Interiority: Fiction’s Inner Landscape

The unique quality of fiction that allows us to become immersed in another human mind is central to its value and to its popularity; we crave the experience of dwelling within a consciousness not our own as it confronts antagonists, goes on journeys, yearns, searches, reacts, muses, reflects, falls in love, and deals with all the stress and emotional difficulties that come with good storytelling. But how does a writer go about triggering this mystical act of co-creation? The answer, in part, is that we allow readers to experience the exterior world from inside a particular character. This concept is known as interiority. In this session, we’ll consult passages from classic and contemporary fiction to find out what it is about the inner landscape that makes its so intrinsically irresistible to readers—and how we as fiction writers can make it even more so.