Hi everyone, I'm working on a short story where most characters utilize thought detection to communicate (essentially telepathy), but I'm not exactly sure how to format this as a type of communication. Obviously, this isn't exactly speech, so I'm hesitant to use quotation marks. I've also considered just using italics, but then I wouldn't be able to distinguish it from normal character thought. To be clear there are also characters who do not/cannot use this ability, so I want to make sure I distinguish telepathy from normal speech. If you've seen telepathy used in fiction before, or if you have an opinion of your own, please feel free to share.
I would do it however you would do it’s closest analog. How does your “telepathy” work? Is it magic or technological? For magical telepathy, I’d use italics similar to how I would write a characters thoughts. If it’s just technological, I’d write it the way I would a text message or any other type of networked communication. When telepathy becomes ubiquitous for humans, we’re not going to create a whole new network for it, data is data, it doesn’t matter the type of device at the endpoints.
I've seen it done as credits will be fine telegraphed Michael. I don't think the author wanted to use the word telepathed < not sure that's a word tbf. But the set up was simple and early in the story and I latched on easily. From there it was just italics whenever needed.
I've got my bluetooth-speaker-mic-wisdom tooth on back order. Only got 20ft range though, I think I've been had.
I’ll also second quotes and italics, which is a common way of denoting that characters are speaking in a different language than the primary one in a novel, and would work just as well for telepathy. The quotes show that someone is communicating and not just thinking, the italics show it’s telepathic.
I just use italics. Adding quotation marks clutters the sentence, at least to my minimalist editor mind.
In case anyone might be interested, here’s a link to an older ‘writing telepathy’ thread from this forum: https://www.writingforums.org/threads/how-would-you-punctuate-telepathic-dialogue.160888/#post-1741127
The approach that works for you and your story is the right one. It's not used much, but in Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" he uses parenthesis, quotes and italics. --------------- ("Yes, Jill?") his mind answered hers. ("Later.") -------------- Not necessarily telepathy, but in Asimov's "Second Foundation" the characters of the eponymous title converse in minute facial expressions and muttered syllables as well as some mental contact. Asimov takes a few paragraphs to introduce us to the concept of a slight twitch of the left eyebrow and a slight grunt in the proper context can convey volumes of information, but, since we cannot understand it, it will be presented as if it were an actual conversation.
Anne McCaffrey used just italics, throughout her Dragonriders of Pern series and also in the Tower and the Hive series. I think it works well (but I've been reading -- and re-reading -- those books since the 1980s, so I'm very accustomed to that convention).
Todd's "contributions" to the series are awful. My late wife gave me his first two solo efforts for Christmas. They do not share shelf space with Anne's books. Gigi (Anne's daughter) has now done a Pern novel -- it's much better. It'll go on the Pern shelf -- if I can squeze it in.
I've always wondered why no one has ever tried to make a serialized show out of the Pern books. But then again, they would probably botch it completely. Anne McCaffrey once related that she refused to give a producer the rights to make a movie because they wanted to turn it into a dragon vs. dragon action film. Which, of course, negates almost the entire plotline of "The White Dragon". Dragon shall not fight dragon! I hate it when they drift so far from the original. (I, Robot, for example, was nothing like the original stories.) Someday, I may get around to my personal Pern fan fiction creation, along the lines of the Harper Hall Trilogy. Having spent a large portion of my life as a working musician those books hit a chord with me (pun initially unintentional). Why do all dragon names end with "th"?
Getting back to the original topic, I have been trying to think of other books in which telepathy was involved -- and I'm drawing a blank. The OP posed this as a consideration: That's a valid point. What about using small caps to indicate telepathic messages?
I've also seen it in the Animorphs with the <something> bracket, but I think there should be an alternative to the < >, in case other people's keyboard doesn't have < >.
Digging up something I posted way back when: I've seen voices inside a character' head done "like this" (the character hears it like a real voice), like this (it seems just like a regular thought), and <like this> (it penetrates into the character's brain like a radio signal.)
I guess if the only keyboard you have doesn't offer the < and > glyphs, you use whatever you have. But what keyboard doesn't offer those? Even the smallest, cheapest Bluetooth keyboards, the ones without a separate number pad, have those glyphs in the standard positions, above the comma and the period.
Shamefully, I confess a younger me avidly consumed FanFiction from a comic series that featured a few telepathic characters. I adopted a few stylistic preferences from seeing other's format choices. Telepath's train of thought. < Telepath's target's train of thought. > "Primary telepath communicating with a fellow telepath." < "Fellow telepath communicating back to primary telepath." >
