3rd person,past tense,from female POV

What do more experienced writers say? Italics? for thoughts ... or underlining?

It depends if you're writing in 3rd omniscient, 3rd limited, or close 3rd limited.

Close:
She got in the car, the men only about a hundred yards away. Crap, she needed to get away. Where was the key? Where was it? Oh Lord, please help!

3rd limited or omniscient (with separate narrative voice):
She got in the car, the men only about a hundred yards away. Crap! She must get away now. Where is the key? Where is it? Oh Lord, please help, she prayed.

Glad to see you, too, Jane!

Italics and underlining mean the same thing.

Before computer fonts (and some IBM typewriter balls and Radio Shack daisy wheels) the only way we could indicate italics in typing was to underline the passage.

However, these days that we can do either, some publishers want submitted manuscripts to be underlined where the author wants italics. All the better to see it, my dear.

So there isn't a real difference, except as code for the publisher.

Other ways to represent thoughts are quotation marks:

"How odd," she thought. "That poor man has a knife sticking out of his back."

Or no quotation marks to separate it from dialog said aloud:

How odd, she thought. That poor man has a knife sticking out of his back.

If you're using Courier and you want to indicate italics, It's best to underline. because italics don't really stand out.
If you're using Times New Roman, Italics stands out much better.

barbilarry said:

Thank you, Chase. Good information. Glad to see you too, my friend. Big Hugs.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the big hugs, Jane-who-thaws-with-her-looks. All in spite of the nation sweating through global warming. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. This morning I saw that all 50 states have snow, so I know Indiana is still frozen solid.