Volume One, the adult literary novel, Dissection, is a portrayal of the inner world of Anna McBride, a female GP who has been sued for medical negligence. The novel spans the three-month period prior to Anna's mediation meeting with a young male patient, now the plaintiff, and his mother. Central to the writing of Dissection is the rendering of the consciousness of a woman who, in the wake of what she perceives to be a grave error of judgement, unflinchingly questions her worth and her relationships with others. Volume Two, the exegesis, examines various literary techniques (autonomous monologue, narrated monologue and communal narration) used in the representation of the consciousness of female characters in Marie Darrieussecq's 'A brief stay with the living' and Jacinta Halloran's 'Dissection'. With reference to the work of narratologists, Susan Lanser and Dorrit Cohn, these literary techniques are analysed in the context of two contemporary novels that seek to represent women's inner lives.