Is this any good for writing?

So I just wanted to post things I put in my writing, and ask is it any good, and is it grammatically correct?

Italics: I use italic in my writing for thoughts, or if my character is reading something. When the character is reading something should italics be used?

Commas: I am really comma happy. Would it be grammaticality correct for commas in the following sentence: "Maybe", he says as casually as he could, " but I dont know."

Because/Like/And: Is it OK to start a sentence with B/L/A? I was taught not to do that, but I noticed it in other writing.


Thanks, all help is appreciated.

 

This is a style judgement - I'd say yes, but others may disagree. You need to use something to set the reading off, and I think italics are a reasonable option.

The first comma should be inside the quotation marks (and you're missing an apostrophe, and I'd say "can" instead of "could" since you seem to be in present tense, or else "said" instead of "says" if you're in past tense) but otherwise it looks good. So:

"Maybe," he says as casually as he can, " but I don't know." or
"Maybe," he said as casually as he could, " but I don't know."​

Yeah, it's fine. There may be a tendency to write incomplete sentences when you start with one of these words, so keep an eye out for that, but in creative writing incomplete sentences can be a style choice as well, so...

 

Thanks!

 

I mainly wanted to chime in as someone who's fiiiiirmly opposed to italics for thoughts: I'm opposed to them, but no one will say, "Eh, he doesn't know what he's doing." Many people use them.

For long quotes from the character's reading, I think that block quotes would be better than italics.

 

I use italics for anything that needs to be verbatim but is not spoken: usually thoughts but also sometimes writing. Journal entries or online chat transcripts...

 

I'd actually put another comma, in between says and as, to set off the adverbial phrase. Thus:

"Maybe," he says, as casually as he can, "but I don't know."

 

After reading the sticky thread "italics for thoughts", I got rid of most of it in my manuscript.

 

Forester told me it is quite alright to start a sentence with a conjunction.

But I agree, italics are needed sometimes. I use Spanish slang in my writing and italics are needed. It looks better that way. Also, I use passages like letters, memories and flashbacks; italics are needed for that too.