I'm a beginner writer. I have been focusing recently on giving my characters depth. Making them complex people with complex emotions and motivations.
One of my characters is depressed. She's going through a tough time and is feeling pretty numb and disenchanted with the world. I write in the first person from her point of view, and I have found myself writing very short, concise sentences when she is depressed and longer, more descriptive, flowier emotional ones when she relaxes.
For example, a party she went to that she didn't want to be at: "I smiled. I ate. I spoke. I listened. I left."
Now naturally, the entire book isn't like this. The rest does flow, however there are situations where I feel like it's appropriate.
I like the complete lack of feeling, devoid of description or emotion, just like how she is numb.
That said, I have a couple of concerns about this technique.
- it may be jarring to the reader. It can be awkward, uncomfortable to read.
- I feel like I may be missing out on opportunities to elaborate and develop her more. I could be using these times as a chance to say a bit more about how she feels.
- I read on another answer that writing should flow like speaking does, and this goes against that.
I don't know if this kind of thing is done. Maybe my writing immaturity is showing here. Is this technique used by writers, or is it generally considered a bad idea in general to write sentences purposely devoid of detail? Is this something I should put aside until I'm more experienced and know better how to break the rules?