T'was a joke, @cutecat22 - not aimed at you at all. Aimed at the folks who want this thread to die. I wanna say more , but no no no no no—Good morning! coffee, more coffee.... I was in a goofy mood last night, but I'm all right now....kaff kaff
Nothing like a goofy mood to start the weekend I'm used to doing it wrong, that's what feels so right!
Of course it would work fine without italics. I'm just making the point that it can help bring clarity to use italics. Comes down to personal preferences, but either is fine and widely accepted. I prefer the italics if done right, because it can leave less potential for confusion.
Oh for pity's sake. You're seriously going to make this about kids these days? Why use quotes? Why not have faith your reader can figure it out.
Well I don't know about you, but when I was younger I sometimes didn't understand certain aspects of books or films. It only became more clear and rational to me as I got older. Maybe I'm just thick. I've got nothing against using italics for a characters though process -- I quite enjoyed it in The Da Vinci Code -- but I also agree that excessive use of italics, not only for thought, can be really tacky. I try not to use italics for thought, but as someone previously mentioned, it allows the writing to refrain from using 'he/she thought.' It can be tricky to include a thought without using the tag sometimes.
That example doesn't represent the whole. But worse than that, what is your POV there? You've gone from a third person narrator to first person thoughts. Is the narrator telling us Sarah's thoughts? If so, that wouldn't be a place I'd necessarily use italics because they are not direct thoughts, (though you could use them). They are thoughts told to us by a third person.
Your post sounded like you were saying italics weren't needed, the reader can figure it out. So perhaps I misread it. But "get off my lawn" came to mind with the "kids these days" comment. I don't think figuring out what's narration and what's a thought takes the wiseness of age. Pages of italics are distracting. But if someone wants to insert short flashbacks or show a person is dreaming, then why not? If half your book is your character's introspection, italics may not be the best choice. If your book is first person POV and you want to show direct thoughts differ from the narration, I find italics very useful. If you are using italics for extensive esp dialogue, it seems like we need a better option for that but I'm not sure what it would be. Why not use all the style tools we have available? Why limit yourself to using italics or not using them? Avoiding italics for inner monologue makes no sense to me and seems more like an arbitrary, 'because I said so' rule.
You hit the nail on the head regarding thoughts told by a narrator. Ultimately, it comes down to what makes the piece clearer because you don't want the reader to stumble over things like "is this person thinking this or what?" when getting to the meat of the story. If the reader's asking that kind of question, the writer hasn't done his/her job well. Italics used 'right' (or most effectively) in terms of a character's thoughts shouldn't be confusing at all. Even the most casual reader should be able to pick up on the fact that it's what the character is thinking, and I think you're absolutely right (which I allude to in an earlier post) that using italics for indirect thoughts (narration of what the character is thinking and not direct thought) can often create more confusion than anything else. Italics for direct thought work well, especially in third-person POV, because you're changing the tense suddenly. The italics give that change of tense quick context.
The point I was getting at, is that each method has its own positive and negative aspects, and it boils down to the readers opinion. Italics are more distinct and remove some difficulties incorporating thought processes, but there is always a looming possibility that it might come off as tacky, especially if you use italics for other things. For example, in something I'm working on at the moment, my protagonist is sitting in a waiting room looking at advertisement posters on the walls. I use italics to represent the advertisement, and since the protagonist is sitting alone thinking to himself, it becomes a problem. It's what you could describe as a conflicting scenario. I try to avoid using lots of thought anyway, since I feel it's a cheap way to spruce up boring text, especially if the character is alone.
Its your writing, do it how you want!! I use my wording and context clues to show the reader they are in a character's thoughts. The words I use depend on the audience. I've seen thoughts put in italics, quotes, prime symbols and brackets.
Here I go kicking over the hornets nest. After reading through the several years of this thread, I started wondering if what's being argued here actually applies to fiction writing. Way back at the beginning, the debate polarized with citations from the Chicago Manual of Style on one side, guidelines for historians on the other. But I asked myself, aren't both positions citing guidelines for academics rather than fiction writers? As far as historians go, I didn't wonder; they're definitely not fiction writers unless you buy into conspiracy theories or simply believe that when the winners commissioned books about the battles they won, they lied through their teeth. But let's leave that aside for now. The only thing I could check was the Chicago Manual of Style. I'm Canadian, so I'd never read it. I tend to look for references with extra U's in selected words and lots of A's... I mean, 'eh's... eh? So I dug around and found two copies of the Chicago Manual of Style, the first edition and the 16th. In the latter, the preface states: We have continued, nonetheless, to focus on the specific needs of our core constituency—writers and editors of scholarly books and journals. And in the first edition, they state: The present work is a codification of the typographical rules and practices in force at the University of Chicago Press. It doesn't sound to me like they care much about fiction. In fact, I did a word-search in both and didn't get one single hit on the word 'fiction.' Which led me to believe that this whole argument about italics vs. roman for character thoughts had suddenly turned... well... academic. Undaunted, and since the debate is about how to render a character's thoughts, I carried on and searched both editions for two more words: 'thought' and 'thoughts.' My thinking was that if there were anything specifically related to the debate, one of these words should turn up a reference. I got lots of hits on 'thought' but nothing related to character thoughts. Pondering further, it occurred to me that since the debate centers around fiction writing, we might not want to follow the conventions for theses, text books and the like. For instance, if the debate were extended to include such things as partial sentences (often used in fiction) a strict adherence to academic standards would have us throw them out. I'm rather partial to partial sentences. I won't use one here, though; after all, this is a debate. Right? Off I went to scour the Internet for guidelines for fiction writers and I found several. Of course, I have no idea if any of them are considered a standard or even based loosely on some other existing standard. Most got mostly-good reviews on Amazon, but most everyone will deny that Amazon stars are a true commendation for anything. That leaves me wondering where to turn for such guidance: Marcy Kennedy and her series of Busy Writer's Guides? C.S. Lakin who was the only one of the bunch to get a one-star rating (only from one person, but still)? Or Dan Persinger who offers to help me get the devils out of my writing (perhaps he'll teach me some magic or at least a bit of exorcism)? I thought, I'll learn something from this debate. After all, it's been raging for years. Alas, I don't think I did.
That's a very thorough analysis. I would just point out a couple things: Keep in mind there are different labels for 'thoughts'. You may find the same results but be sure to look for other ways this might be labeled: inner dialogue inner monologue thoughtsI ran into this yesterday searching a regulation for 'outpatient surgery' and eventually discovered it was labeled, 'ambulatory surgery' in the text. Not that you'll find anything in the CMoS. I think you are correct that it is not in there. If I recall correctly, they do not mention italics and inner monologue. Rather they simply don't mention inner monologue under uses of italics. The second thing to consider is, rather than a division of fiction vs non-fiction style guidelines, it may be a division of evolving change: modern vs traditional conventions. The CMoS is a likely representative of tradition. I think both theories are equally likely and it may even be that both apply.
Good points, GingerCoffee. Just for completeness sake, I just searched for 'inner' in the 16th edition and there were seven hits, none of which were associated with the words 'dialogue' or 'monologue.' And you're right. Terminology varies so much. I blame Microsoft.
I used to use italics for thoughts. I thought it was easier to convey them that way. I stopped using them when I figured out I didn't really need them.
Oh Christ, this thread is nearly five years old now ... Can we all just agree that this issue is so "up in the air" that there is no clear cut, black and white, right or wrong way to do this and it all just comes down to personal preference? No? Okay then, let the war rage on.
The whole point of this being a sticky thread is new members often revisit the question. There is no reason they shouldn't add their own comments to the thread.
I just finished a terrible novel called Black Hole Sun, the protagonist has a computer module in his head that talks to him. Without italics, and it is infuriating! From on line to the next I have no idea if he's verbalizing his dialogue or if it's inner. There's a simple way to convey this shit, David Macinnis Gill.
I wasn't aware it was even stickied; it tends to just show up in the recent posts section at regular intervals.
It's best to use italics for thoughts if your writing is third person. If it's first person, you can use normal texts all throughout. for example: First person-I stood there and thought to myself, how could this happen? Third person-How could this happen? Jack thought to himself as he stood in the corridor "How could this happen" for third person does not look right, in my eyes, when it comes to thought processes. A thought should be differentiated from the rest of the writing.
When it's first person, how do you distinguish between narration and inner monologue and can you think of a reason one might want to do that? You can do it with tags or italics or both.
There shouldn't be any differentiating besides specifying "this is what i thought at the time" etc. The character is telling a story, so it isn't necessary to change the writing.
Why would there be no differentiating? Here's an example: “Calm down, Brin. Think it through.” I stared at the place I’d set my trap, the empty place. “There is—” an explanation. I stopped talking aloud and glanced around in all directions. "an explanation" is a direct thought. Using "I thought" would disrupt the flow and the effect. "I stopped talking..." is narration, not direct thought. You can leave the italics out, they aren't mandatory. But clearly the direct thought differs from the narration in that piece.
I understand your reasoning behind your statement, however, I am compelled to state that the way you phrase your sentence is making that more of a spoken thought, not so much a mental thought. Whenever quotations are used, it is deciphered as though that person has spoken. When using italics, it gives the idea that the person is thinking to themselves and not speaking out loud.
In that passage the character talks aloud to herself. Spoken dialogue goes in quotes. Surely you can see that spoken dialogue differs from narration in first person. Direct thoughts also differ from narration. What I posted was an example of the difference between narration and internal monologue. Do you need more examples to understand what I'm describing? As I reached the ground I heard a loud unnatural snap. Oh no! Not here, please not now, not again. I considered climbing back up the tree or running. The tree’s not tall enough. Get ready to run. One can conflate narration with thoughts. That works, especially when the narration is filled with a lot of introspection and commentary. But one need not always conflate the narration with the direct thoughts.
I can't believe I found this thread... This is the first thread I've ever read. This is a bit off subject, but a couple years ago I googled this question, and spent an entire day catching up on the full thread. I knew it was called the Writing Forum, but because of the way people spoke I assumed it was for much more mature people than I - so I didn't bother making an account... On the subject at hand: I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I don't really like italics for thoughts; I feel as though it makes it look cheap/messy but if you're just going to include it without extra formatting, It seems like it has to be done skillfully. ------- Here's an example of what I've written and that I'm seriously questioning (first person past tense): The cart wheels creaked obscenely as I headed to the sanitary department. I wished it would be quieter; the noise felt out of place among the quiet hum of the lights and made me feel even more uncomfortable. Getting the tissues took less than 5 minutes, and I even found a 3-pack that was on sale. See, I could be responsible with my money. I still hadn’t seen anyone, even an employee, and that bothered me. Maybe I should have checked the weather before I left. Nah, Casper would call me if something came up. A quick glance reassured me that I didn’t have any missed phone calls, and my heart slowed a beat. ------ Does it work?
