Thoughts without italic

[TheLobster]

Question for all you other writers who use italics for thoughts or inner dialogue: do you find yourself leaning to the right when you're thinking, or is it just me?

On a related note, if I format my characters’ thoughts like that, does it mean they’re thinking boldly?

 

[YmaOHyd]

On a related note, if I format my characters’ thoughts like that, does it mean they’re thinking boldly?

Are they thinking big thoughts?

 

[old_prof]

Are they thinking big thoughts?

But this site doesn't let you think big.

 

[StillStunned]

Another thread successfully derailed.

 

[YmaOHyd]

But this site doesn't let you think big.

Damn! At least we can draw a line under it, if the formatting isn't broken.

 

[Britva415]

I know they use them in France as quotation marks. Hadn't heard that Spanish uses them too.

I don't believe there is any language which mixes them with hanging quotes.

 

[old_prof]

Damn! At least we can draw a line under it, if the formatting isn't broken.

So we can think linearly.

 

[APilgrimSquare]

If I can’t otherwise connote that a character is specifically thinking something, I’ll add a “he/she/they thought” after the thought. But I won’t otherwise quote or italicize the thought itself. It isn’t dialogue.

 

[Katie_Mae]

I really feel like a lot of people are missing the fact that the OP isn't asking about the internal thoughts of the POV character...

 

[Britva415]

I really feel like a lot of people are missing the fact that the OP isn't asking about the internal thoughts of the POV character...

What do you mean? It's not internal thoughts? It's not a POV character? What difference does it make with regard to typography?

 

[old_prof]

What do you mean? It's not internal thoughts? It's not a POV character? What difference does it make with regard to typography?

I think one of the issues is separating what they are sensings/reading from someone else from their own thoughts. Most of the comments have talked about "blah blah blah," I thought (with lots of differences in how that is written. (I would never use what I just posted, but I thought it was clear in this context.)

I had problems with this in my one mind reading story and it ended up confusing at least some readers.

 

[Katie_Mae]

What do you mean? It's not internal thoughts? It's not a POV character? What difference does it make with regard to typography?

The thoughts are not internal thoughts of the POV character. POV stands for point of view.

The story is written in the first person, so the point of view is the narrator. Eg "I went to the shops."

If it was their own internal thoughts, then they could be written direct, without italics, tagging or quotation marks.

Eg, the op could write:

I walk to the shops. Gosh, it's so hot today, I think.

But, they could also write:

I walk to the shops. Gosh, it's so hot!

Many people are commenting just do the second option. However, the thoughts the op is trying to write do not belong to "I"

The main character is psychic and reading other's thoughts. Option two doesn't really work so well in this instance.

Consider

I walk to the shops. I pass a hot woman.

Hot... hot... she thinks.

Oh! She thinks I'm hot? I reach into her mind.

It's so hot today.

Oh...

Now compare to

I walk to the shops. I pass a hot woman.

Hot... hot...

Oh! She thinks I'm hot? I reach into her mind.

It's so hot today.

Oh

See how the second it's more confusing to tell which are the pov characters thoughts vs the woman's thoughts? This is why the op is asking.

Sorry for any typos, I'm on my phone now and it's hard for me to see what I've written.

 

[Britva415]

Most of the comments have talked about "blah blah blah," I thought (with lots of differences in how that is written

Exactly. Because that is what OP was asking about. I didn't follow what @Katie_Mae was getting at.

Unless it was about the "MC can read other people's thoughts" bit, which is what I had in mind when I asked what difference it would make wrt the typography.

"Bla bla bla," she thought. No mindreading

vs

She heard Billy thinking "bla bla bla" to himself.

 

[Britva415]

The thoughts are not internal thoughts of the POV character. POV stands for point of view.

The story is written in the first person, so the point of view is the narrator. Eg "I went to the shops."

If it was their own internal thoughts, then they could be written direct, without italics, tagging or quotation marks.

Eg, the op could write:

I walk to the shops. Gosh, it's so hot today, I think.

But, they could also write:

I walk to the shops. Gosh, it's so hot!

Many people are commenting just do the second option. However, the thoughts the op is trying to write do not belong to "I"

The main character is psychic and reading other's thoughts. Option two doesn't really work so well in this instance.

Consider

I walk to the shops. I pass a hot woman.

Hot... hot... she thinks.

Oh! She thinks I'm hot? I reach into her mind.

It's so hot today.

Oh...

Now compare to

I walk to the shops. I pass a hot woman.

Hot... hot...

Oh! She thinks I'm hot? I reach into her mind.

It's so hot today.

Oh

See how the second it's more confusing to tell which are the pov characters thoughts vs the woman's thoughts? This is why the op is asking.

Sorry for any typos, I'm on my phone now and it's hard for me to see what I've written.

All right, I see what you mean.

You're right that one is easier to read than the other, but it really doesn't matter whose thoughts are being quoted. The problem with both of these versions is not a typography problem, it's a narration problem.

 

[Katie_Mae]

Exactly. Because that is what OP was asking about. I didn't follow what @Katie_Mae was getting at.

Unless it was about the "MC can read other people's thoughts" bit, which is what I had in mind when I asked what difference it would make wrt the typography.

"Bla bla bla," she thought. No mindreading

vs

She heard Billy thinking "bla bla bla" to himself.

But you're still using quotation marks and tagging. Some people are saying to do neither.

 

[Katie_Mae]

All right, I see what you mean.

You're right that one is easier to read than the other, but the problem with both of these versions is not a typography problem, it's a narration problem. And it really doesn't matter whose thoughts are being quoted.

In not saying it's a typography problem. So sounds like we agree?

 

[Britva415]

But you're still using quotation marks and tagging. Some people are saying to do neither.

What I'm saying is, I believe that it doesn't matter if it's the POV character's thoughts or someone else's thoughts (via telepathy). The narration is how we make them distinct and understandable, no matter what typographical convention or anti-convention one wants to contrive.

 

[Britva415]

In not saying it's a typography problem. So sounds like we agree?

All I know is you said something about POV character vs some other character, and I took that as if you meant it should make some difference how to punctuate it (because you didn't say more). I don't at this point really have a clearer idea what it was you were trying to get at by bringing it up.

 

[YmaOHyd]

One thing I'd say about exotic formatting is that both < > and [ ] do things in various markup languages, and I'd be real careful about putting things in them. I'd much rather stick with either indirect description (he touched her mind. Her thoughts were warm and caring blah blah) or the most basic single-quote text plus tag ('Boy, I like caramel lattes,' she thought, and he judged her for it).

 

[Katie_Mae]

All I know is you said something about POV character vs some other character, and I took that as if you meant it should make some difference how to punctuate it (because you didn't say more). I don't at this point really have a clearer idea what it was you were trying to get at by bringing it up.

People are saying to not use quotation marks or tagging. By tagging I mean "he thought " or "I heard him think."
So the examples you gave of how to make it clear in the narrative wouldn't be allowed by these people.

What I'm saying is the OP has been given some bad advice, which would be good advice IF the thoughts were the internal thoughts of the POV character. However, because they are other people thoughts, it's become bad advice. My initial statement wasn't aimed specifically at you, I just replied to you because you replied to me.

An example below of one comment:

In first person, you don't need internal dialogue, because everything the narrator writes is internal dialogue. The whole narrative is from the narrator's point of view.

Example:

I entered the house. It was dark and musty, and it scared the heck out of me. I worried about what was around the corner.
[snip]

Just get rid of the dialogue and separated internal thoughts and weave them into the narrative.

The example of what NOT to do was this:

He entered the house. It was dark and musty. "I'm scared," he thought. "I wonder what is around the corner."

Now, this advice works when the thoughts ARE the thoughts belonging to the pov character. People are right, you don't need "I thought", quotes or italics or anything like that. Because, in first person, ALL thoughts are from the point of view of the narrator.

But, in this story, not every thought is from the narrator's point of view. Which makes this advice with others (not you) have given problematic. Your question is why? Why does this change the advice?

Take the following scene.

I sat down in my assigned desk and waited. A young woman entered, and after a moment of looking, she sat in the desk next to me. She was cute, but did she think I was too? I dopped my pencil. She looked over and I reached into her mind.

"Oh, he's really cute," she thought.

Cute? Me? Nice. I probed deeper in her mind.

"Pity I can't see him, this ugly idiot next to me blocks his view."

Huh?

"But he's so hot," she leaned forward, looking beyond me. "I love guys with long hair!"

My hair was short... very short. I looked where she was and saw...

Now, let's apply the advice some people are giving.
Rules:
No typographical changes.
No quotation marks of any sort.
No he thought/she thought tags. And, because we have no 'speakers,' lets not put the "speech" on their own lines, because, after all, thoughts aren't dialogue.

I sat down in my assigned desk and waited. A young woman entered, and after a moment of looking, she sat in the desk next to me. She was cute, but did she think I was too? I dopped my pencil. She looked over and I reached into her mind. He's really cute. Cute? Me? Nice. I probed deeper in her mind.

Pity I can't see him, this ugly idiot next to me blocks his view. Huh? But he's so hot, she leaned forward, looking beyond me. I love guys with long hair!

My hair was short... very short. I looked where she was and saw...

Now, this is just one person's thoughts, plus the pov character's but it's confusing. Let's make it less confusing, while following the rules.

I sat down in my assigned desk and waited. A young woman entered, and after a moment of looking, she sat in the desk next to me. She was cute, and I wanted to know if she found me cute so I probed into her mind. At first, it seemed like she found me cute, but then I realised she was looking at some other guy and in her opinion I was ugly.

I mean, it works. But is it really preferable to have a whole story this way?

Consider if the narrator is listening to a whole group of thoughts and we can't use "he thought" or "Sara thought" or anything else to denote who is thinking, and we can't use quotation marks.

So, what I'm saying is, that because some people are missing the fact that the pov character can read minds, and the thoughts are other people's thoughts, they're giving advice which doesn't really suit the situation.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I mean, it works. But is it really preferable to have a whole story this way?

To me, yes. I think the biggest problem with that excerpt is that it's cute...cute...cute.

I sat down in my assigned desk and waited. A young woman entered, and after a moment of looking, she sat in the desk next to me. She was cute, and I wondered what she thought of me. Her thoughts radiated desire, and I probed more deeply, breaking the connection when I realized it was for the guy one desk over.

Or whatever! Again, I'm in favor of using blah-blah thought to supplement that. But I'm not interested in mindreading as a narrative device, and making it look like alternative dialogue doesn't make it more interesting to me.

 

[Katie_Mae]

To me, yes. I think the biggest problem with that excerpt is that it's cute...cute...cute.

Or whatever! Again, I'm in favor of using blah-blah thought to supplement that. But I'm not interested in mindreading as a narrative device, and making it look like alternative dialogue doesn't make it more interesting to me.

I was trying not to use "she thought" or "her thoughts" as these are on the banned list that's why I didn't write "I wondered what she thought of me" and went with the cute... cute... cute...

But even if we swap out the word thought like I did I think we're still running afowl of the rules by indicating who's thinking. To clarify, the advice is that because we already know all the thoughts come from pov character, there's no need to indicate that the thought are thoughts or who they belong to.

 

[OralAllOver]

maybe try a different font, with serifs?

https://www.richellebraswell.com/blog/how-to-write-a-characters-thoughts

 

[Katie_Mae]

maybe try a different font, with serifs?

https://www.richellebraswell.com/blog/how-to-write-a-characters-thoughts

Not allowed a different font in story games. To clarify, that's an actual rule of the formatting of the site.