How to show past speech in internal thoughts

Asterism

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I have a few instances where a character's internal monologue replays past speech from another character. Should this use speech marks or italics or something else?
For example:

It would earn him a spot on Jess' bad side for sure.
"Stay in your lane," she'd told him. "This is bigger than you."

OR

It would earn him a spot on Jess' bad side for sure.
Stay in your lane, she'd told him. This is bigger than you.

If italicized and not at the start, should the first word be capitalized?
For example:
He couldn't shake Jess' words, This is bigger than you.

Or is there a different established approach altogether? Using speech marks seems jarring to me, but I can't find a definitive source on how this should be written.

Thanks for any help!
 
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dpaterso

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That all looks good to me, every example was clear, so it boils down to your personal preference, use the Force to guide you.

-Derek
 

Maryn

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For what it's worth, the last publisher I had (now out of business) edited remembered dialogue so that it was in quotation marks and both the quotes and the words spoken were in italics. This was based on the Chicago Manual of Style (which is not intended for fiction, but is thorough enough to cover everything), although I didn't write down the section number.

That would render your sample as:

It would earn him a spot on Jess' bad side for sure.
"Stay in your lane," she'd told him. "This is bigger than you."

Although you didn't ask this, they also made possessives of names ending in S or double-S like any other possessive, so they'd have used Jess's.

Maryn, who had a character names James and found it hard to learn to change her ways
 

Chase

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I agree with Jess's since we sound the possessive third "s."

Far be it from me to disagree with CMoS, but both italics and quotes seem to be overdoing it.

Since the quotes were actually spoken with attributives, I go along with Dpaterso that both your examples look good, though my personal choice would be italics rather than quote marks (until I can find Chicago's recommendation). :greenie
 

Maryn

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I'd help, but it's all the way upstairs...

Maryn, that lazy
 

H7TM4N

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I have a few instances where a character's internal monologue replays past speech from another character. Should this use speech marks or italics or something else?
For example:

It would earn him a spot on Jess' bad side for sure.
"Stay in your lane," she'd told him. "This is bigger than you."

OR

It would earn him a spot on Jess' bad side for sure.
Stay in your lane, she'd told him. This is bigger than you.

If italicized and not at the start, should the first word be capitalized?
For example:
He couldn't shake Jess' words, This is bigger than you.

Or is there a different established approach altogether? Using speech marks seems jarring to me, but I can't find a definitive source on how this should be written.

Thanks for any help!

I'm pretty new to creative writing so keep that in mind. I have however struggled the same topic of how to handle remembered speech.
Your examples seem good (I lean towards the use of italics, myself). I do wonder if it could be done using a free indirect style of thought somehow… Perhaps, something like:

it would earn him a spot on Jess' bad side for sure. She'd told him to stay in his lane. This was bigger than him…

OR if he disagrees with Jess you might add to it.

it would earn him a spot on Jess' bad side for sure. She'd told him to stay in his lane. This was, supposedly, bigger than him.

OR

it would earn him a spot on Jess' bad side for sure. She'd told him to stay in his lane. This was "bigger" than him. Whatever that might mean…


Just thinking out loud really, curious what others think. Like I said, your examples seem solid.
 

Sonya Heaney

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FWIW I like using italics. I sent an edited manuscript back to my publisher yesterday, and I just checked: my editor kept the italics for past stuff (and with quotation marks), so I guess that's our style guide …