I've read the posts on this topic, because I think it's an interesting one, and I don't think this point has been mentioned previously, at least not in these same words
When I was in grad school I took a writing class called "The literature of horror." It was one of my favorite classes because we studied the history of horror and science fiction literature as a basis for learning how to write it ourselves.
I remember the professor discussing the use of "inner dialog" and her noting that it was an antiquated style popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. But what I found interesting were the reasons she gave as to why we shouldn't use it.
She felt that "immediacy" was an important element of all fiction, but particularly important in the scifi/horror genre. In scifi/horror, the author is often creating a world that differs from the real one, probably more so than in most other types of fiction. The internal dialogs or excessive analysis of the character not only stop the flow of the story, they take the reader outside of the story and the author's carefully crafted world.
I know that one instructor's (even a very good one's
) opinion isn't enough to say that a style is right or wrong, but I thought I'd add it here as something to think about.
In the end, it all comes down to who you're writing for. Personally, I prefer action and dialog to introspective passages (seldom read fics with the latter) but there apparently is an audience for both.
Snarla2
