Thinking

by A.L Star
23rd December 2012

I read on another site that when a character is thinking something, what they're thinking shouldn't be italic since it isn't the right use of it, but I do this because it's easy for me to remember what's being said out loud and what someone is thinking. If I have been doing the wrong thing, how should I show someone is thinking?

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There isn't much text that is thinking maybe ten lines if put all together, so it's save to say the reader won't be overwhelmed by italic text.

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A.L
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A.L Star
23/12/2012

The only time I've used italics in my writing is to show my main characters dreams.

Like you, I don't know if this is correct, and I only do it to show that it is different to the main body. Perhaps when and if I hand it over to a literary editor they may suggest something different, but for now it works for me.

I think I'd echo Jonathan's thoughts and suggest using inverted commas around the text along with 'he/she thought/wondered' as that also seems perfectly acceptable.

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Anthony Scott
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Anthony Scott Glenn
23/12/2012

I think (sorry!) there's no real right and wrong - the crucial thing is to be consistent.

The problem may be that if your character thinks a lot you can end up with blocks of italicised text which are...annoying, if you like, to read.

Personally I use italics to emphasise single words in a character's speech or for non-English phrases. And for ship names, which is an odd literary convention.

If you don't want to italicise thoughts, 'he/she thought/wondered' etc works okay. I use single person POV so I can often just write a character's thought without marking it as such because it's immediately obvious from the preceding narrative.

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Jonathan Hopkins
23/12/2012