Writng thoughts...

[FifthView]

Fifth, I am very impressed that you would even know this about Herbert. I read a lot of books (many years ago), but unless I had read them very recently, I don't think I would recall this detail at all.

I didn't remember the detail, heh. I bought a used hardcover of Dune some months ago, planning to study its story structure. Haven't quite done that. But I did think the thoughts were simply italics without speech tags–that's what I remembered–until a month or so ago when I happened to look for those thoughts in the book again and realized my memory had been faulty.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I humored my editor by italicizing a few words... I find myself changing them back. LOL. Part of this probably goes back to screenwriting... never direct the actor in how they say their lines, and in this case, I don't like having dialogue directed for how I read. I did it exactly zero times in over 100k words, LOL. I understand the temptation, I just get why writers succumb to it. I could theorize, but it might get ugly, heh heh.

Of course, this also depends some on genre and TA. I forgive this more in a MG or YA book than one targeting adults. And most often they emphasize for no good reason except to pause my reading brain, which I dislike. Better than "finally" and "suddenly"... but, how often have I seen finally italicized for emphasis? It's like saying, stare long and hard at my horrid adverb! LOL.

But hey, I'm a loon.

Too much of anything is typically bad... Well, most things.

But, yes. I use italics for emphasis sparingly, when it is needed for dialogue to be said a certain way.

 

[Michael K. Eidson]

I'm the exact opposite, I hate italics for emphasis, too much will make me quit reading a book. Annoys the bejeebers out of me.

Interesting.

There are times when I feel the need to emphasize a word or short phrase. I try to do without the emphasis, but sometimes the text feels wrong to me without it. In those rare cases, I use italics.

I don't often use italics for indicating thoughts, because like others have said, separating thoughts from the narrative isn't typically necessary when writing in a close POV. But there are times when I think italics help with this too, as in my current short story WIP. Now I have to reassess those instances. Thanks, Demesnedenoir.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

There is third close/intimate, and there is direct thought, and a very blurry area in there. The issue comes into play if the writer chooses to write what is clearly a direct thought in 3rd...

Bob stood across the room, and Roger wormed through the crowd until right in his face. I'd like to kick your ass, you worthless SOB. "Bob! Great to see you again."

 

[FifthView]

There is third close/intimate, and there is direct thought, and a very blurry area in there. The issue comes into play if the writer chooses to write what is clearly a direct thought in 3rd...

Bob stood across the room, and Roger wormed through the crowd until right in his face. I'd like to kick your ass, you worthless SOB. "Bob! Great to see you again."

Also, in third intimate, there are "thoughts" that aren't really thoughts, or not literal thoughts, but are more like impressions, maybe even past thoughts:

Bob stood across the room. He was a sorry sort, always insinuating some neglect in his coworkers, pointing out their deficiencies and commenting on their errors. Especially when the Boss Man was around. Roger wormed through the crowd until right in his face. I'd like to kick your ass, you worthless SOB. "Bob! Great to see you again."​

So...the second and third sentences here are impressions. Is Roger actually thinking those, literally? Clearly, these are his impressions, and he may even habitually refer to their boss as Boss Man, or think that term; but, is he thinking it now?

A lot of our "thinking" in real life is wordless, very different from those times we consciously put words to our impressions and think those words.

 

[R Snyder]

So, I get that there are no real rules for this type of thing, and usually I muddle through with whatever punctuation seems to fit best, but I wonder which of the below you would prefer for writing out thoughts that read like dialog, but are not really spoken.

I just wrote this one, and the question popped up for me again.


1) This could be it, she thought. This could be where she fell.

or

2) 'This could be it,' she thought. 'This could be where she fell.'

or

3) "This could be it," she thought. "This could be where she fell."


(Edited to add italics)

or

4) This could be it, she thought. This could be where she fell.


Or perhaps something entirely different?

For me, I tend to never use double quotes for this, but occasionally use single quotes, and perhaps at times use italics.

Number 1, definitely. Just be consistent throughout. And if the thought occurs within a series of dialog, have her turn her head and look into the distance or something.