How-to guide
How to set narrative distance
Problem: A scene feels either too cold and reportorial or too foggy and interior.
Use when: Fiction, narrative non-fiction, brand storytelling, case studies.
Steps
- Name a target on Gardner’s 1–5 psychic-distance scale (1 = aerial, 5 = raw thought).
- Move between adjacent levels within a scene; avoid jarring 1→5 jumps.
- For close-but-unfussy interiority, use free indirect discourse—drop “she thought” tags.
- Keep every detail inside one character’s perception (internal focalization) to hold suspense.
Example
Distance 2 (external)Henry Carter stepped down from the train into the cold.
Distance 4 (close, judging)God, the cold. Why had he ever agreed to come this far north?