thought... and other thoughts

I have this pet peeve about the phrase 'he/she thought to himself/herself'

I figure that if a person thinks, of course he/she would think to himself/herself.... unless it's a society full of telepaths.

Another thought.
Just then...
I have a friend (would-be writer) who uses this quite a lot.

as in... He walked into the room. Just then a light flicked on.
(Wouldn't it malso work with 'Just then' ttaken out?)

O.k., maybe occasionally I wouldn't mind it. But too many 'just then's' or 'suddenlys' just turn me off a book.

Yes, yes, and yes.

My advice...have your friend pick up Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Brown and Dave K[/u]

And you may want to mention in a roundabout way, that to add "thought" at the end of a thought is telling as well as *author intrusion*
In other words....he is pulling the reader out of the story.

Terri

The he thought to himself is an example of distancing, and it is one thing that makes prose weak, because as an earlier poster said, it pulls the reader out of the story e.g. it inserts distance between the reader and the character. Another example: She looked out the window and saw a black cat walking across the lawn.

reword to A black cat walked across the lawn (obviously the character has to look out the window to see the cat. You don't have to tell that she did).


Or, He felt cold. Try instead He shivered. Or The cold brought goosebumps to his skin.

Words like felt, seem, saw, thought, appeared all are distancing words. If you can get your writer friend to axe them out, his prose will be stronger.

I used to use those things alot when I wrote. I was soon shown the light. I was told if you are writing with the POV of a certain character, it is a given that when they are thinking, it is to themselves, unless it is spoken, then it is "thinking out loud."

And "just then" gets on my nerves. Of course it happened just then, that's whats next in the story. Unless you differentiate by saying "half an hour later the light came on" then EVERYTHING, is "just then."

Thoughts

'The Curse of Chalion' by Lois McMaster Bujold I find a good example of writing where thoughts are not indicated by 'he thought' all the time.

Re: Thoughts

Redundant, redundant, redundant.

If a thing is obvious don't say it.

If a thing must be said then it is not obvious. So the obvious answer is to make it obvious and then don't say it.