Writing.Com General Discussion

What I'm about to say is subjective and highly opinionated. I've not seen anywhere a set of rules regarding inclusion of monologues. Feel free to disagree with me.


As has been said, monologues are great in plays where they can be used to great effect to engage an audience. However, in written stories they break too many rules:

1. It's all tell and not show
2. The reader can get tired of the same person talking all the time
3. The 'scene' disappears, it's all about the voice (the 'voices in the dark' pitfall)
4. Monologues do little or nothing in the way of character building because there is no interaction with other characters
5. Rather than tell the story, they have a tendency to explain it (like you might if a friend asks what your story is about)
6. Have a tendency to either break up a story (stop it during the monologue) or act as a lazy skip (to save the author writing part of the story in full)
7. Monologues are usually a sign that a character is unnecessarily grandstanding
8. Monologues have a tendency to truncate a story's length (see note 5). Readers want the story, not the abbreviated form

I often write monologues in the first draft, because they help me clarify or crystallise part of the story, but leaving them in is a big mistake. Of course, there will be an exception now and again where a monologue is just what the story needs, but I have yet to read a story where I think that is true. Your mileage my differ.

Zen