Stream of consciousness writing is a narrative technique that puts a character's thoughts, feelings, and impressions on the page the way they flow through the mind: unordered, associative, and often without the usual rules of grammar. This article explains where the term comes from, what novels written with it have in common, and how to use it in your own writing.
What is stream of consciousness?
In literary theory, stream of consciousness is a narrative technique that depicts the associative mosaic of thoughts, feelings, and impressions in a character's mind. The term itself was coined by the philosopher and psychologist William James in his 1890 work The Principles of Psychology.
It was first used in a literary context by the novelist May Sinclair in 1918, when she was discussing Dorothy Richardson's novel Pointed Roofs.
The function of stream of consciousness
The goal is to express in words, as naturally as possible, the flow of thoughts and feelings that passes through a character's mind. The technique lets the reader experience those thoughts as the character is thinking them. It does not just pass thoughts on to the reader as information; in a way, it creates an experience of thinking.
Characteristics of the stream of consciousness novel
Plot
A stream of consciousness novel often has little plot, at least in the classical sense. The action moves from the outside world into the human mind. Ordinary, everyday events trigger associations in a character's consciousness that open up endless spaces and build unimagined worlds. The focus is on the inner, mental processes of the character. The novel is more a collection of impressions, facts, and states of mind than a record of outside events.
Narrator
Many stream of consciousness novels are written in the first person; others use a close third person that stays inside a character's mind, as Virginia Woolf does in Mrs. Dalloway. Either way, the narrator steps back from the text as far as possible, because that keeps up the illusion of a mind in motion before the reader's eyes.
The narrator is fully immersed in the many unrelated impressions that flow through the characters. The narrator does not tell the reader anything and does not interpret. Everything that a writer once interpreted, as an all-knowing narrator or through one of the characters, is now shown directly.
Most of the story is presented as if it passed through the consciousness of one character. The narrator gives up the role of historian, interpreter, or teacher and confronts the reader directly with the picture of life as it is lived: emotions, impressions, thoughts, memories, and desires, before they are put into rational order.
Interior monologue
Stream of consciousness is often equated with interior monologue, or seen as a special kind of it, and many critics use the two terms almost interchangeably. Those who separate them describe an interior monologue as more logical and often linear: the thoughts move coherently from one to the next.
Stream of consciousness writing, in contrast, is often non-linear. It is marked by unconventional grammar and syntax, and it imitates the more natural, jumping flow of thought. For the more ordered technique, see these tips for writing internal monologue.
Characters
The characters often take little part in the action and do not necessarily change because of it. Sometimes they do not even exchange ideas or influence each other. The reader is confronted directly with their inner world, full of impressions, associations, and thoughts, sometimes to the point where it becomes hard to follow.
Language and time
The stream of consciousness novel had to develop its own language, because traditional, strictly ordered language could not express the full range of inner movements. Sometimes impressions and thoughts are written down with no regard for the rules of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. The last chapter of James Joyce's Ulysses, Molly Bloom's monologue, runs for many pages with almost no punctuation.
The inner rhythm of human thought resists being put into words. It exists apart from the spoken word, so it cannot be poured into conventional linguistic molds. This can make such novels hard to read: the language becomes closed and personal, and it ignores general communication and the accepted norms of expression.
Time is a very important category in stream of consciousness novels, and it is completely subjective. Ulysses, for example, is a novel of several hundred pages, and all of it takes place in Dublin on a single day, June 16, 1904.
How to use stream of consciousness in your writing
Stream of consciousness writing can be especially helpful against writer's block. Why? Because it also works as a brainstorming technique that encourages creativity and intuitive writing. It is excellent for writing about consciousness, or about different consciousnesses. It lets you explore a more genuine experience, one that reflects what is really happening in your mind.
Writing tips
Reading a novel written with this technique is a unique experience. When you try to write one, however, you quickly find out how challenging it is. A few tips help before you start:
- Choose a character. Who will be the main character? Use your own emotional state to imagine your character's inner turmoil.
- Throw proper grammar out of the window. Focus on writing down the thoughts, nothing else. Don't stop or hesitate. Write without judging what goes on the page.
- Write in the first person. It is the easiest way to stay inside your character's mind. What does the character think, see, and experience? What do they think about those thoughts and experiences? See first, second, and third person point of view for the difference.
- Read your favorite stream of consciousness authors. Study how they do it, and let them shape your own writing.
- Write without stopping. Stream of consciousness writers often write without a break. Try a writing session in which you let yourself write down everything that comes to mind. The goal is to get into the natural flow of your thoughts, free of any judgment about them.
- Read what you have written. Read your work out loud, and keep asking yourself whether it sounds like someone's inner voice. If it does, you have written a stream of consciousness piece.
Examples of stream of consciousness in literature
Some well-known works that use stream of consciousness:
- James Joyce: Ulysses
- William Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying
- Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway
- Dorothy Richardson: Pointed Roofs, the first novel of her Pilgrimage sequence
- Samuel Beckett: Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable
- Jack Kerouac: On the Road
- José Saramago: Blindness
- Fyodor Dostoevsky: Notes from Underground, an early forerunner of the technique