Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

How do your favorite writers handle thoughts/internal dialog?

I've read both. Someone told me though that italicized thought is an indication of an amateur. OK. So seeing as I was a tad confused, I'd thought I'd consult the grand master of writing and ask for help. Now I don't feel so confused.

Calliopenjo said:

I've read both. Someone told me though that italicized thought is an indication of an amateur. OK. So seeing as I was a tad confused, I'd thought I'd consult the grand master of writing and ask for help. Now I don't feel so confused.

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It's been a while since I've read Steven King, but I'm pretty sure he did it.

So Steven King's an amatuer? (I distinctly remember italics in his books. I remember no specific examples, so of course I could be wrong. Nevertheless, I'd wonder why italicized thought necessitates "amatuer;" I've still seen a lot of respected author's do it.)

James D. Macdonald said:

How do your favorite writers handle thoughts/internal dialog?

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With fava beans and a nice Ciante.

Well, huge blocks of italics look cheesy.

I wasn't a wine drinker, even when I still drank, so I have no idea how to spell Ciante. But IMO, huge blocks of italics are cheesy, except if they represent a dream sequence or excerpt from something like a journal.

I once read a Leon Uris novel where alternating chapters were set in ALL CAPS. Or, I should say that I read half of the novel. It didn't take me long to start skipping alternate chapters.

James D. Macdonald said:

Well, huge blocks of italics look cheesy.

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And annoying.

Whatever you do - it'll probably be changed by your editor to their preferred house style anyway

James D. Macdonald said:

I once read a Leon Uris novel where alternating chapters were set in ALL CAPS. Or, I should say that I read half of the novel. It didn't take me long to start skipping alternate chapters.

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That sounds singularly odd; is there any particular reason it was like that? It might make my eyes bleed after too long.

I'm certain Uris had his reasons, and he had sufficient horsepower to get his publisher to go along with it. What it was I never found out since I didn't read the ALL-CAPS part.

The novel to which Unca Jim is referring is QB VII. All first-person accounts were put in ALL CAPS, while the regular narrative was in ordinary sentence case. (It wasn't exactly alternating chapters, but it probably amounted to a little less than half of the book in ALL CAPS.)

It's an interesting book, and was a giant seller in its day (1970). It's about a libel suit filed by a Polish physician against an American novelist: the physician returns from charity work in an isolated community to find that the novelist has written a best-seller which identifies him (the physician) as a collaborator with the Nazis.

The physician, a Polish Catholic, is a survivor of a concentration camp, but the memories he presents IN ALL CAPS are of a man doing his best to help his fellow inmates while doing what he can to resist the authority of his imprisoners. And yet, in the narrative itself, he comes off as an anti-Semite and a bit of a crazy.

Meanwhile, the author's memories IN ALL CAPS are of his desire to live up to his war-hero older brother's example and to fight for the dignity of the Jewish people. And yet, in the narrative itself, he comes off as a bit of a crazy and an attention-seeker.

I think that Uris's point with the ALL CAPS stuff was to show the difference between the ways people present themselves and the ways other people perceive them. I'm not sure that it works--like Unca Jim, I had trouble reading the CAPS. And if Uris had not been the gigantic megaseller blockbuster author that he was at the time (Exodus had sold about a kajillion copies), I'm sure some editor would have told him to figure out something less annoying.

John Irving set Owen Meany's speeches in all caps, and that worked. Meany didn't have many long speeches.

Dale

Dale, in that case, it totally worked. The quality of Owen's voice, high-pitched and annoying, was a very important part of the story. And the fact that it came in small, dialogue-sized snippets makes a huge difference. Annoyance is much easier to take in snippets rather than blocks.

And I'm sure being John Irving didn't hurt.

Terry Pratchett's Death speaks in all caps as well. But it's really more about the sparsity of caps or italics. You know those people who highlight every word in a book "because they're all important"? Italics or caps are a way to emphasize. If everything is important, nothing is.

Some people dismiss italics as amateurish because they feel they're being instructed on where the emphasis should be, as if it wasn't clear from the context (as I italicize to illustrate).

Going back to thoughts: if you're going to use a lot of it, consider telling instead of showing, and consider too breaking up the thought soliloquys with straight text:
"Arrosa looked at Edwina's light brown eyes, still youthful after all she's done, and saw that her hair had grayed since last time, with little left of its natural earthen brown." Signs of too many sweets showing themselves as well, she thought, then turned around as her thoughts turned to the request. It is unusual, she thought as she walked back to the cliff overlooking the ocean below, and my dear sister..."

If huge blocks of italics are cheesy, some readers are lactose intolerant. Breaking up the cheese can make it a little more palatable.

Thanks guys, you definitely have given some things to think about. As for the ALL CAPS chapters, I have never seen that. I can't say if I would read it or not either.

Calliopenjo said:

As for the ALL CAPS chapters, I have never seen that.

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Read a lot. Read widely. Read the best. Read everything. This is why.

-----------

By the way (tiny boast):

My agent recently got an inquiry from Random House, Germany. Having read one of my sample chapters on my web page, he wanted to know if German Translation rights were available.

Maybe nothing will come of it. Maybe something will. But without the sample chapter....

Guys, I'm telling you. If you don't have Chapter One from every book you've ever published on your web page, you are missing out big time.

(Oh -- the sample chapter must be Chapter One. And it must have a link to Buy This Book Now right on the same page. Spell check and HTML-check are not optional.)

A novel-writing wiki. (Freeware.)

Instructions/tutorial.

would you say Jim, that reading a bad book can be as instructive as reading a good one?

*apologies if asked before,memory isn't what it once was*

IdiotsRUs said:

would you say Jim, that reading a bad book can be as instructive as reading a good one?

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Yes, provided you do so knowing how it is bad and why it is bad, and how to avoid its errors.

For good books you want to figure out how it is good and why it is good, and also how to emulate it.

Be a reader. Be a thoughtful reader.

Learn.

James D. Macdonald said:

Yet More Truth About Publishing.

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Well, at least I'm going to beat the ten to thirty year range to finish one of my books.
That was great. Thanks for sharing.

Katherine Blake's (terrific) novel The Interior Life uses different fonts for the two storylines. I don't know offhand which fonts, but it makes for an almost subliminal cue, as the story shifts from the present-day suburbs, sometimes right in the middle of a conversation or event, to the fantasy story.
Um. Not that this would work for thought, but it's a better solution for contrasting storylines than ALL CAPS, I think.
-Barbara

I think this would work for the novel I'm working on now. Part of it takes place in present day and part takes place in the past. The historical entries are presented as diary entries, letters, and other documents, so having a different font for those makes perfect sense.

P.S. I *adore* Death in the Terry Pratchett books. I don't find his all caps annoying at all, but probably because he's so funny.

Kelly

batgirl said:

Katherine Blake's (terrific) novel The Interior Life uses different fonts for the two storylines. I don't know offhand which fonts, but it makes for an almost subliminal cue, as the story shifts from the present-day suburbs, sometimes right in the middle of a conversation or event, to the fantasy story.
-Barbara

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I've read many books that alternate between timelines or parallel stories without using font or case changes to indicate it. I find that a quick mention at the start of the chapter stating location and time is generally sufficient.

The other thing about Death's ALL CAPS dialog is that it's brief.

BTW, in the video, many of the scenes were shot inside the Macmillan USA offices (in the Flatiron Building), so you can get a good idea of what publishing offices look like (though it's less reliable about what goes on there).