some like some ruler or some like lens. We could look at our stories through to tell us this is, this is right, and this is wrong. But 240 00:59:33.170 --> 00:59:38.490 Savannah Gilbo: you know, just kind of gotta go with your gut and trust your beta readers and your editors to help you see that. 241 00:59:39.800 --> 00:59:53.659 Savannah Gilbo: Let's see. Also, I think if you guys want to search on my website. If you just Google Savannah Gilbo interiority. I think I have a post and a podcast episode about mistakes. Writers make 242 00:59:53.780 --> 00:59:59.460 Savannah Gilbo: while doing interiority. And that might help answer some of these questions about how do we know if it's too much or not? 243 01:00:00.110 --> 01:00:21.900 Savannah Gilbo: okay, I think this will be the last question. So someone, this is anonymous. It says, are there questions you can ask to diagnose, what's missing? Yeah. So basically, you want to look for a cause and effect or an action reaction. So and and the goal is to get what's in your head onto the page. So if you look at something like 244 01:00:22.430 --> 01:00:27.470 Savannah Gilbo: you know, character gets a 7. Miss calls from her boss. 245 01:00:27.650 --> 01:00:33.859 Savannah Gilbo: and then you just go on to the next thing. There's interiority missing right? Like, how is she reacting to 7 missed calls? 246 01:00:33.960 --> 01:00:39.869 Savannah Gilbo: That's weird, right? We wanna we want to show a reaction. So you know, 247 01:00:40.130 --> 01:00:48.199 Savannah Gilbo: I would do that kind of pass first, and then always get second eyes on it. So whether it's beta readers or developmental editors, they'll help you find that. 248 01:00:48.840 --> 01:00:51.310 Savannah Gilbo: All right, Michelle, I'm going to hand it back over to you. 249 01:00:53.380 --> 01:01:18.199 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Alright. Thank you so much, Savannah. This is wonderful. Everyone. We will have these slides the transcript and the replay up on the hub as soon as we can, so check back there, and you can dive into all of this on your own time. I know it was a lot to get through, and a lot of packed, awesome information here. So thank you again, Savannah, for coming back and joining us for another event. We always love having. 250 01:01:18.200 --> 01:01:30.090 Savannah Gilbo: and thanks to everybody for attending, we had such a great turnout. Over 500 people were in this session. It's amazing. We have our next one in just an hour, so we will see you there. 251 01:01:30.090 --> 01:01:31.920 Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Alright bye, everybody.