Dealing With Multiple Internal Dialogues

[Shou]

I've been working on a story for some time, and have been having a recurring problem. My viewpoint character has two types of internal dialogue, one where he describes the events that are happening, usually in past tense, and the other where he gives his opinion on the actions of other characters, usually in present tense. I'm having a hard time balancing the two. I've usually been breaking up his descriptions of actions and thoughts by inserting spoken lines in between, but it feels awkward at times. The protagonists thoughts are typically cynical internal remarks on the actions or behaviors of the character's around him, while his descriptions are just normal narrations, but both are used as narration.

It's hard to explain, so here's a case similar to the problem I've been having, using the system I've been using to determine thoughts and speech.

Code: Select all

(I reached out and grabbed her hand to keep her from falling. Unfortunately for us, my footing was equally unstable as her's and we both rolled down the hill, landing side by side on our backs at the bottom.)
"Girl" You really suck at rescues.
(Oh really do I? Maybe if you didn't weigh so much I would have succeeded. Graciousness never hurt anyone you know?)
At least I tried to help.

This just feels painfully awkward to me and I haven't the slightest idea of how to go about correcting it without doing some thing I really don't want to do. The simplest solution I can see would be to make the physical descriptions a third person narrative, but I really want to avoid that. I feel it takes something away from the protagonist doing that.

[Zetsubou]

I've been doing the same thing, going back and forth between narration and thoughts.
For the time being I've left them both as narration, but I think a subtle difference in font would be a good way to deal with it.
eg. Narration is normal, thoughts are in italics. Or one could have a faint stroke ("glow", "outline", whatever), or a similar but notably different font, etc.

[Ammeh]

Have you considered just using the same style of narration for both, rather than switching modes? I think the main things contributing to the awkwardness in the sample are the tense switch, and the fact that he starts calling the girl "you" instead of "her." It's possible to portray in-the-moment internal snarkiness without that kind of switch. (Using present tense everywhere might make it easier.)

E.g. (using your sample)

I reach out and grab her hand to keep her from falling. Unfortunately for us, my footing is just as unstable as hers and we both roll down the hill, landing side by side on our backs at the bottom.
Girl: You really suck at rescues.
Well, she's certainly pleasant. At least I tried--graciousness never hurt anyone, y'know?

[Shou]

I've been doing the same thing, going back and forth between narration and thoughts.
For the time being I've left them both as narration, but I think a subtle difference in font would be a good way to deal with it.
eg. Narration is normal, thoughts are in italics. Or one could have a faint stroke ("glow", "outline", whatever), or a similar but notably different font, etc.

I've been doing this with the parts of the game I have finished, except I've used the same style for both. I like how clear the transition is when you do this, but it still reads awkwardly.

Have you considered just using the same style of narration for both, rather than switching modes? I think the main things contributing to the awkwardness in the sample are the tense switch, and the fact that he starts calling the girl "you" instead of "her." It's possible to portray in-the-moment internal snarkiness without that kind of switch. (Using present tense everywhere might make it easier.)

E.g. (using your sample)

This works very well. Really, thank you. I haven't been able to come up with a way of doing that for who knows why, but that's exactly what I was trying to do. I had never considered the problem lay in the snarky comments use of second person. I always thought that I had to fix the descriptions to match the comments.

[Ammeh]

Glad that sounds like it'll work for you!