Dialogue punctuation

[snoopercharmbrights]

The difficulty with all the problems among a variety of stories occurs when the reader stops reading and thinks, 'Oh, no. That's wrong,' instead of reading on.

Different things will cause this with different readers. Some will object most strongly to bad grammar, others to bad spelling, others to homophones, and so forth.

The point about a VE is that some of these errors are more obvious to someone reading a story for the first time than they are to the author.

 

[PennLady]

The difficulty with all the problems among a variety of stories occurs when the reader stops reading and thinks, 'Oh, no. That's wrong,' instead of reading on.

Different things will cause this with different readers. Some will object most strongly to bad grammar, others to bad spelling, others to homophones, and so forth.

The point about a VE is that some of these errors are more obvious to someone reading a story for the first time than they are to the author.

All true, except -- this wasn't an error.

 

[palisa]

The difficulty with all the problems among a variety of stories occurs when the reader stops reading and thinks, 'Oh, no. That's wrong,' instead of reading on.

Well, that's very true, and its a good reason to be picky about punctuation and grammar and parallel construction and all the other things that students bitch about. But it's not the writer's fault if some reader has a completely wrong idea in his head and hits a road bump because of it.

CMS 13.41 covers unspoken discourse, which can be quoted or not "according to the context or the writer's preference."

I think the point that italics for unspoken discourse isn't used much these days is correct. Better to keep it roman and tag it with a "he thought" or something.

But it probably could be used effectively, even though none of the style guides I have include unspoken thoughts among the uses for italic type. I think it would work for long interior monologues that you want to set apart from the story or, set up correctly, for sharp bursts of interior reactions by a listener amid a long monologue by another character...like a child reacting to a scolding by his parent, for example, or a husband listening to a tongue-lashing.

 

[snoopercharmbrights]

... But it probably could be used effectively, even though none of the style guides I have include unspoken thoughts among the uses for italic type. I think it would work for long interior monologues that you want to set apart from the story or, set up correctly, for sharp bursts of interior reactions by a listener amid a long monologue by another character...like a child reacting to a scolding by his parent, for example, or a husband listening to a tongue-lashing.

I have seen italics used very effectively for dream or day-dream inserts.

Also I use it for foreign language dialogue where the reader needs to know what is said but one character doesn't speak that language. For example:
Wolfgang smiled at Alice and said, "Please go with this man. He will look after you."
To his accomplice he said, "She needs a thorough whipping."
Relieved and totally ignorant of her fate, Alice followed the man meekly.