Just as one doesn't use a tag after every sentence of dialogue, obviously one doesn't need a thought tag after every sentence of inner dialogue. Why would you think it hadn't occurred to me? If a character is narrating, especially in past tense, you can distinguish between narration and inner dialogue by the tense. So what? You can ignore the matter altogether, who cares, it's all in the character's head. You can also distinguish between narration and thought with italics. So what? If you are going to claim one of these methods forces you to write better or learn something, you cannot do that without implying using the italics is deficient in some way. And you have yet to consider using one convention or the other does not, for the most part, suggest in any way the writer has a problem using either method. And why the assumption said 'different new thing' one might learn is unidirectional? I see a difference, yes. You say in words it's merely a personal preference, but in practice you say over and over, one takes more skill than the other. I'm not a bigot, I don't think 'those' people are inferior.
What do you mean, in practice? So, because I prefer one way for my own writing, that means that I automatically think the other is wrong or doesn't take skill? No. I'm done with this. You're pig-headed and would rather use a pretend argument to continue to make your own point rather than own that I never said using italics makes you lazy. This isn't about you trying to prove me wrong. It's about you taking this as an incentive to repeat a previously stated claim of your own.
I realllly think this discussion would benefit from an example or two? Maybe Thorn and Ginger could post a relevant paragraph from a real, recently published work, with bibliographical references?
"In practice" means saying one who uses italics can learn from not using italics, while not saying one who doesn't use them can learn from using them.
Have you looked back over the 15 pages? See post 351 above for an example, and from about page 5 on in this thread you can find multiple citations of style and writing authorities and references to published authors that use italics for inner dialogue. On the other side, "The Chicago Manual of Style" does not list inner dialogue as a proper use of italics.
As long as you don't make it unidirectional. If not using them is something new, why isn't the opposite true? Personally, I don't find not using them particularly difficult or enlightening in terms of skill.
As I've mentioned before, there is no authority when it comes to writing fiction, and posting examples isn't really going to help because it just means that author A and author B have different preferences regarding italics for thoughts (or their respective publishers have different preferences). The CMoS doesn't say anything at all regarding the italics for thoughts issue. They tend to focus on nonfiction writing (and rightly so because of the authority issue I mentioned).
I'm going to stop now. I started writing a reply, got nearly to the end, and then I asked myself, "Why am I bothering this?" Once again, I congratulate you on having a method that works so well for you. May you be published and the italics stand so you can come back and prove that it can be done. (No, that's not sarcasm.) Meanwhile, I'm going to continue writing without them, and hope that I, too become published. Good day. Happy writing.
@GingerCoffee yeah, I've seen some links etc but I think an actual quote from an actual work of fiction woul be beneficial... actually, not A quote, of corse, but a table of excerpts... list a book or two published in last 5 years by the 6major publishers + a few independent publishers, with bibliographical references, and possibly a specific and relevant excerpt from submission guides of each publisher , so the picture is easy to grasp and understand
I thought BB was asking for any example, that one was mine. As for authorities, I'm not claiming anyone is an absolute authority, and I will say again, I think either choice is equal. But I did find some respected experts in the field, such as Janet Burroway, who noted in her style guide for fiction writers that using italics for inner dialogue was perfectly acceptable. Cog cited the CMoS. Other people in the thread have cited published authors as examples of writers who use the italics convention.
Good grief! Go back through the thread, it's full of citations, quotes from style guides and noted published authors who have italics in their books. The rest of what you are asking is a bit more than you're going to find anyone here doing for you.
@GingerCoffee I don't want it done for me, I just thought that the whole argument would benefit from an organized, scientific approach
That's exactly what I did. I researched a dozen writer's advice blogs, and checked out every writer's style guide on my library's shelves and went through them all. Those included fiction and non-fiction and not all of them were geared toward formatting conventions. Of the guides that met the criteria and had comments one way or the other about the subject, several noted italics for thoughts were fine to use. Several, like the CMoS, didn't list it as a convention and one can only assume they were thorough about when to use italics so that's the same as saying not to. On the other hand, I can't read any of the discussions on the subject on the CMoS web site without a paid subscription. It's possible there is some consideration of change being discussed. Blog opinions were divided. And forum members have cited numerous renowned authors who use the italics convention. My conclusion from all that research was that the convention has simply come into use as writing conventions evolved. It's more than common enough now that there's nothing wrong with using it and people who are being stubborn about it should maybe look around a bit more as to how common the practice is. Just as the language evolves, so do writing conventions, including this one.
it was hard to find what you were referring to amid all these overlong, bickering-and-getting-nowhere posts, bb... but i finally found it: those em dashes have no good reason for being there... their use in that instance is totally incorrect... which is why i'd remove them, if i was editing this piece of work...
Almost every novel I've read in the past years have used italics for thoughts in 3rd person narrative. Also, every novel that employed them seemed to be fantasy. It seems typical to this genre, even with writers who aren't Stephen King. Examples: The Night Angel -Brent Weeks The Steel Remains -Richard Morgan The First Law -Joe Abercrombie The Mistborn trilogy -Brandon Sanderson Mercy Thompson series -Patricia Briggs I see it far less in general fiction. Also, many a time I've gotten annoyed with the author mixing and matching in the narration, it's unclear whether the thought belongs to the character, or whether it's the narrator. This with celebrated authors like James Clavell. The italicized thought feels like a deeper glimpse into the character's head, and it makes the thought stand out, pop out, gives emphasis to an exclamation, underlines without underlining the significance of the content. Some writers do it with a line break. Like so. But do they really need formatting to make the sentence etc. stand out? Isn't that like duct tape to make up for the author's lack of skill?
@mammamaia I don't agree. In that particular example, the em dash is used both to indicate a sudden brake in syntax structure and to replace not only the neccesary coma after quotation marks but also the elipse or a single em dash that would indicate the end of quotation in mid-sentence. In context: the inner voice (which Michael O represents with italics) reads (indicated by quotation marks), is suddenly stoped (closed quotations, first em dash) by an "outer voice" (new quotations), which leads directly and suddenly into a gesture (2nd em dash). I don't agree with Michael O's usage of italics all over the place but I also don't agree that he misused the em dash. (end of rant)
Actually, the italics in that sentence make it much less clear to me. When I see the italics, I expect that they signify some substantial jump away from the precedng words, so to me, the italics communicate the opposite of what you want them to. When I saw them, my rapid-fire thoughts were: "An explanation? What? She hears someone nearby explaining something? But surely you can't get 'explanation' just from tone of voice, so she must be getting words, so why not quote them? And why did the writer fail to capitalize the 'an'? OK, well, whatever, she's talking to herself, she hears a voice explaining something, and she stops talking so that the someone can't hear her talking. I guess. Maybe. I never heard of italics being used for summarizing a suddenly heard noise, but I don't know what else they can mean." If I were accustomed to italics being used for thoughts, I would probably instead think: "OK, she was talking and she thought of an explanation for something. An explanation for what? Why not tell us; isn't that awfully coy? And why did thinking of an explanation make her stop and look around? And why did the writer fail to capitalize the 'an'?" If I were trying to communicate a spoken thought cut off and becoming an internal thought, possible ways might include: “There is--” --an explanation. I stopped talking aloud and glanced around in all directions. “There is...” ...an explanation. I stopped talking aloud and glanced around in all directions. “There is—-” There is an explanation. I stopped talking aloud and glanced around in all directions. “There is—-” Shush, Jane. Stop making noise. I stopped talking aloud and glanced around in all directions. An explanation, there has to be an explanation.
We've been down this road, CF. In the context of the book where there are italicized thoughts throughout, there's not an issue with clarity. And it almost seems to me people who argue against the italics look for reasons not to see clarity with them. For example, you knew what I meant by the italics so you had to actively try not to understand the sentence. That's bizarre to me since the division between thoughts and narration is blatantly obvious. I like making it even more clear with the italics.
Well, no, we haven't. You posted a specific example of italics used for a specific purpose, and I commented on that specific example. (Edited to add: _Even if_ I liked the use of italics for thoughts, I think that that example is an example of a place where they don't work.) If you don't want to address your own example, that's dandy, but I'm not going to apologize for discussing something that you appeared to be posting for the purpose of discussion. Sheesh. Yes, the division is obvious. Exactly what the thought _means_ is not obvious. I thought that it meant that she was hearing someone explaining something. Or that she was thinking that she had an explanation for something. The very _fact_ of the division makes it not-obvious that the italicized text is a continuation of the speech.
See my edits. I do appreciate you took the time to post all those examples. Thank you. It's just not something I agree with you on. Out of curiosity though, what's with the underlined spaces? Not commenting on anything about it being right or wrong, but I truly don't know what that punctuation means. I swear this has nothing to do with my disagreement with you on the italics.
They reflect the fact that I am old. Specifically, the fact that my Internet use started when formatting was not available, and everything has to be signaled with plain text. Back in that stone age, they signified that the word that they surrounded was underlined or in (ta da!) italics. I'm trying to break the habit, but I'm not there yet. (Edited for minor clarification.)
I've been using italics for thought, always thought this had been the correct way to portray thought in text?
It's an optional way to portray direct thought. I find it works for me. Lots of writers use it. Some people just don't like it, other's stubbornly claim it's an incorrect convention, and others fret it might make or break a publisher reading your manuscript. Think that sums the thread up.
It's definitely not universal--of the hundreds of books that I've read to completion, I can identify exactly one that uses italics for normal thoughts. And I read one series where the protagonist sort of personifies her conscience, and its thoughts are italicized. I'm sure that I failed to notice it in a few more, but I don't think that there have been many in my reading history. I'm not yet clear on why I almost never see them, and others almost never don't--I'm pretty sure that it's a fairly new convention, but that's not enough of an explanation, because I read plenty of new books too.
