How Fiction Works

2 annotations • data

First annotation on Nov 20th, 2025.

a. He looked over at his wife. "She looks so unhappy," he thought, "almost sick." He wondered what to say. This is direct or quoted speech ("'She looks so unhappy,' he thought") combined with the character's reported or indirect speech ("He wondered what to say"). The old-fashioned notion of a character's thought as a speech made to himself, a kind of internal address.
b. He looked over at his wife. She looked so unhappy, he thought, almost sick. He wondered what to say. This is reported or indirect speech, the internal speech of the husband reported by the author, and flagged as such ("he thought"). It is the most recognizable, the most habitual, of all the codes of standard realist narrative. c. He looked at his wife. Yes, she was tiresomely unhappy again, almost sick. What the hell should he say? This is free indirect speech or style: the husband's internal speech or thought has been freed of its authorial flagging; no "he said to himself" or "he wondered" or "he thought."