They might be happening in the now, but they aren't presented as literal thoughts. I doubt many people think in third-person past tense. When I saw a "literal" thought I mean as close to the exact statement that goes through the character's mind as possible in a fictional work.
You could have someone whose thoughts are in third person, but the effect will be creepy. You'd have the kind of dissociated character who thinks of himself in third person.
I've seen it both ways. Personally, I prefer italics for literal thought, but that's just me. An example of literal thought without italics (took me a bit of searching through my bookshelves ): And with italics in the same book:
Thanks, Raki. That is what I was looking for. I think the first example works just fine, though I note that the "he thought" tag is initially provided to to alert the reader, whereas in the italicized thoughts in the second example it is not used.
Well the second example still had a tag "he realized," but I think the italics were used because it was all in one sentence...one very long sentence.
I recently posted a question about this very topic on someone's profile, and never got a response. I'm glad this question was put to a thread! My question has been answered, thank you, OP and all who have posted their responses. Much appreciated!!
Neither italics or 'she thought' are necessary here, IMO. What I dislike is a wodge of telling thinly disguised as the character's thoughts, which are anyway something the character has previously decided about the person. It means the writing lacks immediacy and it pulls the reader out of the story. I would prefer it if the actions of the man more clearly triggered such thoughts in the character, or that the reader was given the opportunity to form an opinion about the man's character. Read something like 'Lucky Jim' by Kingsley Amis if you want to see a master doing this. I personally dislike the aside-to-the-reader-in-American-idiom-type commentary, but it is done, I know--it appears to be the (hopefully fleeting) fashion of the moment. Specially chick-lit kind of stuff.
It's odd how whenever I think about something, there's always a thread on it here. I am about to start my second novel (just finished my first!! ) and I am going to go for a sort of gothic supernatural private detective story, switching between third person description and first person thoughts, like a film noir voiceover. I was thinking of sticking it in italics first, just to see how it looks, style-wise, but if I end up doing lots of them and the pages become a jumble of regular and italics I'll see if I can change it.
