Friday, November 30, 2012

Things You Might Like To Know About Psychological Novels

By Kari Ratliff


Many things are involved in psychological novels. There will often be a mystery of some sort. There will often be a discovery that needs to be made, even if the book is not crime fiction. While many people enjoy this particular aspect, there are more important things to consider. Namely, that there will always be a focus on human psychology and character.

The motives of the character will come up, here, which refers to the reasons behind their actions and what propels them through the story. Another thing that will be important is how the circumstances that the character is in will affect those motives, as well as their actions, in general. The story will be about how these things are brought together to move the plot forward.

For this genre, the plot progresses more on the strength of the influences of the characters and the way that it affects them, rather than a sequence of events. In another story, the things that happen will be just simply relayed. The motives of characters may still have insight, of course. But the focus will tend to be on the events, themselves, rather than the psychology of the characters.

Psychologically influenced stories will subvert this, however. This kind of book will be enjoyed by those who like characterisation that is deeper. From a sociological perspective, this is also very interesting. Writing engaging characters does involve a good amount of knowledge on the way that minds actually work. The result of this is often that these characters are easier to relate to.

There is a better chance of you relating to characters, after all, if you know how their minds work. Even if the situation is not one who have any experience of, this can still be the case. Understanding the way that the mind of the character is working means that there is a better chance of being able to put yourself into that particular situation. Of course, you can often find that the reverse applies. You might not be able to relate to the character, no matter how familiar to you the situation might be.

The novel may have a stream of consciousness narrative, which mirrors the voice of the mind, itself. This means that it differs from narratives where the thoughts of the character are expressed in a more distant fashion. This also will mean that the point of view is limited, at least for a certain portion of the book. You cannot, after all, have a stream of consciousness and an omniscient third person narrative.

It might still be that the story is in third person, though, because third person can still be limited. Another thing that tends to be common is the internal monologue. The reader can be subjected to a lot of detail as the stream of consciousness moves quickly, and much of this may, at first, seem superfluous.

With internal monologues, the character will probably keep to one subject in particular. They are, in psychological novels, a way in which a character can be shown to be influencing the plot or being influenced by it.




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