Thoughtshots

Thoughtshots provide the reader with a character(s)' inner-most thoughts about what is happening. What is s/he feeling? What is s/he questioning? What is s/he saying inside?

In fiction and creative-nonfiction writing, thoughtshots can be divided into different categories:

Flashbacks: a character thinks back about something that has already happened.
o She remembered the day he came for the first time. He was a little boy then…
o He remembered the first time he saw snow...

Flash-aheads: a character thinks about something that is going to happen or might happen in the future. Writers often use flash- aheads when a character is trying to make a decision.
o She thought about her opinions. She could go there and pretend it never happened. She could tell him everything. She could buy a plane ticket to Bermuda with the money…
o She thought about going to the new school. What would it be like? Would she have friends?

Internal dialogue: a character thinks about what is happening at that moment.
o There was no way she could do it. She knew that, but still her feet kept moving, one step after another. She thought about why she was doing this but there was no way she could make sense of it.
o He thought about what the teacher had just said. His mind raced, but he didn’t know the answer. Why did she call on him?

EXAMPLE:

The Old Woman Who Named Things
by Cynthia Rylant (Harcourt, 1996)

Thoughtshot #1 (Internal Dialogue or Flash-Ahead) from page 14:
• It was a very pretty puppy, she thought. But it couldn’t stay. If it stayed, she would have to give it a name. And it could never last as long as Franklin or Fred or Betsy or Roxanne.

Thoughtshot #2 (Internal Dialogue) from page 21:
• The old woman sat and thought about the shy brown dog who had no collar with a name. Wherever it was, no one would know that it was supposed to come to the old woman’s gate every day, that she was supposed to feed it and tell it to go home every day, that things were always supposed to be this way.

Thoughtshot #3 (Flashback) from page 24:
• The old woman thought a moment. She thought of all the old, dear friends with names whom she had outlived. She saw their smiling faces and remembered their lovely names, and she thought how lucky she had been to have known these friends.

NOTE: thoughtshots can happen at anytime. These thoughtshots can be intermixed, short or long as long as the thoughtshot helps the reader understand the character better and helps understand his or her actions or provides a vivid picture of a memory or emotion or tells a lot about how the character is feeling about a future event.