Thoughts.

Some time ago some one was asking about how to deal with people's thoughts in a story, and I write a lot of thinking in to most of mine!
Verbal intercourse is often marked with " or ' but I have noticed that it seems normal not to use any marker at all on thoughts. However, I use " or ' for thoughts also because I feel they need to be marked with something. But I still make it clear in the text that it is someone's thoughts.
But I have recently been thinking that there should be an actual unique marker for thoughts also. (Using what is on a normal keyboard that is!)
I was considering; Mary wondered, >should I do it?< or something else rarely used in stories.
If we all did that it could become 'normal'.
What are your thoughts on that?
I was also wondering about a unique marker for talk via telepathy also. Mary thought at James, ^should I do it?^ James replied, ^no, not yet.^
What do you think about that?
Comments
Myself, I use italics for thoughts. I suppose both methods work, but I've always used italics for thoughts and for dialogue of a newsreader on TV, etc...
I also did a short story a few months back with a character using a very angry inner monologue. I did all his thoughts in Bold. The effect on the page was pretty nice.
One problem is that the ePub converter often strips away italics and what not. There's also the Select All problem to change to another Style, and that can also remove italics and bold and stuff. That can be a pain in the ..... if there's 600 pages!
But you have come up with two methods just in your replies, and I was wondering about a general convention that everyone uses for marking thoughts.
PS: At one time I used italics for all dialogue because it made it easier to spot while editing etc! I stopped doing it because it seems not to be normal practice.
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Kevin,1. highlight one italicized word, select all with similar formatting, right click, save as new quick style and name it Kevin italics. They won't be stripped during ebook conversion.
People do not like symbols they do not recognize. It will make them feel confused and uninformed. Italics or nothing at all. Just a comma before. I've seen them both.
They grew to like " and ' , who started that off?
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I'm with Em_Press on this one.
He looked at the couple. He wondered if they were happy. Sure, they smile and smile, he thought, but what about when they are alone? Are they happy then?
He wondered if they were happy -- no italics because it is not a direct quotation of his thoughts.
Sure, they smile and smile -- Italics because it's his actual internal dialog.
In case you're curious, Italics were invented by Aldus Manutius the Younger, a Venetian typesetter, in 1534. He also invented the Semicolon.
(^;
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He wondered if they were happy -- no italics because it is not a direct quotation of his thoughts.
What is it then? seeing as he is wondering it. One could try this - the look on is face was possibly a sign that he wondered if they were happy - that's not a direct quotation but an opinion.
Skoob said: It is the author stating to the reader that the character wondered that thing. Where as...
Sure, they smile and smile -- Italics because it's his actual internal dialog.
is the writer allowing the reader to "hear" the character think it. It is the same as the difference between
She said that she was hungry,
and
"I'm hungry," she said.
It's not a convention, and italics are already in use for something else, and that does seem to be a convention.
Skoob said: It is a convention, whether you acknowledge it or not. Italics are used for quoted thoughts, for foreign words, and for emphasis. Those are the existing conventions.
Yes, every convention was once a radical new idea. But a convention or a radical new idea can be said to "work" if, and only if, the reasonable casual disinterested reader -- that is, a person whom we choose at random off of the street and who is within the first standard deviation for most or all of his mental processes, and who did not contribute to the work in any way -- can read the passage and immediately divine the meaning and the implication, without requiring a key or a guide.
Indubitably, we know of Aldus Manutius the Younger's contributions because they worked -- people immediately understood them and found them preferable to the existing conventions. So unless your radical new trick is going to be more obvious to the casual reader than the existing conventions, it's best to go with the existing conventions.
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A man convinced against his will
Is of the same opinion still, Thought Skoob to himself.
BTW, unless a story is told in the first person, it is always "narrated." In most cases, it is "narrated" by an omniscient author, who knows the characters' thoughts because he put them there.
But you will have your own views on that.
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