Minimize Internal Dialogue
"Notice how I said minimize—not cut—internal dialogue. Novels can and should include internal dialogue. There are times where, without it, the reader would be lost.
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But it’s important to imagine your scenes like a coil that you are working to tighten, word by word. Each time we step away from dialogue or external action, that coil threatens to lose tension.
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Some questions to ask as you reevaluate your own usage of internal dialogue:

*It is otherwise impossible to show what’s been told via action and/or dialogue?

*Does it let us know feelings or thoughts the character is hiding from everyone else?

*Is it brief?

That last one is crucial. The longer internal dialogue goes, the more that coil you work to tighten starts to unwind. Author Tim Wynne Jones has referred to long swaths of internal dialogue as Pause Button Violations. Within an active scene, it’s as though the author hits the pause button on all action and dialogue to allow for the internal dialogue. The pause is unnaturally long given the fact that it sits inside an active scene, and can oftentimes be done in a far shorter way or be done using dialogue and action on the page instead."
- Marissa Graff, https://writershelpingwriters.net/202...