← Stream of Consciousness Workshop
Module Five
Your Turn: The Full Workshop
James Joyce didn’t stop with Ulysses. His last novel, Finnegans Wake (1939), pushes stream of consciousness so far that he invents new words, new sounds, whole new ways of using language. If you thought Molly Bloom’s unpunctuated flow was daring, listen to this:
riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
— James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939), opening line
The novel begins mid-sentence, with a lowercase “r.” The last sentence of the book flows directly into this first one, creating an endless loop—a river of consciousness with no beginning and no end.
And then there are the thunderwords:
Joyce’s Thunderword
bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!
100 letters. It’s supposed to sound like thunder.
That long word? Joyce believed that if you needed a word that didn’t exist, you should make one. If the sound of a word mattered more than its dictionary definition, the sound should win. That thunderword combines the word for “thunder” in many different languages, all crushed together into one enormous crash of syllables.
Freedom! Make the sounds that say your feeling. Grammar and proper spelling may not apply.
You don’t have to go as far as Joyce. But his example gives you permission: in stream of consciousness, the rules of language are tools, not fences. Use them when they help. Break them when they don’t.
The Film Connection
Filmmakers discovered something similar in the same era. The 1926 French film Ménilmontant tells a story almost entirely through images—no title cards, no explanations. A scene shows a girl sitting alone. What is she thinking? What would it sound like if you could hear her thoughts?
That question—“what is this character really thinking?”—is the question stream of consciousness tries to answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vVMqMprpaw
Ménilmontant (1926), directed by Dimitri Kirsanoff. A story told through images, without words.
Hans Richter’s Filmstudie (1926) goes further: there’s no character at all, just images flowing into one another the way thoughts do. Film, painting, music, writing—all these art forms arrived at the same idea around the same time: art doesn’t have to follow a straight line.
The Big Write
You’ve practiced short exercises. You’ve read the masters. You’ve listened to music that jumps, looked at paintings without stories, and watched films made of pure images. Now it’s time for the real thing.
The Main Event
The 30-Minute Stream
- Choose a character. It can be you, or someone you invent. Give them a place: sitting on a bus, standing at the edge of a lake, lying in bed, walking through a market, waiting in a doctor’s office.
- Set a timer for 30 minutes.
- Write everything that passes through your character’s mind. Sights. Thoughts. Feelings. Sensations. Memories that come out of nowhere. Sounds they half-notice. Smells. Worries. Daydreams.
- Let the thoughts jump. If your character is looking at a lake and suddenly thinks about pizza, write the pizza. If a bird calls and it reminds them of a song, write the song. If they remember something embarrassing from three years ago, write it.
- You can use punctuation or not. You can use full sentences or fragments. You can make up words if you need to.
- The flow—the stream—is the piece. Don’t try to make it go anywhere. Just let it go.
For Teachers & Parents
This is the culminating exercise. Thirty minutes is enough to produce something substantial without being exhausting.
Some students may feel anxious about “doing it wrong.” Reassure them: in stream of consciousness, there is no wrong. The only mistake is stopping to organize. Encourage them to keep the pen moving even when they feel stuck—if nothing comes, they can write “nothing comes nothing comes” until something does.
After writing, invite volunteers to read aloud. Stream of consciousness is powerful when spoken—the rhythm and flow come alive in a way that silent reading doesn’t fully capture.
What You’ve Learned
Over these five modules, you’ve explored a way of writing that some of the greatest authors of the twentieth century helped invent. You’ve seen that it connects to painting, music, and film. You’ve practiced capturing the way your mind actually works, rather than how you’ve been taught to organize your thoughts on a page.
Stream of consciousness is not the only way to write, and it’s not always the right way. But it’s a tool you now have. When you’re writing a story and you want the reader to feel what a character feels—not just know what happens to them—you can open up the stream and let it flow.
Further Reading & Listening
- Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway — The most accessible full-length stream-of-consciousness novel.
- T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” — A stream-of-consciousness poem you can read in ten minutes. Free at the Poetry Foundation.
- Toni Morrison, Beloved — A challenging but extraordinary novel. For older teens and adults.
- Arnold Schoenberg, Piano Piece No. 1, Opus 23 — The musical equivalent of stream of consciousness.
- Hans Richter, Filmstudie (1926) — A short abstract film. Available free online.
- Dimitri Kirsanoff, Ménilmontant (1926) — A silent film told through images alone.
About This Curriculum
This curriculum is adapted from William Rubel’s Saturday Writing Workshop #72, a presentation on stream of consciousness developed over several years for writers of all ages.