Writing thoughts and telepathic communication

[Tim Murray]

In my second book, there is enough telepathic communication to separate it from regular spoken dialogue. I italicized the thought transfers. Is this a standard practice? Is there a better method?

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Italics will work well, and seem to be pretty standard for this kind of thing.

If you want to be more creative, you can do all kinds of things, particularly if the telepathy involves things other than words.

Something like this, for a simple, rather silly example.

What time is it? **hunger**

The image of a Mickey Mouse watch appeared in her head, the both hands pointing to twelve.

Very funny. **sarcasm**

 

[The Judge]

It's standard to use italics, yes, and that's what I always do, and I don't use quotation marks.

If you have a lot of other stuff in italics, for instance a lot of internal talking-to-himself or thinking or reminiscing, then it can get confusing. So in that case I'd advise using something to differentiate them eg an em-dash before each person speaks ie

Alone, he was always alone...​

-- Peter, are you thinking about the orphanage again?​

Or a < or > instead of the em-dash; anything to mark the dialogue out as different from the thoughts.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

There is a recent extensive thread on this.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

There is a recent extensive thread on this.

Link? I can't recall it.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Yes, italics is grand for this, but as TJ says, if you have other internal stuff going on, it can be tricky. I'm suffering under that labour as we speak.

pH

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I can't recall it.

I can't remember ... So I'll search.
Perhaps thinking of this:
https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/550988/#post-1876486

There was this too
https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/560632/#post-1940828

Old one I hadn't seen
https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/538755/#post-1660339

It's simple if no thoughts, italics with out quotes, replace speech tag said with thought, sent etc.
If we have non-telepathic thought as well, then do it straight, but with (s)he thought etc instead of speech tag,
If no telepathy in book then italics for thoughts

Doing _this is italic_ sections in text editor and *this is bold* automatically makes italics and bold if you autoformat the pasted / imported text in any wordprocessor.

EDIT
Or perhaps I was thinking of
https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/552002/

 

[Maieius]

I've avoided using italics myself, but rather explained how my twins communicate without speaking in each others' minds. If she wants to get his attention, he'll have a vivid thought of her which is interrupting his current thoughts. He'll be busy doing one thing or another and then she'll suddenly pop into his mind and he'll have a sort of inkling of her emotion behind it. If she's persistent, she won't let him think of anything else unless he's hellbent on ignoring her. If he wants her to find him, she'll have a certain location pop into her head.

For example, if she wants him to find her in the dining room so she can vent about what their dad said she was having yellow curtains instead of blue, she'll come up in his thoughts along with the dining room and he'll feel the anger she does about what their dad said and be able to pinpoint that anger to be about something she's not allowed to have.

As you might be able to tell from that poor description, this isn't an easy thing to do and it might not work at all! But I'm trying to go beyond the point of just 'knowing' and explain how they're able to communicate using emotions more than anything.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

how they're able to communicate using emotions more than anything

That's not the same as stereotypical "telepathy as replacement for private 2 way radio using throat mic & earpiece".
In my Quadrivium Genie-Sys, I have "telepathic like" communication between Reggie and rodents. But rodents don't speak or understand English (and if we are remotely realistic not really language), so I don't have direct dialogue in the text at all. I might change my mind and make the rodents smarter and then just have "regular" telepathy, like speech, but in italics. It was supposed to be ridiculous originally, so "proper" telepathy would make more sense?

Arrrgh!

 

[Tim Murray]

It's standard to use italics, yes, and that's what I always do, and I don't use quotation marks.

If you have a lot of other stuff in italics, for instance a lot of internal talking-to-himself or thinking or reminiscing, then it can get confusing. So in that case I'd advise using something to differentiate them eg an em-dash before each person speaks ie

Alone, he was always alone...​

-- Peter, are you thinking about the orphanage again?​

Or a < or > instead of the em-dash; anything to mark the dialogue out as different from the thoughts.

The trick is the thoughts are transferred between Galactic time lords and those they've chosen to teach how to receive. The time lords rarely talk, and only when they have to use verbal language. This leads to some long passages.