How to Use Stream of Consciousness

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http://www.kmweiland.com

Answers a viewer's question about the uses and practicality of stream of consciousness.

Historical and speculative novelist K.M. Weiland offers tips and essays about the writing life to help other writers understand the ins and outs of the craft and the psychology behind the inspiration.

Intro music by Kevin MacLeod: http://incompetech.com/

Video Transcript: One of you asked that I do a video on the technique of stream of consciousness and its best applications. "Stream of consciousness" is the term applied to a form of narrative that's found in deep POVs. In fact, it allows authors to delve deeper into their narrators' minds than just about any other technique. Stream of consciousness indicates a progression of internal narrative that tries to mimic real-life thought patterns: rapid-fire delivery, jumps in association and logic, that sort of thing. It's often portrayed on the page with very little punctuation or even capitalization. In other words, you're pretty much just letting your character's thoughts flood onto the page without imposing any structure on them.

Stream of consciousness had a brief stint of popularity in the first half of the 20th century. Classic authors such as James Joyce and William Faulkner are known for their use of the technique. But is it something that's useful to modern writers? The answer to that is, yes and no. The advantage of stream of consciousness is three-fold:

1. It pulls readers deep into the narrator's mind.

2. It can be used to lend a breathless, poetic rhythm to your story.

3. It can create an interesting verisimilitude by mimicking real-life thought patterns.

But stream of consciousness also comes packed with lots of disadvantages. The biggest one is simply that it can end up being pretty darn near incomprehensible to readers. Joyce and Faulkner might have been able to overcome a small stumbling block like that, but most of us can't, particularly in popular genre fiction. Stream of consciousness is pretty much relegated to literary fiction these days. However, you can use it to good effect in small doses to convey harried, detached, or delirious mindsets in your character. Don't be afraid to play with it, but always be aware of the ramifications of the effect you're trying to create.