'They thought' and other similar tags are very often unnecessary, and IMO can essentially always be written away. The choice doesn't have to be between tags and italics.
Yes, but for the sake of clarity I'd rather use italics, for example in a current WIP I have a machine who talks completely differently to how it thinks, people talking to each other telepathically (That is to say without speech, so I couldn't justify speech marks) and via ear bud radio systems, so for me it seemed to serve my purposes in distinguishing both presence and how they communicate with each other. Edit: also, the only character with first person perspective is the machine, with the rest in third person. So the machine gets italic quotes for it's thoughts because of the significant difference in it's mannerisms, and the rest get, sparing, descriptions of their thoughts on insignificant matters, but adds to the readers opinion about their character's morality and mindset. Ultimately though, I found it saved me extra words in explanation in some cases, and I don't particularly like to spend extra words explaining such things. Is there a better alternative when both real speech and alternative speech is happening within the same line or sentence?
This is one of the places I think italics are much better than thought tags. I find it annoying when the story is in first person and you can't tell what was spoken and what was thought which can make a big difference in the scene. Thought and dialogue tags can really interrupt the flow when a narrator is switching back and forth in a passage. And as much as it's been asserted in this thread that all you need are better writing skills, that's bullocks.
You see this sort of thing most often in science fiction and fantasy, where alternate communications like telepathy, magic, technological means, and the like are more prevalent. In those genres, use of italics to distinguish the two is not only acceptable, it seems to be commonly used. So if you're publishing in one of those genres, I wouldn't give a second thought to using italics. I've also seen such speech set off with a dash, or (in one book I am currently reading) presented as bold text rather than normal text, or set off in a different font, etc. Whatever works.
Should I post? Wavering back and forth in her mind, her hands poised over the keyboard, Witchymama threw caution to the wind. "I read ALL 41 pages!" she triumphantly announced.
I use italics for thoughts, especially if it's a direct statement. This tends to NOT be an entire paragraph--the odd statement here and there.
@minstrel, not at all. I actually was quite entertained and educated on quite a few things. Namely that we writers are certainly a passionate bunch.
Joe Abercrombie uses italics for thoughts throughout his First Law series. It's rarely more than a sentence or two. A wonderful reading experience. With his work, I much prefer the italics over an added "he thought." I think I feel that way because the power of Ambercrombie's writing for me is his pithy wit. I think the additional words would subtract from this. Academically approved formatting just doesn't mean as much to me as the experience he's giving me. One challenging aspect with the approach is an audiobook. I've read the First Law series twice and also listened to the audiobooks. I love Steven Pacey's reading, and he does a great job handling the thoughts by using more of a whisper.
But that's not always, or even usually, the choice. Quite often, there's no need for italics OR a thought tag.
Another (ahem) fairly well known Irish writer by the name of Joyce also presents dialogue in this way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Joyce He is...a great guy. ... Italics always look terrible on the crit page: Three lunar moons orbited the horizon. Zack trod the red soil. Where to go, where be the message of head spectra? Another step...
I'm considering making a character that uses food for thoughts. "Steve had a bologna sandwich today... hope he starts feeling better soon."
Gaah. The Thread That Wouldn't Die is resurrected once again, redundantly tormenting us with redundant redundancies ...
Doesn't know why people get upset and/or annoyed that some topics aren't decided for the world when they've finished saying their piece on writingforums.org. And wonders if these people have heard of the 'Unwatch thread' function.
A new person joined the discussion. This thread is a sticky to prevent the discussion coming up again and again as new threads. It's not much of a welcome to complain about an old thread being bumped by a new member. Welcome @Owen Gaines. Don't mind the grumbling. Italics for thoughts are disliked by some and an accepted convention by others. The world is big enough for both camps.
I always use italics for thoughts. I can't use quotes, those are for dialog that's aloud. I can't just use plain text, that's for IM. I'm not going to use bold, so that leaves italics. I want the reader to know my character is thinking actual dialog. And there are times when I have two characters that are telepathic. Their entire conversation is thought based. Quote marks would not work there, either.
Yes, you've hit on the one flaw with italics for thoughts. Reading them out loud. I've encountered that myself, in my own writing. (I do use italics for thoughts at times.) When I read the passages out loud at my writer's group, I have to develop a slightly different voice to get the notion across. Yet it's do-able. Terry Pratchett's books—that not only use italics for lots of things, but also use different FONT styles for different characters' voices—appear on commercial audio books all the time. So it's do-able. Just one of those things that you need to consider. Also consider this: a book is primarily meant to be read. By a person, sitting alone, reading. In that instance, there isn't really a problem with thought italics, as long as they're not presented as a lengthy wad of text which can be hard on the eye. But a line or two ...works fine. It's a device that's been in use for a long long time, and readers understand it.
You can just use plain text. You choose not to. That's fine and a choice that you have every right to make, but many authors do indeed use plain text. Telepathy, now, that's an entirely different can of worms.
