Thinking to one's self

[Heijan Xavier]

In your example, my question might be; what does a forced smile look like and should you filter the reader into that assumption or should you leave it up to them.

Maybe something more like.
Jan gave a quick wave, a half smile and turned away.
What did I do to upset her, he wondered.

Jan gave a quick wave, a grimace and gazed elsewhere.
He wondered what he'd done to upset her.

definitely a better description of Jan's behaviour.

 

[tinkerdan]

I in fact didn't say I wouldn't say::

But you wouldn’t say:

What did he do to upset her?

You would either do a quote without quotation marks, or pull back to a third person thought narration. You don’t like that kind of in between state?

::And now I can't help but think you missed my point.

My point was that his thought and the force smile(suggesting she's not pleased)part made it redundant enough that all that thinking has made the whole thing choppy. Whereas leaving out all the trying to lead the reader by the nose leaves it open for interpretation until he suggest that he has upset her and you're not repeating the obvious.

 

[Heijan Xavier]

I in fact didn't say I wouldn't say::

::And now I can't help but think you missed my point.

My point was that his thought and the force smile(suggesting she's not pleased)part made it redundant enough that all that thinking has made the whole thing choppy. Whereas leaving out all the trying to lead the reader by the nose leaves it open for interpretation until he suggest that he has upset her and you're not repeating the obvious.

Ok I see. Maybe the lines I chose were not the best for this analysis; I was just honing in on the mechanics of showing thought.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I just place it in the narration in italics but never flag it as thoughts. However, I aim to be firmly wedged inside the head of one character for a chapter, at least.

So something like this:
Jeez, I hope my ma doesn't talk about me like that. Ian mimicked an old lady voice and said, "Our Ian's been castrated. The hospital even let him take his bits home in a jar."
A tug on his t-shirt reminded him he was not alone. Did I say that out loud? Damn, bugger and blast!
"Greatpa, what's castrated mean?"
You stupid old man. Now you have to explain castration to a four-year-old.

 

[sknox]

Also consider length of the thought. If it's an entire internal monologue, you might approach it differently than the one-sentence examples given here.

The place where it gets tricky for me is when you consider the narrator's voice. If you don't italicize the character's thoughts, then when the narrator makes an observation (if that happens to be the voice for that story), then it can be confusing as to who is speaking. I don't think there's a universally applicable approach. You have to look at your specific writing, and look at entire chapters or even the whole book, to determine the proper approach. As you've seen here, a number of approaches are correct in the grammatical sense.

 

[Penny]

I use this method:

Watcher stood on the rain swept rooftop, observing the crowd below. The smells of the food stalls made his nostrils flare. I could really go for a hamburger or a kebab right about now he thought. But he had a job to do, the armoured money transport was due any minute.

I mean its no Shakespeare but seems to work.

 

[Steve Harrison]

I like to only italicise an opinion or specific 'thought statement' when writing from a character POV, something like:

He had observed Al's behaviour over the years and never wavered from his first impression. The guy was an idiot.

 

[Heijan Xavier]

I like to only italicise an opinion or specific 'thought statement' when writing from a character POV, something like:

He had observed Al's behaviour over the years and never wavered from his first impression. The guy was an idiot.

If you kept writing would you say:

Why did I keep hanging out with Al?


Or

Why did he keep hanging out with Al?

 

[Steve Harrison]

If you kept writing would you say:

Why did I keep hanging out with Al?

Or

Why did he keep hanging out with Al?

I would write something like this (without italics):

And, as always, he wondered why he kept hanging out with Al.

If I used 'I' like in your first line, I would use italics and the present tense: Why do I keep hanging out with Al?

But in the example I want the italicised sentence to 'escape' like a slight burst of uncontrolled emotion in the otherwise controlled narration and I think additional italics would soften that effect:

He had observed Al's behaviour over the years and never wavered from his first impression. The guy was an idiot. And, as always, he wondered why he kept hanging out with Al.

I'm sure there are many, many ways to convey this, but it's a method I'm comfortable with and something I don't have to think about. Which leaves me with only another 4,678,342 things to think about when writing...

 

[Heijan Xavier]

But in the example I want the italicised sentence to 'escape' like a slight burst of uncontrolled emotion in the otherwise controlled narration and I think additional italics would soften that effect:

That's a great way to describe a thought being embedded in the narration. Why not put it in the present tense if it's actually his thought?

He had observed Al's behaviour over the years and never wavered from his first impression. The guy is an idiot.

I see why. I think logically-according to your purpose-present tense makes more sense, but it definitely doesn't read right. Maybe it could work in another scenario, but not this one.

 

[Steve Harrison]

That's a great way to describe a thought being embedded in the narration. Why not put it in the present tense if it's actually his thought?

He had observed Al's behaviour over the years and never wavered from his first impression. The guy is an idiot.

I see why. I think logically-according to your purpose-present tense makes more sense, but it definitely doesn't read right. Maybe it could work in another scenario, but not this one.

To me, the idiot sentence works in the past tense, but not the present (probably due to the preceding sentence), and the hanging out sentence works in the present, but not the past.

I would be fairly happy with the way I wrote those three sentences, but I wouldn't dig my heels in if my editor objected. As he says, a writer sees what he meant and not what he wrote...

 

[HareBrain]

There isn't one right way of doing this: I think this thread has come up with about five alternatives so far. But there is convention. If you go against convention, you risk making the reader stumble until they've adapted to your method. As a reader, I've been "trained" to see sentences in italics as the direct thoughts of the character ("I am".) If it turns out to be something else ("He was") that breaks me out of the story a bit the first few times while I adjust. But I would adjust. What would be worse, for me, would be inconsistency.

 

[tinkerdan]

There are really various opinions about this subject.

Formatting Internal Dialogue: Quotation Marks or Italics?

Character’s Thoughts: Punctuating and Formatting - Writer's Relief, Inc.

Internal Dialogue: Italics or Quotes? - Grammar and Punctuation

I'd say it devolves to style choices and trying to maintain the flow for the reader so they don't notice what you've done.

I do think that any time you put actual quote marks in thoughts you run the risk that a reader is going to believe that the character thought that aloud and it could be reinforced if you change from third narrative into first person thoughts.

There isn't a definite standard here other than, choose wisely.
Dialogue in fiction: Part V – Writing your characters’ thoughts
A quote from the above^.

3.Thoughts can be shown directly

, using the first-person present tense, or indirectly, using the third-person past tense. I’ll discuss direct vs. indirect thoughts a little further below.

These three options—italics or not, tags or not, and direct vs. indirect thoughts—manifest themselves in different ways, depending on the story’s POV. In all of the following examples, keep in mind that these are not rules but only conventions and style guidelines; you’re free to apply any that suit your fiction’s needs. But once you apply a particular style, you should be consistent with it.

Be consistent!

 

[Phyrebrat]

There isn't one right way of doing this: I think this thread has come up with about five alternatives so far. But there is convention. If you go against convention, you risk making the reader stumble until they've adapted to your method. As a reader, I've been "trained" to see sentences in italics as the direct thoughts of the character ("I am".) If it turns out to be something else ("He was") that breaks me out of the story a bit the first few times while I adjust. But I would adjust. What would be worse, for me, would be inconsistency.

Exactly. End of discussion.

pH

 

[Steve Harrison]

Not quite the end yet

In general I agree with the need to be consistent, but, as we are talking about writing, there are times when being consistent can work against what you are trying to do or say. It's a risk, as you may break the spell with the reader, but if you feel there are compelling reasons and it means a stronger piece of writing, it's perfectly OK.

The bottom line is that creative writing means writing creatively, and if you have to bend conventions, break the 'rules' and do something different to express yourself in the way you want to, it's exciting, risky and, if you get it right, deeply rewarding.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Exactly. End of discussion.

pH

Gosh no. Where’s the fun in that.

What we need are streams of consciousness and nuke this internal thoughts nonsense

 

[Phyrebrat]

Not sure what you mean Jo. But it seems we’ve all gone round the houses and HB is saying the wisest thing - that there are several ways to do it but consistency is key.

If you want streams of consciousness that’s a different subject.

pH

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Not sure what you mean Jo. But it seems we’ve all gone round the houses and HB is saying the wisest thing - that there are several ways to do it but consistency is key.

If you want streams of consciousness that’s a different subject.

pH

Just blasted my spell checker

 

[Phyrebrat]

You should see what mine’s suggesting since I changed language region for English to French and back again. Just typing this it has put a grave or acute over four of the ‘e’s

<wonders what the voice recognition feature might do>

pH

 

[Jo Zebedee]

<wonders what the voice recognition feature might do>

pH

Ye’s can all only imagine for mine, ye pack of eejits.