Personally, I'd keep them all - but then, I LOVE thoughts in italics.

Astrea, I think this rocks. Keep 'em, like Catkin says. They're just jealous.

They're just jealous.

Jem, the conversation is about variations on a writing technique rather than about passing judgement on a conversation thread that you weren't party to and have interpreted utterly arse-wise.

For my tuppence, I'd say you can do either if you're consistent. Though, in that example, you'd need to tweak the text in the first italics if you took out the formatting.

They're just jealous. Jem, the conversation is about variations on a writing technique rather than about passing judgement on a conversation thread that you weren't party to and have interpreted utterly arse-wise.

Please, let's play nice, folks! There is no sub-text, no hidden agenda here, all I'm asking is for input on alternative ways to do this, given that I do accept I sometimes over-use italics.

Though, in that example, you'd need to tweak the text in the first italics if you took out the formatting.

Great, that's a very useful comment, Gaius. Can I ask how you'd rephrase it?

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I meant my italics, of course, not the comment!

Jem, the conversation is about variations on a writing technique rather than about passing judgement on a conversation thread that you weren't party to and have interpreted utterly arse-wise.

It was a throwaway remark, Gaius, meant to cheer Astrea up because she gave me the impression she was worried she'd offended someone. No need to get so exercised!

Astrea, I would leave out all of the italics in your sample, if it were me doing the writing. I think it's perfectly clear that they are the character's inner thoughts, without needing italics or anything to highlight it. Having said that, I don't think the italics particularly intrude, so it's completely down to you whether you leave them in or not. I've seen much worse stylistic intrusion, in published books (such as a complete absence of quotation marks around speech).

Alex

I think I agree with Alex - it would work fine without but with is ok too.

I disagree that you need to be consistent. I don't think you do - you may want to convey different impressions. But I do think need to know roughly why you are doing it or not doing it each time.

And Alex I agree about non-speech-marked text. I see that loads at the moment - what's with it? I think it's meant to show the book is Litracher with a capital L.

And Alex I agree about non-speech-marked text. I see that loads at the moment - what's with it? I think it's meant to show the book is Litracher with a capital L.

Or Illiterate with a capital C

The no-speech-marks-at-all thing is about pushing the whole narrative towards stream of consciousness, I think; the feeling that the whole thing is the experience of a single, particular self, thoughts, words said, words heard, description, and so on. After all, poets do it all the time. But yes, quite hard work.

I'd be interested to know what people think of my analysis of the ways of integrating thoughts into narrative without using italics, as free indirect style is going to be part of the workshop I'm doing in York... Clear as mud? Useful? Perversely wrong-headed?


Emma

I disagree that you need to be consistent.

Interested by this.

I've always seen punctuation and formatting as signposts to your readers - which is why I also agree that unquoted speech sucks - so thought consistency was a no-brainer, like ending sentences with a full-stop.

In this case, where italics are used, readers will be unconsciously searching for the reason why, whereas if omitted, they will just deal with the text they meet. If they are used inconsistently, does that not just generate an unnecessary distraction?

G

Yes I can see that's the intent (with the speech) but I think it has to be done superbly well. I find it quite hard going even with amazing writers like Saramago (although with him the lack of conventional capitalisation and punctuation contributes to the difficulty). I'm prepared to put up with it from him though for the sake of the prose, but I find it just plain annoying when the work begins to outweigh the joy!

I liked your analysis Emma, but it does beg the question why then, do authors feel the need to italicise? I was looking through my own WIP and realise that I almost never do it, there are huge swathes of thought but I very rarely use italics. When I do it tends to be when the thought is at odds with the text in some way, or needs to be underlined. Something like,

"You're angry," he said in tone of deep understanding. No shit, Sherlock, I thought. "Oh sorry. Do you want to dump me again and I'll try to be grateful this time?" I asked. He smiled, a sad soulful smile that made my teeth itch, and I thought how strange it was that I'd spent so many nights in his bed, and now a minute more in his company felt like it would kill me. But at least now I could drive home without his beloved Dolly Parton on the car stereo. The thought cheered me up for the first time in days.

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oh sorry Gauis - I crossed with yours.

I am not completely sure what the answer is - I can only say that for me italics are driven not by the grammatical demands of what is happening - dirrect thought, narrated, whatever - because I agree with Emma that almost all types of thought can be conveyed without italics.

Rather the use is dictated by the impression I want to give - when I italicise it's because I want to create a slightly more discrete, underlined sort of thought than when I don't. A kind of "cha-ching!" moment.

The example above maybe conveys this - I'm not sure if it's a very good one though! Should hasten to add, it's not from my WIP, I just made it up.

The only use to which I would put italics, underlining, bold face, and so on, is emphasis. For example, if a character is speaking and I want to make plain that they've emphasised a word in their dialogue, then I would italicise it or give it a bold typeface.

That, however, is a personal style. I don't have problems with others adopting different uses for text styling, as long as (a) it is done reasonably sparingly, and (b) it is obvious to the reader what the point of the different styling is.

Alex

Personally I like inner thoughts written as italics, it works for me and I have plenty of examples in my current WiP. It's also common in numerous novels, so I would put it down to personal style and not a strict rule.

Ben Yezir

but it does beg the question why then, do authors feel the need to italicise?

Well, I would have said, I've no idea why they do, except if they're ducking out of learning to do no-italics properly.

But your own example is really interesting, and I do see exactly what you mean, and how you might find yourself doing it instinctively, for some thoughts and not others...

In which case, I'd tend to go with it, since it's non-standard (because not consistent - I agree that italics for all thoughts is becoming one standard option) but expressive... and fight it out with your copy editor in the due course of time.

Mine both hate my sole use of italics (except for simple, emphasised words, as Alex says) which is for this kind of thing.

"What do you want to do?" John asked. She thought for a moment, staring into the distance, rememberingDon't ask yourself what you want to do, Yogi Bear said that day. Ask yourself what you want to be. Would John understand that? And how on earth was she going to explain?

They always want to put the quoted, said-in-the-past thing, in ""s, but I want to keep those for things that are said now. A lot of Stet-ing, and swearing goes on, and then about halfway through the copy-edit I run out of energy to do it, and let them have their way...

Emma

<Added>

inner thoughts

I know what you mean, Ben, but is there any other kind of thought?