Using Italics for Thought

[Telcontar]

I like and use italics as internal dialogue, and have never encountered a good reason why it is supposedly frowned upon.

 

[Ankari]

Again, I want to preface this with "I really like the practice of using internal dialogue!"

But going by your example,

Telling: The river is long.
Showing: The river stretched as far as POV's eye could see.
Showing or Telling?: Man, that river is long. We're telling that the river is long, but we're showing the reader the character's actual thoughts on the subject.

The river drained into the blue of the horizon. Brian set his jaw as he plunged the paddle into the calm water. The burning in his shoulders protested each push but he had not choice; the mercenaries wanted him dead.


That is showing (as pertaining to the river). Having the MC state the river is long, whether through internal dialogue or actual dialogue is telling. It has been commented before that using dialogue is a trick for telling information to the reader without giving the reader the impression of info dumping. Why would internal dialogue be different?

 

[Anders Ämting]

Third example:

John looked out the window. Why is Alice doing this to me, he thought? She knows damn well how I feel about cheese!"

That's two extra words, though. Might not seem like much, but it adds up if you have a lot of internal monologues.

Because authors who use it do so extensively. It makes sense to format away the italics in the example Benjamin gave us, because it's one sentence (or 3 or 5). But when you get to 10% of your book as internal dialogue (Steven Erikson comes to mind) then formatting it out won't work. You'd have to keep referring to the internal dialogue as "he thought" or "she thought."

My point is, I'm not so attached to italics that I'll argue with and editor about it. It's kind of whatever for me.

 

[Steerpike]

My point is, I'm not so attached to italics that I'll argue with and editor about it. It's kind of whatever for me.

I agree with this.

 

[yachtcaptcolby]

I've always preferred italics for thoughts, but I'm careful not to overuse it. As others have stated, there are a lot of ways to show what a character's thinking without explicitly saying it. However, there are some situations where that's more difficult than its worth. Take sarcasm, for instance; a character may not give away that he's thinking a wise-ass response to something someone else said so as not to hurt that other person's feelings, but you have to get that sarcasm across to the reader somehow. Some characters also have extensive, constantly running internal monologues which really have to be written out in order to give the reader the full effect.

When I read thoughts that aren't italicized, it just seems weird and throws me off.

 

[BWFoster78]

Again, I want to preface this with "I really like the practice of using internal dialogue!"

But going by your example,



The river drained into the blue of the horizon. Brian set his jaw as he plunged the paddle into the calm water. The burning in his shoulders protested each push but he had not choice; the mercenaries wanted him dead.


That is showing (as pertaining to the river). Having the MC state the river is long, whether through internal dialogue or actual dialogue is telling. It has been commented before that using dialogue is a trick for telling information to the reader without giving the reader the impression of info dumping. Why would internal dialogue be different?

I think you are having a fundamental misunderstanding of my point.

First of all: Dialogue can be used for exposition. Your statement implies that all use of dialogue is telling.

Yes, you can use dialogue as a means of exposition. Yes, sometimes that is poorly done.

All dialogue is not telling.

Dialogue can be used, in my opinion, to show all manner of things. However, this has absolutely nothing to do with my point.

If you are maintaining a narrative distance, you have very few recourses for getting inside your character's head. A closer narration, which seems to be what you are using, allows you to flit inside and out of your character anytime you want. If you're not doing that, you can show your characters thoughts solely by offering an unfiltered description of his actions. This leaves a lot to the interpretation of the readers.

Often, you want to get your reader closer to the character. Another tool to use that doesn't require so much interpretation is for you to actually SHOW your reader what your character is thinking.

Like with dialogue, this showing can be used poorly to tell plot points or it can be used to show the reader plot points.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

This is an interesting topic. I've rarely stumbled upon people that believe using italics for internal thought is a no-no.

I use italics for internal thoughts as long as they are short sentences & I give them their own small paragraph. I separate them from the other text & italicize them because I WANT to draw attention to those words. I WANT the reader to notice a difference. I don't want those words to disappear. Normally, I'd agree that writing should be invisible. Like all guidelines though (my new word for rules) they can be tossed away if the writer is making a conscious choice for a good reason.

It would be very easy to change the writing to include it in regular font within a paragraph but I'm not certain I'd be willing. The choice to write that way was an intentional choice for effect.

 

[squishybug87]

I like using italics for thought. I think showing what the character is thinking bring the reader closer to character. And I disagree that it is always a case of telling rather than showing. You can use the character's internal dialogue to reveal something about their personality.

Rough example:

Jane looked at the painting and smiled. She liked the use of red and blue to complement the green of the landscape. Gary walked past and glanced at it.

'Ugh, that's so ugly! Only a fool would use colors in that way,' he huffed. Jane frowned.

Well, he is an artist himself, so he's probably right. Now come to think of it, the red does clash with the green.

Though I'm telling what she is thinking, I'm showing that she has no faith in her opinion in this topic; on a wider scope, her self esteem is shaky. I could have worked that into the prose, but there is no difference between the two to me. I usually write with the intention of bringing my reader into the character's head, so it is important to me to show their thoughts. If I just relied on her body language, I would run the risk of confusing the reader.

Example:

Jane looked at the painting and smiled. She liked the use of red and blue to complement the green of the landscape. Gary walked past and glanced at it.

'Ugh, that's so ugly! Only a fool would use colors in that way,' he huffed. Jane frowned. She looked at the painting again, touching it gently, before sighing.

To me, I would have to use too many words to convey what I just did by getting into her head. However, I do think that the less it is used the better. I wouldn't make an entire paragraph of just italicised thoughts.

 

[Jabrosky]

This is one of those things.

So the first point is that you have Big Name Authors using italics for thoughts. "Look!" says the newbie author. "[Big Name Author] does it! Why can't I?"

Then the Cranky Editors respond: "Because you're not a Big Name Author. You can't get away with doing that."

This response makes no goddamn sense. It presumes that there exists some objective, universal rule about whether or not you're allowed to use italics for thoughts (which I will henceforth abbreviate IFT), and if you're famous enough, you can get away with it, because who's going to tell Big Name Author what he can and can't do? What they really mean is "We don't like it, so we're going to tell you that you can't do it, because you don't have enough clout to override us."

You have stated my most recent thoughts perfectly with this.

There are no objective, universal rules about writing. There are only guidelines, each of which is more or less compatible with various goals. (Some guidelines correlate so strongly with so many goals that you may as well refer to them as "rules"–much in the same way that thorough, rigorous, time-tested scientific theories eventually become "laws"–but in writing, you can always find a corner case where the guideline doesn't apply.)

Is the guideline "don't use IFT" necessary for achieving your goals? Well, it depends on your goals. If your goal is for non-editors to enjoy your book and tell their friends to buy it, the guideline is irrelevant, because most readers don't mind IFT. Yes, there are some who do, but I'd wager they're a tiny fraction of the population. (Some might argue that IFT are one of those things that people react instinctively negatively to without being able to verbalize, to which I would respond: how exactly could you ever determine that?)

Even if a certain fraction of readers did have problems with IFT, we must ask whether they really object to it on a visceral level or only because certain writing "authorities" told them not to use IFT. A lot of our ideas of what counts as bad writing have less to do with whether we genuinely dislike the prose and more to do with what these "authorities" say we should consider bad writing. As another example, reading varied dialogue tags (e.g. "muttered", "shouted", etc.) in books never bothered me at all until I read "advice" on the Internet saying never to use any word other than "said".

Frankly, I think my increased sensitivity to the so-called commandments of good writing have ruined my love for reading. Nowadays I can hardly read fiction without wondering how the author got away with breaking this and that commandment.

 

[Steerpike]

This:

Jane looked at the painting and smiled. She liked the use of red and blue to complement the green of the landscape. Gary walked past and glanced at it.

'Ugh, that's so ugly! Only a fool would use colors in that way,' he huffed. Jane frowned.

Well, he is an artist himself, so he's probably right. Now come to think of it, the red does clash with the green.


Could also be:


Jane looked at the painting and smiled. She liked the use of red and blue to complement the green of the landscape. Gary walked past and glanced at it.

'Ugh, that's so ugly! Only a fool would use colors in that way,' he huffed. Jane frowned.

The guy was an artist himself, and was probably right. Come to think of it, the red did clash with the green.

I know we're repeating ourselves with alternatives, but I think this example works just as well as the other and is probably more generally accepted. But it does have a different feel, and if that's important to you then you stick to your guns, imo.

 

[Steerpike]

Even if a certain fraction of readers did have problems with IFT, we must ask whether they really object to it on a visceral level or only because certain writing "authorities" told them not to use IFT.

I don't think readers are the ones you have to worry about. Frankly, I doubt most of them care one way or another. If you are going the traditional publishing route, you do have to worry about what editors care about, however. If and editor at a given market is likely to stop reading your manuscript because they think IFT signifies an amateur, it is useful to know that information before submitting.

 

[Ankari]

Let's think of this in the reverse.

Alfred paused before the path leading up the mountain. The ascension was steep. The last sentence is a tell, right? We would all agree upon that and criticize the writer's (mine) use of telling rather than showing. Especially since it's easy to show this information.

Alfred paused before the path leading up the mountain. The ascension is steep. All I did is change the formatting and the tense of the sentence and it became internal dialogue. Everyone wants to tell me that this is not telling?

 

[BWFoster78]

I don't think readers are the ones you have to worry about. Frankly, I doubt most of them care one way or another. If you are going the traditional publishing route, you do have to worry about what editors care about, however. If and editor at a given market is likely to stop reading your manuscript because they think IFT signifies an amateur, it is useful to know that information before submitting.

To a limited extent, you also, though, need to be concerned about professional reviewers. They can turn a lot of readers on to your work, and they most certainly do care about all the little rules of writing that the vast majority of readers probably don't.

Also, I still contend that, while the average reader may not know specifically what to look for, they will notice if you screw up the "rules" too much because the "rules" are there to help you present your story well.

 

[BWFoster78]

Let's think of this in the reverse.

Alfred paused before the path leading up the mountain. The ascension was steep. The last sentence is a tell, right? We would all agree upon that and criticize the writer's (mine) use of telling rather than showing. Especially since it's easy to show this information.

Alfred paused before the path leading up the mountain. The ascension is steep. All I did is change the formatting and the tense of the sentence and it became internal dialogue. Everyone wants to tell me that this is not telling?

Yes. That is telling.

As I wrote, you can use internal dialogue to poorly present exposition. However, you imply that all internal dialogue is poorly done exposition. This is not the case.

 

[Ankari]

Yes. That is telling.

As I wrote, you can use internal dialogue to poorly present exposition. However, you imply that all internal dialogue is poorly done exposition. This is not the case.

That isn't what I'm implying. But it is what I've seen most of the time in books. Even the great authors do it. I think that internal dialogue shouldn't be used for outside observations, it should be only for internal....dialogue.

For a character to comment on anything external through internal thought is telling. A character who reflects on the decision he made and how he can reconcile it with his internal moral compass is a rightful use of internal, and thus italic, dialogue.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Let's think of this in the reverse.

Alfred paused before the path leading up the mountain. The ascension was steep. The last sentence is a tell, right? We would all agree upon that and criticize the writer's (mine) use of telling rather than showing. Especially since it's easy to show this information.

Alfred paused before the path leading up the mountain. The ascension is steep. All I did is change the formatting and the tense of the sentence and it became internal dialogue. Everyone wants to tell me that this is not telling?

In this example I'd agree that this is telling. But using IFT doesn't have to be telling.

Walking down the stairs, he saw his breath. The damp of the walls crystallized into frost, freezing over into a thin sheet of ice by the time he reached the bottom.

*It shouldn't be this cold.*

I don't have italics on the iPad so it's between asterisks. I don't think the above is a tell at all... It's a contemplation of the surroundings and changes that were written as a show.

 

[BWFoster78]

That isn't what I'm implying. But it is what I've seen most of the time in books. Even the great authors do it. I think that internal dialogue shouldn't be used for outside observations, it should be only for internal....dialogue.

For a character to comment on anything external through internal thought is telling. A character who reflects on the decision he made and how he can reconcile it with his internal moral compass is a rightful use of internal, and thus italic, dialogue.

Point.

That's not the impression I got from your initial statement, however. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Penpilot]

I really didn't know italicised thoughts were such a big deal.

Personally, I use them sparingly like adverbs and adjectives. I put thought into whether something should be italicised or not. Generally speaking, I find that I don't need them. In third person narrative, it's natural that the prose zoom in and out in terms of closeness, and as long as you word things right for flow and clarity, I don't think italics are necessary, and you won't need the 'he/she though' tags either. It should be clear from the context.

Another point I'd like to make is, generally, I don't think readers consciously pay attention to these things. Italicised or not the communication of the idea will be clear for instances like this.

Mike ground his teeth when he saw Rick kissing Ashly across the street. That Bastard. He wanted to rush over and kick his ass but held back.

Should 'That Bastard' be italicised? I think what's going on is clear. 'That Bastard' could be italicised or, IMHO, not. To me it depends on if you want to emphasise it or not, and I don't think a though tag is necessary.

 

[BWFoster78]

Should 'That Bastard' be italicised? I think what's going on is clear. 'That Bastard' could be italicised IMHO or not. To me it depends on if you want to emphasise it or not, and I don't think a though tag is necessary.

I prefer the italics to remove the possibility of misunderstanding. The thought in italics is definitely a thought.

On the other hand, I will agree that overuse of italics is bad. It can be distracting, and long stretches of it are undeniably horrible.

 

[Steerpike]

But in the example by Penpilot, is there really a reasonable possibility of misunderstanding? I don't think there is.