So I do use 'thought', in some cases, when it's more of an observation, and not immediately important. I don't italicize it.
Mary thought about the grocery list that she had left on the table with the hotel address written on the back of it and hoped her husband wouldn't bother to look, since it was a grocery list.
If it's a direct thought/monologue and I want it to be immediate and important, then I italicize it and make it present tense.
Mary remembered that she left the grocery list with the hotel address on the back on the table.
/italics/ I hope Ben doesn't find it. But, if he does, he isn't likely to look at the back, because it's just a grocery list. /italics/
And if it's telepathy to another person or if it's talking over a radio (but not a phone...I don't know why that is different to me?) I'll choose one mode and only use it for that, such as:
::Ben! Don't look at the note!::
and
"/italics/Ben, this is Mary, over./italics" Her voice was tinny over the comms, as though in a deep gravity well.
But I totally agree that consistency is the key.
As for your example, although I could tell which was the thoughts, as a reader it jarred me out of the story, as I read it twice to make sure. For me, personally, it wasn't directly obvious on the first reading. But if all your stories were that way I would probably adjust to it, as it was consistent,
Not dissing what you said, just giving my experience as a reader.
When you wrote "Mary thought" in "Mary thought about the grocery list that she had left on the table with the hotel address written on the back of it and hoped her husband wouldn't bother to look, since it was a grocery list," you, as the writer, are inserting yourself between the reader and the character. You're effective stepping into the scene to tell the reader "Mary thought."
Imagine sitting in the audience watching a stage production of Hamlet, and just as the POV character raises the skull, a little guy in a tuxedo walks out to center stage and say to the audience, "Okay, he's about to give a solliloquy."
We could go into greater depth on this, but that would require a mentorship.
An interesting consideration. I can see what you are saying.
So it might be more useful (or less noticeable) as a technique if you were writing in an omniscient viewpoint, where the narrator regularly inserts themselves - like in "The Princess Bride" story. So, the reader would know that the narrator is letting them head hop, but the character is not aware of it.
I can't (won't) talk about 'omniscient,' 'limited blah blah blah and all that because those are all terms critics and other non-writers coined for use in deconstruction.
I'll just stand by my statements and let you decide what you want to do. (grin)
Fortunately (or not) most readers don't have a clue (or care) what "viewpoint" a story's written in. They only wanna be entertained.
I hate these tiny comment boxes, but here goes.....
You'd be surprised at how many readers have told me *italics* jars them out of the story. :-) That's why I fine-tuned my own approach. But as I said, consistency is the key.
And yes (sigh), I should have been more specific. I meant you should never have to use "thought" in a tag line, e.g.
He thought, Maybe I should get out of here before the bomb goes off.
In that regard, I stick with my original statements in TNDJ. And italicized or not, I would delete "He thought."
As for this particular example.....
Mary remembered that she left the grocery list with the hotel address on the back on the table.
/italics/ I hope Ben doesn't find it. But, if he does, he isn't likely to look at the back, because it's just a grocery list. /italics/
I would have written it like this:
Mary's eyebrows arched.
Oh man! I left the grocery list with the hotel address on the back on the table. I hope Ben doesn't find it.
She bit her bottom lip.
Then again, if he does, he isn't likely to look at the back, because it's just a grocery list.
Alll of that said, to each writer his or her own. S/he should do whatever s/he likes and in any way s/he likes. I can only speak from having been there and offer up my experience. I'm only here to cut the learning curve for others, not to stifle it.
And actually that WAS in my original statement. I wrote, "... to PRESENT the POV character’s unspoken thought, you never have to use the word 'thought'.”
Some readers have the "italics are cockroaches" outlook (I read a blog post by one who used exactly those words), but then there are a BUNCH of us who don't and find the lack of them seriously jarring. When it comes right down to it, we're going to "jar" one group of readers or another. If I can't stand to read my own work because I'm constantly jarred by the seemingly random use of first person present tense, I won't enjoy writing anymore. So I'd rather risk pushing away the "italics are cockroaches" crowd that readers like me. LOL
1) if the use of italics (or not) "jars" the reader, I haven't done my job to pull him deeply enough into the story.
2) The use of first person in direct thought is not a random use. Even if you use italics to indicate the POV character's direct thought, that thought should still be presented in present tense (It's how we think) and narrative should still be presented in past tense, which is the natural voice of narrative.
I use first person present tense AND italics for thoughts. The italics show the 1st person present tense use is deliberate and intended to be different. Just like putting quotation marks around first person present tense that is spoken out loud. If first person present tense ALONE is good enough to show thoughts, why isn't it good enough to show spoken words, too? To me, both are about making it clear to the reader that this text is different intentionally.
When I'm reading along in third person and suddenly run into first person without quotation marks or italics, it stops me short as I try to figure out why that text is different. The more it happens, the more frustrated I get as a reader. It truly looks random to me when first and third are swapped without any sort of flag on the first person text. Just as it would be if spoken text didn't have quotation marks around it.
It's all nuances. Italics or no italics, the present tense is what makes the unspoken thought an unspoken thought.
As I said in the OP, whichever anyone else uses is fine with me. Consistency is the only key.
If I personally thought the POV character's unspoken thought (or that he was thinking) might not be clear to a reader, I would strive to make it more clear during cycling.
It just dawned on me (no pun intended), with our long history you might've even started using italics to indicate direct thought as a result of reading the first edition of Punctuation for Writers. (grin)
Italics are cockroaches? That sounds like some Literary snob to me!
Punctuation is such a complicated thing once you get past periods, commas, question marks, and exclamation points.... And then you add typography...Sometimes I just want to go back to Roman blocks of text!
LOL That's pretty much how I read the "italics are cockroaches" post. She wrote like one of those snooty literary prose folks who look down on others for the sake of feeling superior. She was so extreme, she didn't believe in using them AT ALL, even for emphasis. She believed emphasis wasn't needed if you wrote something correctly. Struck me as "the reader will figure it out" approach to understanding when a word is meant to be emphasized.
Quite a few, as I recall. I wish I could remember who she was. It was just too long ago, a good ten years or so. I just remember looking at the list of her published works and dismissing them because they weren't in genres I enjoy reading. Historical, if I remember correctly. If I ever run across her (or that post) again, I'll try to remember to share it.
You are an amazing writer! Wow. I saved this small blurb so I can learn how to write like this; to be inspired to write this way. Showing the difference side by side is powerful. Thank you for sharing your talent….and “thoughts” (haha)
Thanks, Manisha. Glad it helped. Check some of my recent posts for "next level" stuff. I included some exerpts as examples. Also check out my Stanbrough Writes substack for free short stories. All the ones I'm posting now are recent, written since last September.
I love that we can have such interesting conversations about techniques and practices and everyone be civil and helpful with their experiences! It makes this journal such a pleasant place to be! Thank you so much Harvey, and to all the other people who chime in. I have learned so much.
Me too. I remain detached, but then, I already have mine. (grin) So I just lay it out there and hope a few folks pick it up and run with it. But that's always up to them.
I'll continue to use italics for direct thoughts/internal monologue. For me, dropping italics for internal dialogue is exactly the same as dropping quotation marks around dialogue. Quotation marks alert the reader that THIS text is different for a reason - in that case, words spoken out loud. Italics do the same thing for internal dialogue - alert the reader that this text is different for a reason, words spoken inside the POV character's head rather than out loud.
Without that, for me at least, leaving out the italics reads like a writer is simply flipping tense/POV. I see that with newbie writers who haven't learned the tenses and can't make up their mind whether they want to write in first person or third person and swap between the two at random without intending to. As a reader, I find that incredibly jarring.
Incidentally, I haven't found putting thoughts in their own paragraphs to be helpful either, as far as the jarring thing. It just makes the reading more disjointed for me. Maybe I'm the only one, but maybe not?
The first-person present-tense flip without italics is seriously jarring to me as a reader. That's the point I'm getting at. I'll stick with italics. I'd rather lose readers who hate italics than be constantly thrown out of the story by my own work. LOL
Yep, I understand what you're saying. I'll stand by the two points I made in my response.
Any regular reader who's "thrown out" of a story by italics (again, or not) isn't engaged in the story. I submit that s/he is looking for an excuse to exit.
In my work, I see that as my failure on my part to pull the reader in.
Even as I read Blood Meridian, I was slightly and momentarily confused by McCarthy's choice to omit quotation marks around dialogue, but the story was strong enough it didn't stop me from reading. I just adjusted.
So I do use 'thought', in some cases, when it's more of an observation, and not immediately important. I don't italicize it.
Mary thought about the grocery list that she had left on the table with the hotel address written on the back of it and hoped her husband wouldn't bother to look, since it was a grocery list.
If it's a direct thought/monologue and I want it to be immediate and important, then I italicize it and make it present tense.
Mary remembered that she left the grocery list with the hotel address on the back on the table.
/italics/ I hope Ben doesn't find it. But, if he does, he isn't likely to look at the back, because it's just a grocery list. /italics/
And if it's telepathy to another person or if it's talking over a radio (but not a phone...I don't know why that is different to me?) I'll choose one mode and only use it for that, such as:
::Ben! Don't look at the note!::
and
"/italics/Ben, this is Mary, over./italics" Her voice was tinny over the comms, as though in a deep gravity well.
But I totally agree that consistency is the key.
As for your example, although I could tell which was the thoughts, as a reader it jarred me out of the story, as I read it twice to make sure. For me, personally, it wasn't directly obvious on the first reading. But if all your stories were that way I would probably adjust to it, as it was consistent,
Not dissing what you said, just giving my experience as a reader.
Tiffanie, here's one more thing to consider.
When you wrote "Mary thought" in "Mary thought about the grocery list that she had left on the table with the hotel address written on the back of it and hoped her husband wouldn't bother to look, since it was a grocery list," you, as the writer, are inserting yourself between the reader and the character. You're effective stepping into the scene to tell the reader "Mary thought."
Imagine sitting in the audience watching a stage production of Hamlet, and just as the POV character raises the skull, a little guy in a tuxedo walks out to center stage and say to the audience, "Okay, he's about to give a solliloquy."
We could go into greater depth on this, but that would require a mentorship.
An interesting consideration. I can see what you are saying.
So it might be more useful (or less noticeable) as a technique if you were writing in an omniscient viewpoint, where the narrator regularly inserts themselves - like in "The Princess Bride" story. So, the reader would know that the narrator is letting them head hop, but the character is not aware of it.
I can't (won't) talk about 'omniscient,' 'limited blah blah blah and all that because those are all terms critics and other non-writers coined for use in deconstruction.
I'll just stand by my statements and let you decide what you want to do. (grin)
Fortunately (or not) most readers don't have a clue (or care) what "viewpoint" a story's written in. They only wanna be entertained.
I hate these tiny comment boxes, but here goes.....
You'd be surprised at how many readers have told me *italics* jars them out of the story. :-) That's why I fine-tuned my own approach. But as I said, consistency is the key.
And yes (sigh), I should have been more specific. I meant you should never have to use "thought" in a tag line, e.g.
He thought, Maybe I should get out of here before the bomb goes off.
In that regard, I stick with my original statements in TNDJ. And italicized or not, I would delete "He thought."
As for this particular example.....
Mary remembered that she left the grocery list with the hotel address on the back on the table.
/italics/ I hope Ben doesn't find it. But, if he does, he isn't likely to look at the back, because it's just a grocery list. /italics/
I would have written it like this:
Mary's eyebrows arched.
Oh man! I left the grocery list with the hotel address on the back on the table. I hope Ben doesn't find it.
She bit her bottom lip.
Then again, if he does, he isn't likely to look at the back, because it's just a grocery list.
Alll of that said, to each writer his or her own. S/he should do whatever s/he likes and in any way s/he likes. I can only speak from having been there and offer up my experience. I'm only here to cut the learning curve for others, not to stifle it.
>> I meant you should never have to use "thought" in a tag line, e.g. He thought, Maybe I should get out of here before the bomb goes off.>>
Oh, I totally agree with that!
And actually that WAS in my original statement. I wrote, "... to PRESENT the POV character’s unspoken thought, you never have to use the word 'thought'.”
Yep! I saw that.
Some readers have the "italics are cockroaches" outlook (I read a blog post by one who used exactly those words), but then there are a BUNCH of us who don't and find the lack of them seriously jarring. When it comes right down to it, we're going to "jar" one group of readers or another. If I can't stand to read my own work because I'm constantly jarred by the seemingly random use of first person present tense, I won't enjoy writing anymore. So I'd rather risk pushing away the "italics are cockroaches" crowd that readers like me. LOL
Certainly your choice.
Two thoughts:
1) if the use of italics (or not) "jars" the reader, I haven't done my job to pull him deeply enough into the story.
2) The use of first person in direct thought is not a random use. Even if you use italics to indicate the POV character's direct thought, that thought should still be presented in present tense (It's how we think) and narrative should still be presented in past tense, which is the natural voice of narrative.
I use first person present tense AND italics for thoughts. The italics show the 1st person present tense use is deliberate and intended to be different. Just like putting quotation marks around first person present tense that is spoken out loud. If first person present tense ALONE is good enough to show thoughts, why isn't it good enough to show spoken words, too? To me, both are about making it clear to the reader that this text is different intentionally.
When I'm reading along in third person and suddenly run into first person without quotation marks or italics, it stops me short as I try to figure out why that text is different. The more it happens, the more frustrated I get as a reader. It truly looks random to me when first and third are swapped without any sort of flag on the first person text. Just as it would be if spoken text didn't have quotation marks around it.
It's all nuances. Italics or no italics, the present tense is what makes the unspoken thought an unspoken thought.
As I said in the OP, whichever anyone else uses is fine with me. Consistency is the only key.
If I personally thought the POV character's unspoken thought (or that he was thinking) might not be clear to a reader, I would strive to make it more clear during cycling.
It just dawned on me (no pun intended), with our long history you might've even started using italics to indicate direct thought as a result of reading the first edition of Punctuation for Writers. (grin)
You realize that exact same thought process could be applied to writing spoken thought without using quotation marks, right? ;-)
Italics are cockroaches? That sounds like some Literary snob to me!
Punctuation is such a complicated thing once you get past periods, commas, question marks, and exclamation points.... And then you add typography...Sometimes I just want to go back to Roman blocks of text!
LOL That's pretty much how I read the "italics are cockroaches" post. She wrote like one of those snooty literary prose folks who look down on others for the sake of feeling superior. She was so extreme, she didn't believe in using them AT ALL, even for emphasis. She believed emphasis wasn't needed if you wrote something correctly. Struck me as "the reader will figure it out" approach to understanding when a word is meant to be emphasized.
I wonder how many novels she's written? (grin)
Quite a few, as I recall. I wish I could remember who she was. It was just too long ago, a good ten years or so. I just remember looking at the list of her published works and dismissing them because they weren't in genres I enjoy reading. Historical, if I remember correctly. If I ever run across her (or that post) again, I'll try to remember to share it.
You are an amazing writer! Wow. I saved this small blurb so I can learn how to write like this; to be inspired to write this way. Showing the difference side by side is powerful. Thank you for sharing your talent….and “thoughts” (haha)
Thanks, Manisha. Glad it helped. Check some of my recent posts for "next level" stuff. I included some exerpts as examples. Also check out my Stanbrough Writes substack for free short stories. All the ones I'm posting now are recent, written since last September.
I love that we can have such interesting conversations about techniques and practices and everyone be civil and helpful with their experiences! It makes this journal such a pleasant place to be! Thank you so much Harvey, and to all the other people who chime in. I have learned so much.
Me too. I remain detached, but then, I already have mine. (grin) So I just lay it out there and hope a few folks pick it up and run with it. But that's always up to them.
I'll continue to use italics for direct thoughts/internal monologue. For me, dropping italics for internal dialogue is exactly the same as dropping quotation marks around dialogue. Quotation marks alert the reader that THIS text is different for a reason - in that case, words spoken out loud. Italics do the same thing for internal dialogue - alert the reader that this text is different for a reason, words spoken inside the POV character's head rather than out loud.
Without that, for me at least, leaving out the italics reads like a writer is simply flipping tense/POV. I see that with newbie writers who haven't learned the tenses and can't make up their mind whether they want to write in first person or third person and swap between the two at random without intending to. As a reader, I find that incredibly jarring.
Incidentally, I haven't found putting thoughts in their own paragraphs to be helpful either, as far as the jarring thing. It just makes the reading more disjointed for me. Maybe I'm the only one, but maybe not?
Incidentally, since I use italics for direct thoughts, I don't use the word "thought". Ever. LOL The italics do the job without that.
Yup. The direct thoughts being in first person do the job without that too. Read Tiffanie's comment and my two responses.
The first-person present-tense flip without italics is seriously jarring to me as a reader. That's the point I'm getting at. I'll stick with italics. I'd rather lose readers who hate italics than be constantly thrown out of the story by my own work. LOL
Yep, I understand what you're saying. I'll stand by the two points I made in my response.
Any regular reader who's "thrown out" of a story by italics (again, or not) isn't engaged in the story. I submit that s/he is looking for an excuse to exit.
In my work, I see that as my failure on my part to pull the reader in.
Even as I read Blood Meridian, I was slightly and momentarily confused by McCarthy's choice to omit quotation marks around dialogue, but the story was strong enough it didn't stop me from reading. I just adjusted.
When I put a direct thought in its own paragraph, it's usually for pacing.