Author Topic: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.  (Read 3274 times)

JRTomlin

To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« on: September 20, 2019, 02:19:49 PM »
Interior dialogue. Do you italicise or not? I've done it both ways and have never figured out which is better.  :shrug

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Post-Crisis D

Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #1 on: September 20, 2019, 02:43:28 PM »
The character's thoughts?  I italicize.  Oy, those people that use an s where it ought to be a z.  Geesh.  I mean, yes, I italicize.
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Lynn

Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #2 on: September 20, 2019, 03:49:21 PM »
I almost never italicize interior thoughts or dialogue. Only if I want to emphasize it for some reason. But I write my narrative through my character, in a really deep third-person POV. So anyone reading it should pretty much assume everything on the page comes from the character.
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VisitasKeat

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Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #3 on: September 20, 2019, 04:13:56 PM »
If the whole story is mostly interior dialogue, say, telepathic communications, or, through an embedded brain inside a robot, then, perhaps, the whole story can be written in normal fonts while the exterior dialogue, the real one, can be done in italics.
 

Michelle Louring

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Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #4 on: September 20, 2019, 04:52:59 PM »
For thoughts, I italicize. I like that there's a clear difference between literal thoughts and narration, but I'm pretty used to reading both, so I'm not sure it matters all that much in the end.


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Simon Haynes

Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #5 on: September 20, 2019, 10:25:52 PM »
It varies by chapter (apparently.)  Maybe it's an odd-even thing.

ie I'm not consistent with this, and I know it. But there is a fine line between the character's thoughts and describing their thoughts, and if the sentence reads like the latter even though it's meant to be the former, I don't italicise.
 

DrewMcGunn

Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #6 on: September 20, 2019, 11:53:05 PM »
Interior dialogue. Do you italicise or not? I've done it both ways and have never figured out which is better.  :shrug

Thoughts?

Great question.
Generally, I use italics to denote interior thoughts, foreign language, or something of particular emphasis (Which is, admittedly, a gray area).


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Arches

Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #7 on: September 21, 2019, 01:41:41 AM »
As Lynn noted, the deeper the POV, the less need for italics to show thoughts. I write in first person, with a single POV character for each book, and I rarely italicize thoughts. Just excited utterances that would be punctuated with an exclamation point if spoken.
 
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spin52

Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #8 on: September 21, 2019, 02:00:56 AM »
Interior dialogue. Do you italicise or not? I've done it both ways and have never figured out which is better.  :shrug

Thoughts?

Great question.
Generally, I use italics to denote interior thoughts, foreign language, or something of particular emphasis (Which is, admittedly, a gray area).

Same here. With the last, I read the sentence aloud, and if I naturally put a heavy emphasis on a word, it gets italicized. It doesn't happen too often.
     


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Tom Wood

Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #9 on: September 21, 2019, 02:09:13 AM »
Harris used free indirect speech in The Silence of the Lambs. For the very first instance, he added the 'she thought' tag. From there on, he just used italics with no attribution. It's very effective.
 

Bill Hiatt

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Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #10 on: September 21, 2019, 02:09:43 AM »
In first person, thoughts don't always need to be italicized because it's clear the character is thinking. However, I italicize if thoughts are presented in the context of dialog (like what the character is thinking while conversing with someone). This often takes the form of what the character really wants to say and would be confusing if presented without italics. As a fantasy writer, I also use it for telepathic communications.

For books in which you plan to do an audio version, be very sparing with interior monologue that needs to be italicized in print. Even a good narrator may have a hard time getting the distinction to come across in audio.


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JRTomlin

Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #11 on: September 21, 2019, 06:29:23 AM »
I almost never italicize interior thoughts or dialogue. Only if I want to emphasize it for some reason. But I write my narrative through my character, in a really deep third-person POV. So anyone reading it should pretty much assume everything on the page comes from the character.
I write generally in deep third-person (whether it is really deep third-person I don't know 😜 ) but I still sometimes have this feeling that direct 'quotations' of thoughts should be italicized. Or sometimes I feel that way. I am always in the character's PoV but I don't that often actually say the words that he is thinking. If that makes any sense at all.  :writethink:

The only other thing I ever italicise (Take that, you 'z' users!) are foreign words.

I also write in the past tense. So if it is italicised, should I switch it to present tense as though it were regular dialogue. I don't *think* I have in the past but honestly, I'm not sure.

Honest to god, as many novels as I have written, I should have this sh*t down.

« Last Edit: September 21, 2019, 06:38:03 AM by JRTomlin »
 

Lynn

Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #12 on: September 21, 2019, 06:33:11 AM »
I almost never italicize interior thoughts or dialogue. Only if I want to emphasize it for some reason. But I write my narrative through my character, in a really deep third-person POV. So anyone reading it should pretty much assume everything on the page comes from the character.
I write generally in deep third-person (whether it is really deep third-person I don't know 😜 ) but I still sometimes have this feeling that direct 'quotations' of thoughts should be italicized. Or sometimes I feel that way. I am always in the character's PoV but I don't that often actually say the words that he is thinking. If that makes any sense at all.  :writethink:

It would probably make a difference if I only did it a few times a chapter or something, but I'm pretty sure my books would be half full of italicized text if I tried that. :D
Don't rush me.
 

JRTomlin

Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #13 on: September 21, 2019, 06:36:52 AM »
That is probably the difference in deep third and really deep third. 😜

I rarely do it more than once or twice a chapter. I tend to save it for when I think it's not obvious or when it's an important point.
 

LilyBLily

Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #14 on: September 21, 2019, 08:39:14 AM »
I write third person deep POV, and the only times I italicize are when one of my characters talks to herself or himself. Examples:

That went over well.
Down, girl.
Whoa.

I try to follow the rules about not using "She thought" or "he wondered" and similar. I write what the thought is. I find that easy enough to do. There is no need to italicize deus ex machina or deja vu, or a host of more obscure foreign words or phrases. But do I include accent marks? Yes.

I'm halfway hopeless at doing descriptions via deep POV. Written descriptions are in part like drawings--we use conventions to indicate generally accepted ideas. People don't really know consciously what someone else's eyes express, but we have literary conventions that claim we do. Perhaps the whole face, and definitely unconsciously we understand. But describing the neuroceptive as the perceptive is a convention, not a truth.

As part of deep POV I try not to use adverbs that convey tone quite effectively, such as "cynically"--even though they often fit the situation perfectly. It's a struggle.     
 

Post-Crisis D

Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #15 on: September 21, 2019, 09:29:51 AM »
I try to follow the rules about not using "She thought" or "he wondered" and similar.

There are "rules" about not using tags with thoughts?  Pfft, I think to myself.
Mulder: "If you're distracted by fear of those around you, it keeps you from seeing the actions of those above."
The X-Files: "Blood"
 

ashleycapes

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Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #16 on: September 21, 2019, 11:18:12 AM »
I've used both the 'main' approaches across different series and my readers seem to have no real preference (not that I have an enormous sample size or anything) or if they do, they've never mentioned it :)

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j tanner

Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #17 on: September 21, 2019, 11:32:52 AM »
Quote
I write generally in deep third-person (whether it is really deep third-person I don't know 😜 ) but I still sometimes have this feeling that direct 'quotations' of thoughts should be italicized.

I've tried to avoid that more and more over the years, usually catching them in the editing pass. When you're already deep in the character's thoughts, what's the point of an even deeper (or less deep?) directly quoted thought? And often switching to present tense. I just rewrite it back into the flow of thoughts to keep things moving along in the fixed POV and save italics for emphasis.

I could see cases where it makes sense like unspoken replies or something, but in general I prefer to rewrite them when I catch myself.

When reading, it's not something that knocks me out of a story or anything. Very personal choice craft question.
 

JRTomlin

Re: To italicise or not to italicise. That is the question.
« Reply #18 on: September 22, 2019, 11:32:58 AM »
I try to follow the rules about not using "She thought" or "he wondered" and similar.

There are "rules" about not using tags with thoughts?  Pfft, I think to myself.
If there is a rule against it, no one mentioned the rule to the Chicago Manual of Style which gives that as one possibility.

The thing with switching to present I feel is jarring. It would never make me stop reading a novel but it makes me kind of do a double-take. I think i agree with j tanner that that is the direction I'll go in. In a dozen or so novels I have done it every which possible way it can be done in the past.

The more I think about it the more I feel that if you are already in deep third there is no reason at least usually to directly quote a thought. I'm not given to absolute rules though.