Quicksand Fans

It is a basic rule of the short story that the reader can be "inside" only one character's head. If you, as the author, want to express what some other character is thinking or feeling then you have to do it through their actions or dialogue. This is not the case in longer-form fiction, such as the novel. When writing for video you must remember that the viewer is not inside anyone's head. All feelings, thoughts, etc have to be conveyed through actions or dialogue. You can add a screen direction about what a character is thinking but that is really cheating (passing the buck at least) as it forces the director and performer to figure out how to get the point across, and that is usually the writer's job.

Fred588 wrote:It is a basic rule of the short story that the reader can be "inside" only one character's head. If you, as the author, want to express what some other character is thinking or feeling then you have to do it through their actions or dialogue.

This is something I didn't know or understand when I wrote my stories. Because of that ,my stories suffered in one area or another.

This was extremely helpful!