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The importance of your character's thoughts are three-fold: To give the reader a taste of the character's personality; to help move the story action forward, and to reduce the need for flashbacks and other artificial devices.

First and foremost, fiction writing is totally woven from the writer's imagination; there are no character "traits" etc. drawn from the writing style or plot structure of other writers, whether well-known or not. Trying to imitate another author's work is easily caught be editors and the like; not only will they throw your work away, or have it returned unopened, word will get around that you are a plagiarist. It does not matter whether you as a new writer see it that way or not: it is the way the gate-keepers to publishing see it. So no matter what you write, if it's called fiction, it must be 100% your original thoughts.

Now to why a character's THOUGHTS are important: Not only do they showcase your work as the writer, and give the reader a taste of your skills, interior thoughts cut through unnecessary narration and description, but they up the ante of reader involvement.

For example, which would you rather "hear"? Your hero thinking "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, you moron! Just a few steps more: I eat guys like you for breakfast." Or read the author write on and on about how the hero once had training years ago in a foreign country, blah, blah, blah? The interior dialogue goes a long way further in your reader's mind. It helps keep that reader sucked into the fictitious world you created. Readers WANT to get away from their hum-drum worlds for a while.

A "sub-text" to my above advice on writing good interior thoughts is to not think like a regular person; get into your character's head first, then leave out the "um's; ah's; hmm's", and any thing else you use as pauses when you talk from day to day. Characters don't think that way, and neither do you.

If you run out of cigarettes, and need to buy more, do you think "hmm - Ah - umm -, it looks like I'm out." No. You'd think "I'm out of cigs. Need more. Where are my keys?" The difference? It's unrealistic to think with pauses that way, whether it's YOU or just a character.

And then there's the matter of who your character is. A seasoned detective would not think the same way as a preacher for instance. A housewife is different from a Hollywood star. The detective might think in violent slurs or profanity, but you won't write him thinking "Holy Cow!" as you would the preacher; the housewife would not

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