How to use sensory details to ground introspection
Introspection is an important component of any good story because it helps readers access a character’s emotions, psyche, and inner life—all that juicy stuff we can’t access directly in others in real life. Often introspection is where we understand the underlying theme of a novel—why it matters.
Before we go further, let’s define what introspection is. Sometimes also called interiority, introspection is a story moment when the point-of-view character thinks or reflects or processes emotion. Introspection can involve a memory or piece of backstory. It can be a sudden realization or important decision point for the protagonist.
The key point is that introspection is internal, happening inside a character’s mind. The outward action of the scene pauses while the point-of-view character goes on an inner journey. For that reason, introspection can feel boring, static, and untethered from a scene if not handled carefully.
One way to keep readers engaged is to use sensory details to ground introspection, connecting a character’s thoughts to their bodies and the external scene. Let’s look at an example so you can see what I mean.
The passage that follows is from The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell. Our protagonist, born Lucrezia di Medici and now married to the powerful Duke of Ferrara, is convinced her husband is trying to poison her. I’ve underlined sensory details in blue and highlighted the key moment of introspection in yellow.
When she wakes, it is much later. Darkness fills the room and the faces of the windows. Lucrezia sits up, her mouth parched, her head as clear as a goblet, ringing with a single, resonant note. She rubs a hand against her face. The pain of the headache has gone but it has left behind an expansive feeling in her skull, a peculiar kind of clarity, as if the agony of it has washed clean her mind. Her thoughts are diamond-sharp, cut with precision, polished and perspicuous. They follow, one after the other, as if strung together on a thread. She is hungry, her stomach flat and gnawingly empty. She is at the fortezza. Death will come for her, if not tonight, if not tomorrow, then one day very soon.
Let’s break this example down a little further and identify the kinds of sensory details that are being used. We are used to thinking of only five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell. Sight and sound are the most important for authors, of course. We need to know what the character sees and hears; dialogue would be impossible without the sense of sound. But notice how many of these sensory details are internal, focused on Lucrezia’s experience of her own body, rather than external (sight, sound). Only the character, no one else in the scene, could access these internal sensory details, which pairs nicely with the privacy of introspection.
Here’s how I would categorize each of these details:
time perception: it’s much later
light: the room and the sky outside are dark
spatial sense: where she’s located, in her bed at the remote fortress
interoceptive (sense of internal stimuli): hunger and thirst, her mouth is parched, her stomach empty
touch: rubs her face
nociceptive (pain): no longer pain in her head, but a feeling of expansion, clarity
Notice that the crucial moment of introspection—that conviction that death is coming for her—is placed at the very end of this passage. As readers, we’ve had the time to enter Lucrezia’s bodily experience, to be inside her brain, before she has this insight. The focus on sensory details also has the effect of slowing down time; O’Farrell is using these details to draw big arrows into the text, telling readers, “Look out—what’s coming next is important!” Finally, notice the beautiful diamond metaphor O’Farrell uses towards the end of the passage to describe the quality of Lucrezia’s thoughts. This insight she’s about to have is going to be clear and sharp; we can trust its truth and its ability to cut.
Let’s look at one more example to see how another writer uses sensory details to ground introspection. This one is from the delicious Mexican-Gothic horror novel The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas. Our protagonist, Beatriz, has arrived at her marital home shortly before this passage and is beginning to have some qualms. In this passage, she’s just had an explosive fight with her new sister-in-law, Juana.
Distantly, I heard the enormous door of the main entryway thunder shut. For a long moment I stood, my pulse hammering in my ears. Then, from the direction of my bedroom, there came the faint sound of a girl calling a name in a singsong voice.
Juana, Juana . . .
The hairs on my forearms stood on end. A handful of cold truths unfurled before me as I stood in that hall, paralyzed by fear:
Someone had died in this house.
I needed help.
And no one at Hacienda San Isidro was going to give it to me.
Notice that, once again, the important introspection is at the end of the passage. Let’s break down the sensory details we get leading up to it:
sound (what): door shutting, voice calling
sound (where): distant door, voice coming from the bedroom
sound (qualities): door thunders shut (slammed in anger?), voice is girlish, singsong (creepy!)
time perception: for a long moment
spatial sense: in the hall
proprioceptive (sense of body position, movement): standing, paralyzed
interoceptive (sense of internal stimuli): pulse hammering, hair on forearms
Ready to apply this technique yourself? Identify an introspective passage in your own work, especially one of the most important ones, and add a few sentences leading up to it that zeroes in on exactly what the character is experiencing from without and within. How can you help the reader step inside this character’s mind and experience the revelation alongside them?