Italics for thoughts?

Discussion in 'Word Mechanics' started by Dan Rhodenizer, Jul 25, 2007.

  1. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    I also use italics for thoughts, particularly if I shift to first person for the most powerful ones. Or remembering something she has been told to do by someone else, that she is not doing the current circumstance. Never fight a man unless you are willing to kill him, for example, when she is definitely not doing that and is losing badly, in a state of panic. I avoid the tagline "he thought,' however. If you need to tag the thought, then it seems to me that is not clear.
     
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  2. Ohmo

    Ohmo Banned

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    I did. I suppose Bing or some other engine could have produced different results, but I'm a creature of habit and tend to use Google almost exclusively. Is trying to be thorough not acceptable here? Have I trod on someone's toes? Or turf?
     
  3. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    That's because the AP has gotten lazy. And cheap. Newspapers no longer spell out the names of American states, either; nor do they use the traditional abbreviations. It's all the Post Office two-letter jobbies.

    Lazy.

    *runzawaiwivaqwikness*
     
  4. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Haha, no, though we sometimes have a tendency to present personal opinion as fact.
     
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  5. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    Not at all - I'm just shocked. I rarely go beyond the first page of Google results (and I thought the only purpose of Bing was searching "How do I download Google Chrome" when someone starts up a new Windows computer for the first time).
     
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  6. Ohmo

    Ohmo Banned

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    Like, "It's a fact that my opinion should hold more weight than other facts."? :supergrin: Regretfully, I do that all too often. :bigoops:


    First page of results is usually my limit, too, unless the same quote is used in more than two or three results. Although, there have been times I've bypassed everything else just to see what the 154 billionth web page had to say on a topic. In this instance I was looking for any resource to support the assertions by a member who stated uncategorically on the first page of this thread that using italics for internal dialogue is never permitted. Finding none I posted my methods, sources, and results. After all, the search and subsequent reading took only a few minutes and was, by no means, a Herculean, or even remarkable, task.
     
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  7. hvysmker

    hvysmker Banned

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    I only read a few pages of results but would like to put my two cents into the discussion. Mainly because as returning here as a new user I have to put in twenty comments and crits before posting my first here in several years.

    The only time I use italics for thoughts is when they are complex or, more often, very long. Such could be flashbacks of half a page or longer. It is to remind the reader that this is a flashback. When the thought is short I simply indicate it with something like, “he thought.

    Another reason I didn’t see in the pages I did read was that some proof-setting software does not read the italic symbols used on some of these sites. Sorry, I don’t remember which are used here. All I can think of is (i) and (/i) but with square ([ ]) braces. Meaning an extra step for some publishers if they buy your story. It can also be a minor problem if you belong to many writing sites.

    Charlie - hvysmker
     
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  8. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Actually, while I agree with you in principle, I think you've flagged up a potential problem. Italics are not easy to read. So using them only for long passages MIGHT not work as well as you hoped it would.

    Italics work fine for short statements ...and I use them for 'thoughts' a lot—to differentiate thoughts from spoken words without needing to tag them.

    I did also use italics for lengthy flashbacks when I wrote my first draft, but when several of my early beta readers complained that they tended to skip over the long italic passages, I could see what they were driving at. It turned out to be easy enough simply to signal the flashback in some other way.

    On the other hand, constantly having to 'tag' thoughts can be intrusive and clunky, which is why I prefer the 'italics for thoughts' method. But whatever method you choose, just make sure it has the impact you wanted. The best way to discover if it has worked is to get honest feedback from beta readers. If the long passages don't bother them, you're probably doing it well.
     
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  9. Ale

    Ale Member

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    Just adding my two cents, but I prefer italics over 'he thought/she thought' tags; I've always been told those sort of tags distance the reader from the immediacy of the scene.

    However, from what I can gather from this thread, using italics for thoughts is done by many mainstream authors (King,Martin,Rowling...) but is technically not correct (?). If the goal is to get published, I suppose it's better to avoid italics on the off-chance the agents that receive your manuscript are picky.

    By the way, does anyone know if the consensus for flasbacks is the same?
     
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  10. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    They do, but you can almost always avoid them without using italics.
     
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  11. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    I agree that I'd prefer italics over a thought tag, though neither would be more preferable still. I don't think it's immediacy but narrative distance, and if your aim is to reduce narrative distance then why not use deep POV and eliminate the need for italics OR thought tags?

    Flashbacks are like prologues: nobody loves them, but some people don't mind them and some people hate them. It doesn't make sense to me to include something that isn't going to win you any fans but could alienate them, so I avoid them in my writing.
     
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  12. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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  13. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    If it's first person present tense, would you still put thoughts in italics? Like if the narrator asks himself a question in his head... that sort of thing. I would have thought so, but I've come across several published examples that would prove otherwise. I'm guessing it's a house style more than anything, but I could be wrong. Would love to hear what some of you think.
     
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  14. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I think it depends on narrative distance rather than the "person" of the POV. If it's a more distant first person present tense, I wouldn't be surprised to see thoughts in italics. If it's a closer first person present tense, I wouldn't see the point of the italics.

    Like:

    I open the door and step inside the apartment. Mary and Claire have lived here for years, ever since they got married, and they've accumulated all the detritus you'd expect from two busy, disorganized people. But today, there's something new on the mantle, something casting a strange light that reminds me a firefly's glow, only without the blinking and magnified by about a thousand times. What on earth have they brought home this time?

    vs

    The doorknob's cold under my fingers. Too cold? Probably nothing. I ignore that twinge of worry and step inside the apartment. Familiar clutter. Nothing strange. Even the fabric softener smell making my nose twitch is the same as it was yesterday. Except... over on the mantle. Is it glowing? What the-- What on earth have they brought home this time?​

    Or whatever. I don't think there's a style choice in the world that can be made independently of larger context, and I don't think first-person-present is homogeneous enough to give that full context.
     
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  15. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I thought that was an interesting post, but I still don't think there's any need to remove the italics-for-thoughts tool from the toolbox in all cases... sometimes you don't want to rewrite a passage to make it clear without italics... sometimes it's good the way it is, as long as there are italics there for a little extra clarity. Like, for example, from one of my own projects:

    Everything was smaller than it used to be.

    That was Jericho Crewe’s first thought as he drove down Main Street. Things hadn’t actually changed that much in the fifteen-odd years since he’d left Mosely, Montana: there were one or two new stores and a few missing, and an extra stoplight bringing the town’s grand total to three, but otherwise, things seemed the same. Except smaller.

    The town didn’t shrink, asshole. His inner voice had never been kind to him, but he knew it was right in this case. He’d just gotten used to bigger things.​

    and a few paragraphs later:

    Now, though, standing in the parking lot, he was tempted to turn around, get back in his rented SUV, and get the hell out of Dodge.

    Coward. Quitter. He wasn’t sure if that was his own inner voice or one borrowed from his father, but either way it could shut the fuck up.​

    or later:

    So he headed outside, took a deep breath of cool spring mountain air while gripping the metal railing along the stairs, and tried to stabilize. He felt like he’d literally lost his bearings. Eli Crewe hadn’t been part of Jericho’s life for a long time, but he’d still been a presence, a lurking, unseen force. He’d been like the opposite of the North Pole for the needle of a compass; instead of being what Jericho had always been drawn toward, Eli had been the force Jericho had always been driven away from. And now he was gone, and Jericho wasn’t sure what the hell that meant for his sense of direction.​

    You can still navigate the physical world, you melodramatic bastard. The sheriff’s office was the only logical destination at this point, so he might as well make his way over there. Even in its new location, maybe it would be familiar enough to reorient him.​

    Because I want him to be consciously recognizing that he's thinking actual words, I need to set the words off from the rest of his thoughts, I think. And then once I use the device once in the book, it seems strange not to be consistent and use it for other verbatim thoughts elsewhere...

    Can you think of ways those passages could be rewritten that would maintain the same sense of characterization and voice without using the italics or becoming overly convoluted?
     
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  16. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I reckon your examples work perfectly well as you've written them. Yes, of course you could do it differently; most things CAN be written 'differently.' But there is no need to rewrite stuff that works, in my opinion.

    The ONLY downside I can think of against italics for thoughts—besides using them so often they become an irritant, or in large blocks of text that can become difficult to read—is that italicised thoughts can be hard to read out loud. However, I don't think that's a huge reason not to use them. One: you are writing to be read, not heard. And two: people who make audio books are usually quite adept at using a slightly different tone of voice, as required.

    I think the advantages outweigh the negatives in most cases. Clarity and brevity are the big winners for thoughts in italics.
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2018
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  17. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    @ChickenFreak - I just read that excellent article you quoted. She gives lots of good examples (including a few from the mistress of indirect thought, Jane Austen) that illustrate how it can be done.

    It did make me think of one other aspect of the issue, though. Italicised thoughts are so much more immediate! The other methods of presenting them create more distance between the reader and the POV character. Italicised thoughts can't be pushed away.

    Example from the article. First is one of the indirect thought versions which the blogger presented:

    Emily was one of those people who hated confronting liars. She put down her coffee and thought, he's a bastard! He's obviously lying! She picked up her coffee again. "How sweet of you to be so honest."


    Here is another way to do it:

    Emily was one of those people who hated confronting liars. She put down her coffee. He's a bastard! He's obviously lying. She picked up her coffee again. "How sweet of you to be so honest."
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2018
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  18. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    This actually eliminates many of my issues with italics for thoughts--but only for this specific situation. Apparently I make an exception for The Character Inside The Head. If you're characterizing inner monologue as a separate entity--not literally, I realize, but nevertheless, that's the metaphor--then you do need some way to indicate their speech.

    If I were doing this, I might play with the possibility of using quotes, but then the metaphor would be much more heavy-handed, and I'd probably abandon the effort. In the Highly Flavored Novel, Male Protagonist does often argue with the memory of his father in his head; so far I deal with that by just handling his reactions. If I did give his father a voice, I'd probably break it out to an actual kinda-scene, with quotes. But I totally agree that italics would be a way to do it with a lighter hand, and my refusal to use them would be a matter of them not feeling right in my voice, rather than them being Wrong.

    Margaret Maron has a similar device in her Deborah Knott mysteries, where Deborah has two characters in her head, the Pragmatist and the Preacher. I'm OK with this. Not that she asked me. :)

    However:

    This is where I disagree. I think that using the same device for other thoughts, thoughts that are truly his thoughts and not perceived as that "other" voice, would weaken the device of the voice.

    Edited to add: I'm not saying that it would be a Terrible Thing. I'm just saying that the value of italics for the inner voice doesn't, to me, "pay for" the other italics, or make them inevitable. I think the inner-voice use of italics can stand alone.
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2018
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  19. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Just as a quibble, the "and thought" passage was her example of the passage before changing it to indirect speech. Her indrect speech translation was:

    Emily was one of those people who hated confronting liars. She put down her coffee. He was a bastard! He was obviously lying. She picked up her coffee again and said how sweet it was of John to be so honest.

    Now, this feels a bit awkward to me--I think that it's an example of a sentence-by-sentence grammatical refit. I don't feel that it actually works. "Emma was one of those people..." has a lot of distance, compared to the indrect speech ("He was...He was...") and then the "said how sweet" also feels awkward. I feel that it's step one of translating to free indirect speech, not the final step. I like most of the examples in the blog, but I feel that this one doesn't work as well as usual.

    My rewrite would likely be something more like:

    Emily picked up her coffee and looked at John over the rim. Bastard. Obviously lying. Liars were hateful, but confronting them--no. So she assembled one of her less frequently used smiles, the one that beamed gentle waves of warm hatred, and said, "How sweet of you to be so honest."

    Now, this negates part of the blogger's point--I think that she wanted to move from distant to close, in those few sentences, and I didn't really do that; I'm starting fairly close. So to some extent, I'm cheating.
     
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  20. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Yeah, I'm not really a fan of the original statement either. The 'telling' phrase at the start annoys me. A reader should be able to figure this out for themselves. Your version has her admitting to herself that she dislikes confronting liars, which is a better way to do it, in my opinion.
     
  21. Maverick_nc

    Maverick_nc Contributor Contributor

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    I couldn't find a thread on this and Google is offering conflicting advice, so I'd like to start a discussion/get some opinions on the correct (if such a thing exists) use of italics.

    In my memoir I am currently expressing internal thoughts in italics (and also switching to present tense for them - but that's another subject), however, I'm unconvinced this format is right and fear overuse/over reliance.

    Can anyone offer advice on this subject? (Fiction and non-fiction)

    NC
     
  22. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    Switching tenses and italics for thoughts... It sounds like you've got a lot going on that could be a distraction from the story you are trying to tell. Personally, I wouldn't do either of those things.
     
  23. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    If you express internal thoughts directly, then yes you're going to want to use present tense. You don't need to express them directly to get the same things across, particularly if you're in a very close point of view. As for italics, you see it done that way in published literature, so I wouldn't say it's out of the question. I don't think that's the only way to handle it, but it's one way. I think the question is whether you need to express internal thoughts directly in the first place. How close of a POV are you writing in?
     
  24. Maverick_nc

    Maverick_nc Contributor Contributor

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    Which begs the question, how would you format internal monologue?
     
  25. Maverick_nc

    Maverick_nc Contributor Contributor

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    I'm writing in first person past tense, and expressing internal monologue in current tense, italicised.
     

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