How about "heard" and, let's say, "responded", sparsely used and never used for anything else? Using your example: “Well what the hell are we supposed to do? I already tried to escape once.” Michelle cringed at the memory. “There’s no way I can go through that again.” She heard, "No, child. For now you need to do whatever he instructs you to do. I need time to gain my strength. It took much pain and suffering for me to be awoken from my dormant state. You cannot defeat him on your own. Allow me the time I need and I will be able to teach you things. Not everything Daniel has told you has been a lie." “What do I need to do?” "Everything he asks, child. No matter how painful, wrong, or degrading. Except you must not reveal my presence. He cannot know of my awakening. I cannot stress that enough." As a silly example of a multi-person conversation: John said, "Root beer please." Michelle said, "Appletini for me." Fred shook his head and kept his eyes on the menu. Michelle heard, "Child, persuade Fred to have a drink." Michelle responded, "Why? What do I care?" She heard, "Child, you have a three for two coupon."
OK, so for what it's worth, I've just done a quick survey of Net opinion on communicating telepathically and almost universally the consensus is use both italics and tags together. No one suggests using quotes. One person suggested using a different font but that's tricky when it comes to one's publication manuscript. No one suggested using indents so I'm withdrawing that suggestion. This is why this thread is frustrating to me. You have a handful of objectionists who adamantly don't like italics for thoughts. And you have the bulk of the writer-sphere using italics for thoughts.
What about writers who don't use quotation marks at all? How does the reader know it's spoken aloud? Quotation marks are purely a stylistic preference and shouldn't be used to differentiate between dialogue that's spoken aloud from dialogue imagined in the character's head, etc. By the way, I never said not to use italics. In fact, my initial reply even contains the phrase "if you want." Finally, there's no consensus on this issue. Believe me, I've looked at many style guides and authoritative sources. Using other writers as examples isn't a good idea because editors/publishers have their own preferences/in-house rules. Besides, a submitted manuscript is different from the final product. If you're looking for a consensus, make sure the consensus is about manuscripts.
The way I look at it, it's better to go the no italics route. Some editors don't like when italics are used for thoughts, and those who don't mind italics for thoughts also don't mind not using them because not using italics for thoughts was the norm for hundreds of years (due to technological limitations).
Which I'm perfectly fine doing it either way. I'm just trying to find a way to do it (without italics) and have it still make sense.
What about a simple "said the creature" or "said her inner voice" or something along those lines? A tag like that is enough to let the reader know that the dialogue is being spoken by the creature.
What about them? It's not a normal convention, a lot of writers break a lot of rules. It's not exactly what we are talking about here. Feel free to cite some sources. All I found were recommendations to use italics for indicating telepathic communication. I'd love to read some alternative recommendations. And we're back to the OP question. Using tags alone is an option. I find it a touch more confusing to the reader. But if it works, fine, use it. I no longer believe there are publishers out there who don't want to see italics for thoughts. It's been claimed, but no one has posted any links to publisher's guidelines prohibiting italics for thoughts. Or am I mis-remembering the thread?
You stated that the reader needs some sort of indication that certain pieces of dialogue or thoughts aren't spoken aloud. I argue that this isn't the case. Quotes aren't an indication that dialogue is spoken aloud (because some writers don't use them), and in much the same way, italics aren't an indication that certain phrases/passages are thoughts. The most authoritative source I know of is the CMoS 15th edition. They have a list of things italics are used for and also a list of ways to indicate what they call "unspoken discourse." Italics aren't mentioned in the latter category. Since most publishers use the CMoS as their style guide, it's about as good a reference as you're going to get. No publisher guideline is going to say not to use italics in the same way that they aren't going to say you must use italics. The best you can do is look through some books published by a certain publisher and take note of how thoughts are handled. Most of the contemporary general fiction I've read doesn't use italics for thoughts (the only reason I say "most" is to be careful; in reality, I don't even remember the last time I saw italics being used to denote thoughts in general fiction).
I refer you back to page 1 @thirdwind. We've been over all that. If you are going to cite the CMoS, however, you will not find a citation that no quotes for dialogue is OK, and you will find that quotes for thoughts are not OK. Nor does it specifically say one cannot use italics for inner dialogue, only that it is not mentioned. The CMoS has not caught up with the changing convention. For example, I'd bet dimes to donuts "telepathic dialogue" is not in the index.
This isn't a good way of looking at it. The CMoS never says that you can't use blue ink for thoughts, so just because something isn't mentioned doesn't automatically make it OK. Anyway, @Jaro, you can use italics if you want. I only mentioned an alternative since you seemed unsure. Just keep in mind that certain genres tend not to use italics for thoughts.
Not trying to pick a fight or anything, but you ignored what the CMoS said about not using quotes for dialogue and using them for thoughts. And you didn't tell us what it says about telepathic dialogue. Otherwise I'm fine with what you posted.
It's a stylistic preference, just like using italics is a stylistic preference. The only difference is that publishers/editors seem to care more about the italics issue than the quotation marks issue. Telepathic dialogue would be formatted the same as regular dialogue because they're pretty much the same thing. Instead of saying the words aloud, the characters are thinking them to each other. This is different from thinking to oneself.
You're making me pick a fight with you. I don't want to. How is one issue, not using quotes properly, a style issue and the CMoS doesn't matter, while the CMoS matters when using italics for thought? As for using quotes with telepathic dialogue and saying it's no different than regular dialogue, you ignore the fact it is not spoken aloud. If you use quotes, you'd need to constantly be reminding the reader only one person could hear this dialogue. Otherwise it's just spoken dialogue to the reader.
I already addressed this in the post right above yours. Both are stylistic preferences, but the only difference is that publishers/editors seem to care more about the italics issue than the quotation marks issue. To use my Character A and Character B example from before, when two characters in the same room and no one else is around, how does the reader know that dialogue is taking place between two characters only? Context, that's how. You can easily use a tag like "she telepathically said to him" or something along those lines. I remain unconvinced that this warrants the use of italics. I don't get why some people (I'm talking in general here and not about you) are so adamant that italics must be used to show thoughts to improve clarity. Writers went hundreds of years without using them for thoughts. What changed all of a sudden that requires the use of italics? Have readers just gotten so dumb that they need italics to know when a character is thinking?
I am a fan of using italics for thoughts in certain situations, but I have never insisted that people must use them. It's just one way of doing this thing. However, the argument that 'writers from the past didn't use italics for thoughts so why should we now' is flawed. Writers from the past used many different style conventions that we don't use any more, as a general rule. They were wordier, their stories moved more slowly, their author intrusions were more obvious ...and geez, they used Prologues! Chapter titles with recaps of the events contained in the chapters. 'Dear reader' direct address. They employed all the storytelling bells and whistles available to them at the time. I suspect that if italics for thoughts had been available, many would have used them as well. There is the story about Faulkner wanting to use different colours of ink to portray each of his characters's speeches in The Sound and The Fury. You think HE wouldn't have used italics? Ways of expressing a story do change. This has nothing to do with readers being 'dumb.' It has to do with the least intrusive, most effective way to tell a story for its time and place. And sometimes italics for thoughts is a good way to go, especially as modern authors strive for brevity and a faster pace. Note: I said sometimes. Whatever works. I guess what really irks me is the implication that if you use italics for thoughts you won't get published. That is so patently untrue.
Some people on the forum made this claim. And I respect their opinions. But, I've not seen evidence to back it up and I don't see why editors wouldn't be aware of the changing convention. Saying this once is fine, but again and again? I've not seen a single post here, nor anything in a style guide that said italics "must be used".
But that's the situation for the much more prosaic situation of someone who is using a phone while in a room with other people.
If someone is on the phone it's a one time thing, or whenever it happens it's a unique event. It's easier to describe with tags and descriptions. Telepathic communication within a fantasy novel is a different animal than a phone call.
These are debatable points. The first one I especially don't agree with. Maybe we're just reading different types of books because I've never noticed any of these things. He wanted to use different colors to show shifts in time. It had nothing to do with dialogue or thoughts. And he did end up using italics. Had he not used italics, I suspect he would have simply started a new chapter for each time shift. From what I understand, people who use italics for thoughts are using them to improve clarity (i.e., make it easier to differentiate dialogue from thoughts). That's it. I know I said yesterday that it's a stylistic preference, but now I'm not so sure. If there are people who use italics just for the sake of using italics, then feel free to correct me by all means. So now that I think about it, using italics and not using quotes for dialogue are not analogous. I don't think anyone's claiming this. Some of us are saying that some publishers don't use italics for thoughts, so when it doubt, don't use italics. If you want to use them, go ahead. Just be aware that some editors/publishers don't use italics that way. I'm pretty sure the genre you write in makes a difference here. Like I said before, your best bet is to look through some contemporary fiction and see if you can figure out whether publishers have a preference. No, it's not. At the end of the day, it's a conversation between two people and should be treated as such.
I've always used Italics, more because I thought it was convention, probably read too much fan-fiction because I can never actually remember it in a novel I've read.
Using my example above, I have one character speaking out loud, and one character speaking telepathically. Now I could write out the telepathic dialog in italics, or I can put 'she telepathically said' at the end of each line. You can't honestly tell me that it would look better with a tag at the end of each line instead of in italic. How does that make me a lazy writer? One way you automatically know the dialog is telepathic, the other you assume your reader is too stupid to understand so you have to spell out every little detail.
You don't need a tag at the end of each piece of dialogue. Once you've established that the dialogue is taking place telepathically, you don't need to keep mentioning it.
