Stream of consciousness

               Stream of consciousness

Stream of consciousness is a style of writing that shows a person's thoughts and feelings just as they happen. It mimics the messy, flowing way our brains actually work instead of using neat sentences.

It is usually in the form of an interior monologue which is disjointed or has irregular punctuation. While critics have pointed to various literary precursors, it was not until the 20th century that this technique was fully developed by modernist writers such as Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf.

This type of device is really good for showing exactly what's going on inside the narrator's head. It helps show the leaps in logic they make, their decision making process, and their inner feelings.

It's a way of building an intimate relationship between narrator and reader, by showing them exactly what's going on in the mind.