What are some formatting techniques you guys have used to give certain characters a narrative edge? Something that sets them apart, like when this character talks the readers know exactly who it is, even before the dialogue tag? The personal example that comes to mind is the protagonist for an old work of mine called Project Second Shadow. The MC, Vander, cohabited his body with another, much more sinister entity. There were times when Vander and the Entity would speak inside his mind, where no one else could hear. To show this, I would write Vander's dialogue in italics and the Entity's dialogue in bold italics. Example: Your one sick son of a bitch, you know that. You're the one who keeps listening, instead of tuning me out. You guys ever do something like this in your writing?
Formatting techniques, no... I think anything other than italics is generally frowned upon. I just find that my characters each have their own "voice" and end up speaking the way they do. Some are more formal as they talk, while my younger characters speak more relaxed, especially to one another. Sometimes my characters will have an accent or depending on their age may use words or phrases from an ancient tongue. I don't know if this counts, but each of my characters seem to have their own swear which is unique to them...
I'm not sure this sort of thing gives the dialog a certain feel. I don't think I would be able to figure out what you were going for as a reader. Then again, I like clean writing that is easy to understand without gimmicks or tricks. I much prefer dialog in quotes with tags. Also not a fan of italics or bolding in the way you're using them, but that's just my opinion.
I wouldn't do this. I don't even like italics-for-thoughts. I definitely wouldn't approve of any more typographical tricks.
Italics in dialogue are to emphasize a word or a few words, not the whole of what is said. So I would say under normal conditions ( and yes I have used italics for played back recordings and written/printed things in my WIP) but only under specific and defined circumstances, to use italics when dealing with dialogue. Mainly they are used for personal thoughts in 3rd limited (but that is going the way of the dodo, so it is more a stylistic choice anymore.) But no I think you should use italics as they are intended, and not for full on spoken passages.
I haven't yet, but I likely will in the future. The Warhammer 40k series occasionally uses special formatting for certain dialogue/telepathy, and I dig it.
Besides the italics or bold font to me, the identifying elements in the characters dialog would be, phrasing, use of contractions, and slang and/if there is an accent. I have a character in my new WIP who is an FBI agent, and he is always matter-of-fact and wanting to be in control of the conversation and he cusses like my wife.
Thanks gang for all the helpful feedback! A lot of various responses. This gives me some food for thought. Maybe I'll consider forgoing the formatting changes and try to make it clearer through the narration when the protagonist is conversing with the presence in his head, not out loud.
I use italics for thoughts. When I have one character who is inhabiting the body one another character speak to one another, the MC is just italics. The secondary character, the character whose body is being inhabited, I use italics and quotation marks. He stood still, listening. "You need to stop doing that." Jim shook his head. Doing what? "Throwing yourself into dangerous situations without any consideration of my body!" Jim said, his hands balled into fists.
I remember Terry Pratchett formatted Death's dialogue in an unusual way, with block caps. It worked because a) Death was the only character (that I'm aware of) who was formatted this way, b) Characterising a concept is inherently absurb, and Death had tons of funny dialogue. Aside from this one example, I'm inclined to think that formatting dialogue per character is probably a bit of a crutch for not having clear and distinct voices to begin with. I can't see a good reason to have dialogue stand out on the page like this -- unless you're writing a graphic novel or a children's book -- because, ultimately, your prose will be read chronologically. Readers will scan a page and understand dialogue's coming up by the paragraphs. I'm just not sure what it would be adding to the experience. Regards formatting generally, it's best to pick one (usually italics) and use it for both emphasis and "thought" dialogue. (E.g. I wouldn't do that, Jim thought. Of course he'd never do that.) Having multiple types of formatting like BOLD or caps or underlines all over the place just becomes hugely distracting, and your reader will be thinking more about the odd formatting than the content.
I don't know the rules. I do use italics for thought bubbles, just like the comics. Come to think of it, my story would make a cool comic. Too bad I can't draw - yet.
Everything I’ve heard is that these kind of formatting tricks are frowned upon. You should be able to give your characters a specific voice and motivation. That can be all that’s needed.
It worked, for me. Because it gave me the feel that Death had a big echoing voice. We are talking about the Disc world series here, and that inherent Absurdity, was kind of the point of the stories. What ever genre an individual book covered, Mr. Pratchett, seemed to do a parody of the genre when he put it into the Disc world setting. As far as Character dialog goes, I would stick more with making each characters speaking mannerisms unique to that character. I have one character, who can't pronounce the letter R. SO when writing his dialog, I go with words that don't have an R in them. Stones instead of rocks. Or I leave the R out of the word.
Yes. For the same reason you did it -- to convey telepathic communication. It's hardly unique -- I see this used most frequently in Anne McCaffrey's novels, but I'm certain I have seen other authors use the technique.
There's lots of tricks, but at the end of the day, it's really interacting with people on a regular basis. Got a job? If not, get a job. Preferrably one where you are working with, collaborating with and interacting with people. Haven't talked to friends in some time? Go and do that! Arrange that. Find a hobby. Here's why I say that: dialogue is not real speech. No one talks like they do in books. What it does is imitate real speech in a certain capacity. And good dialogue should sound like something people could say. So you have to become familiar with what you are trying to imitate. The worst dialogue, if I were to ask the writer who taught them to write it, I will get answers like "Oh, I watch a lot of movies." So you're imitating an imitation. So instead of being once removed, you're now twice removed.
No. The word that comes to mind is gimmicky. There's no place for overdone italics or bold print in a work of fiction. Rely on your words and the reader's imagination.
A very simple technique you might use is the presence giving the protagonist some type of nickname. Meatbag, or fleshy
If this internal dialogue is constant then I see no need for italics. If it is during a few sparing episodes then it would perhaps make sense to distinguish it from other dialogue taking place parallel to it. That said, I would never use bold type? That is something I have never seen before other than perhaps in situations where the author was trying to emphasis the magnitude of some godly voice or something … even then it would be sort and sharp not pages of dialogue.
Meaning what? Different fonts for machine or alien intelligences? Or something of the sort? It can get gimmicky really quick if it isn't done judiciously, and personally I think it would be better simply to establish a clear consistent voice for each character. Ideally a reader should be able to tell which character is speaking without needing dialogue tags or being told who it is. I mean, don't throw out all dialogue tags, but if you can write individual enough characters and give them appropriate voices then no font tricks are needed. This is how writers have been doing it since time immemorial.* * Fancy ten-cent word of the day.
That said, if someone insists on using some visual cue, I would go with switching to a different font family rather than using something as overpowering as all italics.
Here's a pretty good example IMO of how it can be done with no tricks or gimmicks, in a story by Andre Norton. This should open the Look Inside. Unfortunately the story opens on a massive wall of nothing but pure telling/info-dumping, and begins with a synopsis of the previous story (that I suspect was written by somebody else), but once that's done it gets to a telepathic dialogue between a human and a mutant cat-creature. Scroll down to where you see dialogue beginning, and maybe just read the last few paragraphs before the exchange takes place to set the tone: Uncharted Stars Look Inside @ Amazon Note the cat creature (Eet) has a very distinct character voice that just seethes with condescension and arrogance, and you can immediately tell who it is with no tags or any other kind of clue.
Or take a page from Terry Pratchett and use all caps, but that only worked with a single character to make him truly distinctive.
