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Are there any examples of characters who always thinks aloud, as a character flaw, as if narrating their own lives.

Such a character might for example be at a supermarket till and say out loud

"I hope the checkout girl doesn't notice that I'm checking her out..."

Kind of like an Inner Monologue / soliloquy, but everyone can hear what is said, and it is a permanent feature rather than a diversion from the norm.

I'm hoping for any technical name for this, any examples of similar existing characters, and also any insights on how to implement such a character.

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  • Not sure there's a term for this behavior itself, but it could be a symptom of something else, like schizophrenia or dementia.
    – freginold
    Feb 18 '18 at 1:07
  • I'd call it verbal diarrhoea. It happens to the best of us ^_^
    – Fayth85
    Feb 18 '18 at 3:30
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    I can't think of this being done in anything I've read. As @freginold says, the character would need a reason for such a flaw, otherwise it's going to feel unnatural. The other possibility (if you don't want this character to have such an illnesses) is to give them a dog. I, and most dog owners I know, talk aloud to their dogs as if they're having conversations with them. And yes, I do it in public all the time, without thinking.
    – GGx
    Feb 18 '18 at 7:29
  • The question of what to call something is often best answered on english.se or ell.se.
    – J.G.
    Mar 5 '18 at 18:14
  • Nick Caraway from The Great Gatsby
    – Aspen the Artist and Author
    Mar 5 '18 at 19:29
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Spiderman is notorious for this. In most comic and cartoon adaptations, even the first round of movies, he is always talking to himself. Obviously not as a condition like you describe, but it sometimes gets him in trouble when Peter Parker says something he thinks is stupid or inappropriate. It is part of his charm.

Something the writers did in Homecoming to help implement this more seemlessly: they gave his suit an AI akin to Iron Man's Jarvis. So, rather than talk aloud to himself with no audience, he could bounce his rants off of his AI.

So, your character could have some companion that he is always talking aloud to. A close friend. A Tyler Durgen-type alternate personality. The AI living in his augmented reality brain-chip, etc.

Hope this helps.

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