When Silence Flattens a Character (and a Life)
I am finishing up my summer intensive fiction program, and I have thoroughly enjoyed this three-month journey. I have an MFA, but not in fiction. My work has mostly been memoir, nonfiction, and hybrid pieces.
I decided to jump genres and try something new—something I always wanted to do but didn’t. I was going down a certain path and didn’t want to muddy the waters. I wasn’t sure how to turn back, even though there was an underlying and not so silent current, trying to alert me I wasn’t where I wanted to be.
During my summer class I discovered how much I adore magical realism with its lyrical bend that draws out the poet in me. Creating scenes and characters and adding magical elements to everyday life has caused me to fall in love with writing all over again. I’ve added spells, recipes, ancestral ghosts that share wisdom, humor, and sometimes a bit of pot stirring.
I have given voice to all the aspects of myself, and I finally feel at home with my writing. I’ve found my voice, and my writing has taken a big leap. I think it’s because I am excited to learn.
My memoir was about healing my adoption issues. It was raw and necessary. It wasn’t time wasted, but I am grateful to be where I am now. For the first time, I feel in right relationship with my writing.
My novel is at the halfway point, and the pressure is on the main character to either shy away in despair or rise to the occasion.
This weekend I reread everything I’ve written so far, and I realized the main character had become paper-doll like. Flimsy. She had the outline of a person, but without the spark that makes her real.
It wasn’t the plot. It wasn’t the setting. It was her silence.
I hadn’t given her enough inner life on the page, her thoughts, her contradictions, the way she second-guesses herself before she dares to speak. Those elements were missing. So, I went back in, and instead of fussing over description or dialogue tags, I started weaving in the voice beneath her voice. The words she doesn’t say out loud but that still shape every choice she makes.
Thankfully, I was able to take her off life-support.
This process forced me to stop and think, what if our real lives worked that way too? Imagine if our internal dialogue, the loops of doubt, hope, memory, and secret joy were spoken aloud. Would we shock people with our honesty? Would we connect more deeply, or burn more bridges?
So often, the world hears our “edited” version. Polished, polite, or pared down to what feels safe. Meanwhile, our inner voices are weaving epics no one else ever hears.
I discovered how important it is to let those hidden voices out, at least on the page.
We live in two worlds, the inner and the outer. The one where we tell ourselves the truth, and the one where we offer the softened version. When those two worlds drift too far apart, things get brittle. And yet, when they line up too closely, we risk being raw and unguarded.
Is it possible that the healthiest thing isn’t to match them perfectly, but to let them remain in dialogue with each other?
Maybe the trick is not to silence that voice, but to give it room. In writing. In journaling. And sometimes in conversation, when we feel safe. I think it’s important to pause often and consider how our inner world aligns with our outer and adjust as needed.
Adding internal dialogue brought my character back to life. And maybe that’s the lesson, whenever we feel flat, whether in a draft or in ourselves, it’s often because we’ve lost touch with the voice inside. The one that stumbles, rambles, contradicts, questions, and dreams. The one that makes us whole.
Writing Prompt
Think of a moment when your “outer voice” said one thing, but your “inner voice” whispered another. Write a short scene capturing both.
Choose one of your characters and let them spill their inner dialogue onto the page without editing. How does this shift your sense of who they are?
Reflect on your own life: when does your inner voice feel most aligned with the outer? When does it feel most at odds?
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