How to Write Interiority

Peeling Back the Layers: 12 Levels of Emotional Depth in Fantasy Writing

Writing emotionally resonant characters is like peeling back the layers of an onion. Each layer pulls us deeper, moving from the surface actions we see into the raw, vulnerable center of what the character feels. And as readers, what the character feels evokes our own emotion, either in synch with theirs or in empathy or even in rejection of the character's emotions.

We feel alongside the character.

I am not the originator of this insight. I read Donald Maass' excellent The Emotional Craft of Fiction, and as he says:

Showing and telling are fine as far as they go, but the emotional experience of readers has little to do with that. The most useful question is not how can I get across what the characters are going through? The better question is how can I get readers to go on emotional journeys of their own?

This book as a whole was very impactful to me and one of the key elements I got out of it was how to write character interiority in a way that impacts the reader emotionally. And the key lesson, for me, is that you have to put feelings on the page.

But putting feelings on the page doesn’t mean dumping emotion words or cramming in trauma. It’s about building a layered experience for the reader: showing, telling + reflecting, and ultimately connecting the emotion to larger philosophical stakes.

I recently had a great conversation with Maxwell Alexander Drake on our podcast, Releasing Your Inner Dragon, on this topic which you can check out over here:

How to Write Interiority in 12 Steps

In this blog, I’m going to cover those 12 layers in brief, as a reference to go alongside the podcast. I’m also going to group the layers into my 3 modes of interiority, which I ingested from Donald Maass’ excellent book (seriously go read it).

🌿 First Mode: Showing the Emotion

The external surface that hints at the interior.

There are three layers in this mode and it’s all about showing the characters emotion, both inside, in the case of Point of View characters and outside, in the case of all characters.

Layer 1: Body Language

The clenched jaw. The tapping foot. The way a character’s fingers drum on a table without them realizing. This layer is the surface signal, the tip of the iceberg. It gives readers a clue but not the full picture.

📚 Example: In The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, Jean nervously cracks his knuckles when scheming (I mean a fair number of people crack their knuckles in that book, but I remember Jean doing it a lot :P), and it’s a small but telling signal of tension through body language.

Maass’ Tip: Use physical cues to create tension, but don’t stop here — these are only entry points.

Layer 2: Internal Body Reaction

Palms sweating. Heart pounding. Bile rising in the throat. These are interior physical sensations reacting emotions that the character feels.

📚 Example: In Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn: The Final Empire, Vin’s stomach twists when she comes to the realization that Theron and Camon have betrayed her.

Layer 3: Metaphorical or Poetic Internal Reaction

Now we elevate from raw body signals to felt metaphors like: “His heart leapt into his throat.” or “Butterflies fluttered in her stomach."

📚 Example:In Robin Hobb’s Assassin’s Apprentice, Fitz describes loneliness as a thing to great to be endured which wraps around him and blankets him and smothers him.

This mode, the showing mode of emotions, is very important and should not be neglected. However, too many writers stop here. Either because they’ve had it beaten into their heads that they must only show and not tell or because they simply don’t know that they can and should put more on the page.

So, while you can and should use these, there are two caveats:

1. Be wary of cliches and repeats. I don’t mind a few fluttering hearts or dropping stomachs, but too much repetition leads to the reader rolling their eyes at everyone’s burning stomachs or crooked spines.

2. Do not stop here. Showing is the entry point, the first 3 layers. You can and should go deeper into your characters.

   
   

🌊 Second Mode: Telling the Emotion + Reflecting on It

Bring the narrative and character voice to the fore

In this layer, we certainly tell the reader how the character is feeling, but we also delve into what that emotion means for the character. How it affects them, and how it changes them. This was a layer I cam to later in my writing journey, because I had the show don’t tell talk and took to it heart. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I learned how to show emotions. But I’m also glad I learned how to tell and reflect, through the three layers of this mode.

Layer 4: Naming the Feeling

This is where you literally put the name of the feeling on the page. There is a risk to naming the emotion in that overuse can flatten your prose, but when used well, it absolutely cuts to the heart.

My best tip is not say: He felt fear, but instead to turn the fear into the actor in the sentence: Fear gripped him. Or Rage bloomed in her. This makes the emotion more active and the telling more visceral.

My second tip is not just name the emotion, but also to reflect on it in some way, another lesson I took from Maass’ work.

📚 Example: In Games of Thrones by GRRM, there is this great paragraph: “The fear came back to her then, with her brother’s words. She felt like a child once more, only thirteen and all alone, not ready for what about to happen to her.”

Layer 5: Narrative Monologue

This is where the character thoughts are given directly to the reader as part of the narration: “She couldn’t believe he’d betrayed her.” or “It was impossible to understand how the king had come to this.”

📚 Example:In Tad Williams’ The Dragonbone Chair, Simon wrestles with feelings of betrayal and loss in narrative voice, pulling us deeper into his inner landscape.

Layer 6: Inner Monologue

This is direct character thought in first person: I can’t believe he did this to me. or Why am I so weak?

Maass' tip: Use this sparingly — inner monologue gains power when contrasted against other modes.

📚 Example: In Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn, we often get Vin’s direct inner thoughts. In face, in a callback to that moment when she thinks she is betrayed, this is the full paragraph:

Vin’s stomach twisted. It’s just another betrayal, she thought sickly. Why does it bother me so? Everyone betrays everyone else. That’s the way life is.

So we have a body reaction leading into inner monologue that also reflects on the emotion and the character’s world view (more on that in the next mode...)

🔥 Third Mode: Connecting Emotion to Philosophical Stakes

Transition from the character’s immediate feeling to their worldview and deeper philosophical stakes of the story.

This mode is about more than emotions. It’s about the world beyond the character. Why they feel how they feel and how it connects to the theme and philosophy of the story. It is a difficult layer to master, and I often wrestle with it, but when you pull it off, it's amazingly impactful.

Layer 7: Subconscious Reactions

Instinctive actions, unplanned: “He found himself backing away before realizing it.” or “Without thinking, she flinched.”

Basically, when an emotion drives an unthinking action.

📚 Example: One of the greatest passages of subconscious reactions that I’ve ever read was in Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey at the horse fair when Phèdre spots Melisande Shahrizai and absolutely freezes. We get a long description of everything Phèdre thinks and feels as all she can do is watch in terror and fear and yearning (all three mixed together) and we know, as the readers, that if Melisande spots Phèdre, the game is up...

Layer 8: Memory of Experience (Emotional Triggers)

Present sensations trigger past experiences: “The smell of smoke dragged her back to that night.” or “This sound reminded him of his father’s anger.”

📚 Example: From Game of Thrones by GRRM: “The southern rain was soft and warm. Catelyn liked the feel of it on her face, gentle as a mother’s kisses. It took her back to her childhood, to long grey days at Riverrun. She remembered the godswood...”

Layer 9: Imagined Outcomes (Desires or Fears)

The character anticipates the future: I’m going to fail. They’ll all laugh at me. or If I succeed, everything will change.

📚 Example: I feel like Fitz from Robin Hobb’s Assassin trilogy is the past master of this. That kid lives in fear of the future and the past and worst possible outcomes.

Layer 10: Desire and Denial (Internal Conflict)

Self-deception and suppressed feelings: “She told herself she didn’t care — but the tears betrayed her.” or “He told himself it didn’t matter, but his fists clenched anyway.”

📚 Example: In Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself, Glokta constantly mocks himself internally, claiming he’s beyond caring even as his pain and rage simmer. He calls going down the stairs an adventure when he falls and hurts himself, but we can taste the bitterness and self-pity.

Layer 11: Philosophical Reflection

The character (or the story) steps back to reflect on larger truths: “Everyone betrays everyone, the world just is that way.” or “In the end, love was always a losing game.”

📚 Example: There’s a passage from Kushiel’s Dart by Jaqueline Carey that sticks with me. (Well, there are many, but this one is specific):

“I survived the Bitterest Winter, and I must believe, as survivors do, that there is reason in it. Were there not, the sorrow would be too much to bear. We are meant to taste of life, as Blessed Elua did, and drink the cup of it to dregs, bitter and sweet alike.”

Layer 12: Anti-Interiority or Disassociation

Sometimes, absence of emotion is the deepest statement. “She felt nothing.” or “It was like watching someone else’s life.”

We have another great Maass’ tip here: Emotional numbness works well when the contrast to prior interiority is sharp.

📚 Example: In George R.R. Martin’s A Storm of Swords, after catastrophic loss, Catelyn Stark enters a cold, numb space (which also foreshadows her transformation into Lady Stoneheart.) This works very well because Catelyn had such a rich interior life before.

🌟 The Final Takeaway

Now that we’ve peeled back all the layers, it’s time to put them back together. These layers work best when they’re all jumbled together into an emotional beat of interiority that sends the reader on their own emotional journey.

Don’t stop at body language. Don’t stop at sweaty palms or even naming emotions. Use the full spread of tools at your disposal: bodily reactions, thought processes, memory, denial, imagination, and philosophical weight.

That being said: Please don’t jam all twelve layers into every moment! Your story will become hopelessly overwrought.

These layers are tools and you can use as many or as few of them as you please and as makes sense for your genre and authorial voice.