Craft Glossary · term

Free indirect style (free indirect discourse)

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Plain English: Close third-person that takes on the character's voice and idiom without tag or quotation marks — the narration thinks in the character's words. "Was she supposed to just wait here? Typical." We're in her head without "she thought".

Rule: In close third, slide into the character's diction and judgments; drop the filter ("she thought / she wondered"). It fuses showing and interiority and is the workhorse of modern close-third fiction.

Fail: Whiplash between a neutral narrator and the character's voice; or never committing, so every thought is tag-bound and distanced.

See: Interiority · Filter words

Arjuna Badger Press · Craft Library

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