A technique that blends a character's voice and thoughts into the third-person narration, without quotation marks or 'she thought' tags.
Free indirect discourse is a sneaky, elegant technique where the narrator's voice and the character's voice merge. The prose stays in third person, but the word choice, rhythm, and attitude shift to match the character's inner perspective. There are no 'she thought' tags or quotation marks - the character's mind just bleeds into the narration. If you have ever read a sentence in a novel that was technically third person but sounded exactly like the character was thinking it, that was free indirect discourse.
This is one of the most powerful tools in a fiction writer's toolkit, and it is surprisingly underused by newer writers. It lets you stay in third person while giving the reader the intimacy of first person. You can slide into a character's head for a sentence, then pull back to a wider narrative view, all without clunky transitions. Once you learn to spot it, you will see it everywhere in great fiction.
Woolf practically invented the modern use of free indirect discourse. She shifts between characters' perspectives seamlessly, with the prose taking on each character's unique rhythm and preoccupations.
Austen was one of the earliest and best practitioners. Her narration adopts Emma's confidence and snobbishness so smoothly that readers often share Emma's blind spots until Austen pulls back to reveal the truth.
Rooney uses free indirect discourse to move between Connell and Marianne's perspectives, letting the reader feel how each character misreads the other while the narration stays in tight third person.
If you write 'She thought he was an idiot,' try 'He was an idiot.' In free indirect discourse, the context makes it clear this is the character's judgment, not the narrator's fact.
When using free indirect discourse with multiple characters, make sure the reader always knows whose mind they are inside. A stray thought from the wrong character is jarring.
Free indirect discourse works best when you stay in one character's perspective per scene. Jumping between heads within the same paragraph creates confusion, not intimacy.
Write a scene where a character arrives at a job interview. Write it in third person, but let the character's anxiety color every observation without ever using phrases like 'she felt' or 'he thought.' Make the narration sound like the character's inner voice. Aim for 400 words where every descriptive sentence reveals the character's state of mind.