When to use italics and when to use quotation in writing

[Eastwatcher]

Hi guys and girls

Just a quick question which I could really use some opinions on. I've seen several different styles of use of Italics and 'quotation marks' in books for different reasons, and I was wondering what other peoples' opinions are? I also know that there are different conventions and preferences between the UK and US writers regarding the use of ' ' quotation marks instead of " " speech marks which will then affect this. I'm a UK writer and use " " speech marks for dialog.
In my own work, I use italics for any internal speech (thoughts and whatnot) and inside of dialog when a character emphasises a word. I then use quotation marks both inside and outside dialog when referring specifically to repeating something someone else has said, such as drawing emphasis to someone's specific turn of phrase. However, I get confused when I need to draw attention to a specific word outside of dialog. It doesn't happen often, so I want to use italics, but I'm still worried it will get confused as literal inner thoughts from the current character. Sometimes I'll have a character's inner thought be a single word (usually cursing or being sarcastic), which is where I think readers might get confused. I think I get around this by the emphasised italic word being alone in part of a sentence, while the inner thought will have the entire sentence in italics, even if it's just a one word sentence.
Also, with regard to specifically quoting something some has said outside of dialog, am I right in keeping it as ' ' quotation marks instead of " " speech marks.
e.g. Arkos's father always said 'a sword drawn for the first time is often at its sharpest'.
OR
Arkos's father always said, "a sword drawn for the first time is often at its sharpest." (in this case it would require its own paragraph as it would count as a new character speaking.

Thanks in advance for any help. I've seen a lot of variation on this and so far the consensus seems to be just pick a style and be consistent, but I'm still unsure on the style I want.

Cheers,

Eastwatcher

 

[Penpilot]

For me, I like to keep it simple. I don't use italics very much, and when I do, it's for titles of some sort, emphasize, but very-very rarely is it for internal thoughts.

My reasoning is that I write in close third person, so everything is pretty much the person's thoughts, and it's perfectly find to drift into really close narrative and zoom out. So in your example, I'd probably just write the following.

Arko's father always said a sword draw for the first time is often the at its sharpest.

This is regardless of whether it's first or third person. I'd recommend flipping through a few books and seeing how things are handled to gain some perspective on what's been done.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

I'm a bit unusual in that I use italics for when characters are speaking, with the justification being that most of the beings in my universe are telepathic to some degree.

 

[skip.knox]

First check the style guides. Chicago Manual of Style, AP Style Guide, that sort of thing. They will at least be clear. You can choose to deviate of course. But looking at what others have done will only return the results you have found: someone somewhere has done it one way, and someone else did it differently.

I have some sympathy with your dilemma. I do use italics of internal thoughts, and that works great. In addition, though, I have a fair number of foreign words (my stories are set in an alternate Earth). These, too, I italicize. For the most part these are separate enough, but every once in a while the one trips over the other. FTR, I do not use italics for emphasis; being an old-fashioned sort, I hold to the axiom that one achieves emphasis through words, not typography. I have no problems when others use italics this way; it's just my own writing habit won't allow it.

 

[Eastwatcher]

Thanks guys. That's a lot of help. I think it all comes down to consistency. As long as I keep using them for the same reasons throughout, I should be fine. TheCrystallineEntity, your reason makes a lot of sense for your own work, so it kind of justifies the idea of personal preference, as long as whatever a writer does remains clear to the reader.