Interiority / Exteriority

What do we know of characters from the outside – what do they say, do and look like? And what do we know from within —about what they think? Is the truth the inside or the outside part, or something else entirely? Every book and every author will draw different lines here, but very often, a bit of both is required, as people and characters alike have interior and exterior aspects. Sometimes, when a character is unreliable, neither what they say nor what they think will turn out to be true. Notions of truth may turn out to be entirely elusive, which can be wonderful in fiction and highly realistic in nonfiction.

As we have read the opening pages of To the Lighthouse in the 24-Hour Room Studio recently, I've been reminded of the breadth that often separates the interior and exterior of Woolf's characters and the way that this space can give rise to strong emotions and often, humor. In Chapter I of The Window, we see the young James Ramsay innocently cutting out pictures from a catalog and looking as serious as a judge. Then we experience his interior as he ragefully envisions the murder of his father with a fireplace poker. Because the murder is not likely to transpire, the moment ends up comic. We are brought to feel James's fury but also laugh at him a bit because of the dichotomy. He is murderous but impotent. He cuts only paper. What he wants to do, he will never do. Both the humor and the anguish rely on the juxtaposition of the interior and the exterior views of James.

Later, while looking at the dunes with Lily Briscoe, Mr. Bankes recalls Mr. Ramsay's comment years before about a family of chickens they happened to see on a walk together: "Pretty—pretty." The unpretentiousness of that moment when the men enjoyed the charm of the natural world while discussing big ideas somehow morphs for Bankes into a vision of Ramsay's current diminished state as an intellectual. It's been decades since he had an important new idea. Bankes pictures their friendship, subsequent to seeing those chickens, as a dead body preserved in peat. Meanwhile the same dunes, sky and waves breaking against the adjacent beach, "shedding again and again smoothly, like a film of mother of pearl," have triggered in Lily Briscoe a surprising feeling of camaraderie with the stuffy, older Bankes — and a profound sense of eternity. The same exterior view triggers something vastly different in each character, and the discrepancy creates both humor and sadness.

What I take from Woolf here is the power of juxtaposing contrasting interior and exterior views to illuminate highly complex characters.

PROMPT: Write two distinct passages about a character at a specific moment, in a specific place, carrying out a specific action — one internal and one external. Try to go to very different places in each, exploring the disjunction between what we show externally and what we really think or believe. Then try placing them against each other, and see what sort of narrative energy results.