“A narrative technique that has perplexed and fascinated readers for centuries. The technique has been used by many writers to trace the seamless (and oft erratic) musings of characters.” May Huang
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So… what is ‘Stream of Consciousness’ writing?
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Generally speaking ‘Stream of Consciousness’ is a method of narration that describes, in words, a free flow-of-thoughts in a characters mind. It is unhampered by the constraints of style, structure, and punctuation. Used primarily in poetry and fiction, it seeks to portray an individual’s point of view by giving the written equivalent of the characters thought-processes, either in a loose internalized monologue, or in connection to his (or her) sensory reactions to external circumstances. This ‘Interior monologue’ captures the individual thought-process’ of a character, associated to his or her actions, or observations, and are portrayed in the form of a soliloquy that addresses the character itself.
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‘Stream of Consciousness’ permits patterns of intellection to ‘bubble-up’, which, in certain instances, offers a deeper, more luculent, insight into how the writer can stimulate different forms of consciousness in the characters. In literature this methodology can pull readers further down into the complex layers of a character’s personality. It can be used, also, to lend a breathless poetic rhythm to your story, as well as creating an interesting verisimilitude by mimicking real-life thought patterns.
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The methodology was [developed] by a group of writer’s at the beginning of the 20th century. Some of these early pioneers included: James Joyce. Virginia Woolf. Henry James. Marcel Proust. May Sinclair. Arthur Schnitzler. William Faulkner. Jack Kerouac. Dorothy Richardson. Fyodor Dostoevsky. Knut Hamsun. The term, ‘Stream of Consciousness’, was initially ‘coined’ by a psychologist – William James (brother of novelist emeritus Henry James) in 1890. In William James’ personal research, ‘The Principles of Psychology' he writes: “It is nothing joined; it flows. A ‘river’ or a ‘stream’ is the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let’s call it the stream of thought, consciousness, or subjective life.”
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Much scholarly writing has been done debating the very credibility of the idea of a stream of thought. A debate raged for years on whether or not consciousness could be characterized as a stream. The heart of the debate is the dichotomy between the cognitive and the sensory functions. “Spoken words last so long in physical time… one could say that the utterance of the words was simultaneous with the movement of a body… from one place to another. The same would go for the duration of mental images of words, or any other mental images.” (Geach, Mental Acts, 104)
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“Thinking is an activity, a process, something that goes on, which we can pursue, and of which we are aware throughout our entire life. Thinking is the stream of consciousness, the buzzing, blooming, confusion of images, sounds, feelings, and emotions; interspersed, it is true , by words or even sentences dimly ‘heard’, sub-vocally pronounced, or ‘glanced at’ with the mind’s eye. We ask in the progressive sense: ‘What are you thinking about?’ (Vendler, Res Cogitans. 40.)
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At the heart of much fiction is a desire to experience the deeper aspects of a characters composition. Explicit, or implicit, depiction - using S.O.C. - offers the writer tremendous creative freedom and [aspires] to give readers the impression of being inside the character’s, or narrator’s mind. In the last century, or so, various writers have chosen to take the reader directly into the character’s psyche in an attempt to allow them a chance to experience another depth of humanness and personality. As it is, this internal view sheds more light on the plot and motivation in the novel or other literary form. For a reader with empathy, or curiosity, ‘Stream of Consciousness’ remains an effective literary device as long as the writer uses creative predisposition, is sensitive to the nuances of the characters, and, at times, the more recondite aspects of human nature.
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SOME EXAMPLES OF ‘STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS’ WRITING
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A. VIRGINIA WOOLF:
“Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo; a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.”
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B. JAMES JOYCE:
“He is young Leopold, as in a retrospective arrangement a mirror within a mirror (hey, presto!), he beholdeth himself. That young figure of then is seen, precious manly, walking on a nipping morning from the old house in Clambrassil to the High School, his book satchel on him bandolier wise, and in it a goodly hunk of wheaten loaf, a Mother’s thought.” (‘Ulysses’)
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C. FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY:
“If you take, for instance, the antithesis of the normal man, that is, not out of the lap of nature, but out of a retort, (this is almost mysticism gentlemen, but I suspect this, too) this retort-made man is sometimes so nonplussed in the presence of his antithesis that with all his exaggerated consciousness he genuinely thinks of himself as a mouse and not a man. It may be an acutely conscious mouse, yet it is a mouse, while the other is a man, and therefore, etc. etc.” (‘Notes from Underground’)
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D. RICHARD L. CEDERBERG:
“Soon we were blanketed in a salty cloak of moisture and had huddled together for warmth. I watched, enthralled, as small brooding crystals began beading up on the others faces, and at the tips of their noses, and on the ends of their hair. Drip, drip, drip… Suspended momentarily, each drop fell onto our clothing, or onto the floor of the raft. I caught one to examine it. And after studying it a moment I pressed it between my fingers and it was gone. Was this a depiction of our lives; drops of water coalescing into a greater whole, drops reflecting the beauty of supernal Light [momentarily] and then evaporating into the sun’s heat, or being absorbed into a desiccated ground, or crushed between someone’s irreverent fingers? Through the swirling feathered edge of the fog I could just make out a glowing line, towards the east, demarcating the tops of the mountains; another new day was approaching.” (‘The Underground River’).
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F. ROBIN OUZMAN HISLOP:
“This tumble down day of clay though, I do not stand in awe at the world’s throng, as I gaze across black hills rolling grey turbulence on darkening land reaching my eyes peninsula sudden scene, solitary strand thoughts of time, shadows.”
(‘Core’ from ‘All the Babble of the Souk’)

Next in the Series: CHARACTERIZATION