Italics vs. Quotation Marks

Italics for thoughts if there is no tag:

He walked into a bar. I really would like a beer. He went up to the bartender and ordered one.


He walked into a bar. I really would like a beer, he thought. He went up to the bartender and ordered one.

I italicise all thoughts even when I use a tag. Stylistic difference, maybe? Or is it a 'rule'?

Probably. It's not really wrong but your editor might red-pencil it.

"Your editor."

Ooh, say it again, Ray - say it again!

Nope. I want to torture you.

You say the nicest things.

I think most genre writers nowadays use italics to punctuate thought dialogue. I recently stopped doing it after seeing how effortlessly Orson Scott Card writes without relying on it. He pops in an out of thought quotes without punctuating them with itals, and I was pleased that I could not only follow the transitions, but it made the reading go faster, and it freed up the author to use longer thought quotes without the risk of ital-fatigue. Too many itals make your manuscript look like a comic book.

Generally, I think that adopting Card's technique is okay as long as for clarity you break out thought quotes into their own paragraphs and use identifying tags. The necessity of this may send me back to doing it the old way, though.

I don't write fiction, but as a reader, I prefer to see thoughts in italics.

scarletpeaches said:

I italicise all thoughts even when I use a tag. Stylistic difference, maybe? Or is it a 'rule'?

Click to expand...

The accepted practice is to italicize unless the thought is paraphrased or accompanied by a thought tag.