"How do I get there?" Joe asked Tom.
"Well, Joe, you _could_ try using your _feet_."
What a jerk. "Whatever you say," Joe said. "I'm out of here."

I keep getting critiquers say things like, "Why are you telling me Tom is a jerk? Why don't you let Joe think that?" I could fix it with

What a jerk, Joe thought. "Whatever you say," Joe said.

1. Ignore the people who can't figure it out. I've had similiar comments and it is, to a certain extent, ignorance of modern POV.

2. Choose a compromise rephrasing to make sure the reader understands that it is the POV character's thought without saying so. Suggestion:

"How do I get there?" Joe asked Tom.
"Well, Joe, you _could_ try using your _feet_."
Joe felt his face grow red with indignation. What a jerk. "Whatever you say," Joe said. "I'm out of here."

or else:

"How do I get there?" Joe asked Tom.
"Well, Joe, you _could_ try using your _feet_."
Joe felt a strange urge to twist that smug look off Tom's face. What a jerk. "Whatever you say," Joe said. "I'm out of here."

Let me rephrase...you specifically do NOT use italics in the sort of deep penetration that OSC is referring to. For one thing, you'll have italics every other sentence. Do you honestly want to read a book that is written half in italics? For another, once deep penetration is well established it becomes unnecessary. The reader knows these are all the POV characters thoughts.

I'm in the italics for mental quotes camp. That's because direct mental quotes should be rare, something that the character came very close to actually saying out loud. If you find that italicizing mental quotes makes your text ugly, then you're overdoing it with the mental quotes, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't use italics for mental quotes.

True, I'm heavily biased towards spatial-logic rather than verbalization, but that just meanst that I almost never put something into mental words unless I'm about to say it. I would write the line differently.

quote:

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Joe imagined ripping Tom's head off and keeping it alive indefinitely for fun. "Whatever you say, I'm out of here."

---

When a character has an abrupt thought, a fully-formed literally-worded thought, IMHO it should be set apart from background thought. Although background thought can mimic the character's speech pattern, often it doesn't, or at least not to the extent dialogue would. Background thought is mainly presented in the author's words. It's a thought summary.

Somewhere in my writing books there was an example of an unschooled backwoods girl character. The author had her thinking with words she probably didn't know, and sometimes rather poetically, and it was fine -- and probably necessary. If he had had her thinking directly, it would have been hard to follow and probably annoying to read, similar to dialogue with language challenges, which we've discussed before -- a few hints and the reader gets it.

Background thought, or deep penetration, is basically thought summary instead of word-for-word direct thought. When the character changes to direct thought, it needs to be distinguished as such.

Borrowing on OSC's example in Characters and Viewpoint (Note that 'vivid' is italicized for emphasis only):

quote:

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Pete wasn't surprised that Nora was fifteen minutes late, and of course she showed up with a new dress. A blue dress. No, not just blue. Vivid blue, like neon woven into cloth.

"Do you like it?" asked Nora.

Pete forced himself to smile. "Terrific."

---

If you add the words, "Like his mother's dress" to the end of the first paragraph, you'll see the difference between deep penetration and direct thought:

Pete wasn't surprised that Nora was fifteen minutes late, and of course she showed up with a new dress. A blue dress. No, not just blue. Vivid blue, like neon woven into cloth. Like his mother's dress.

If you want this to be direct thought, it'd have to read, "Like my mother's dress" not "Like his mother's dress," but without italics, it'd be confusing:

Pete wasn't surprised that Nora was fifteen minutes late, and of course she showed up with a new dress. A blue dress. No, not just blue. Vivid blue, like neon woven into cloth. Like my mother's dress.

How much better:

Pete wasn't surprised that Nora was fifteen minutes late, and of course she showed up with a new dress. A blue dress. No, not just blue. Vivid blue, like neon woven into cloth. Like my mother's dress.

Now the last thought takes on added significance.

I like OSC. Don't get me wrong. Hell, I ended up here while browsing his website.

But he's not the only author on the planet, folks. And just because he does things one way, or has one particular take on his practicing of this art we call writing, doesn't mean it's the only way.

Here's the question to ask yourself: After all is said and done, who are you trying to sound like in your work? OSC, or yourselves?

The only wrong thing to do as a writer is not sell.

First of all, I agree that the ocassional "he thought" does work, even in deep penetartion. It depends upon the flow of the narrative. Sometimes it just works. Sometimes you have to continue to remind the reader whose POV we're even in.

Now, the thing about deep penetration is that you don't often keep it up for an entire novel. You dip in and out of a character's head, inceasingly getting closer and closer and then further and further. You don't report all their thoughts or even summarize all of them. So, for example:

The doorbell rang. Pete looked at his watch and saw that Nora was fifteen minutes late.

This is very light penetration. Now, moving along:

Nora was often late. Undoubtedly, she had gone out to buy a new dress. Pete wsiehed Nora would realize that she looked good in anything.

Now we're a little deeper. More than action, we have a hint of attitude. Summarized, yes, but attitude. The wording of the second paragraph, beginning with "undoubtedly" shows a certain amount of exasperation and predictability. Then, in the last sentence, we see more of what Pete thinks of Nora. Summarized, yes, but we know that this time it's pretty close to what Pete was actually thinking at the time. I say he wished it...right then and there. I did not need to say he wished or he thought or anything of the like even in moderate penetration, but it helps bridge into deep penetratoin:

Pete opened the door. Nora stood there in a bran-new blue dress. No, not just blue. Vivid blue, like neon woven into cloth. Like his mother's dress.

All right, after giving it serious thought I realized what the problem was with "Like his/my mother's dress." Neither one seems very much like what a character would actually think. I think this is why the italics feel so necessary. In fact, I almost never come up with circumstances for direct thoughts. I'm going to try to come up with my own paragraph:

"May I come in?" Nora asked.

"Of course." Pete stepped aside, his eyes never leaving that dress.

"How do I look?" she asked.

"You look nice." Nice? Wonderful! Beautiful! Amazing!

***

Ok, this feels a little more natural to me. Of course, different authors will have different opinions about this. But I think it's perfectly obvious that he was thinking those things without italics.

And finally, even if it is not obvious, deep penetration and direct thoughts, if no "I" is involved in the direct thought, feel so much like one another that most readers won't distinguish. For that matter, if you put something in with an "I" or other personal pronoun that is not in quotes it is obvious what you're doing, a direct thought, without italics. The trick is seemless intertwining. Like I said, I think italics is used as a crutch. With italics, who needs to bother with tthe right flow?

And as for them being difficult to read, I think that depends on the font used.

quote:

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I like OSC. Don't get me wrong. Hell, I ended up here while browsing his website.

But he's not the only author on the planet, folks. And just because he does things one way, or has one particular take on his practicing of this art we call writing, doesn't mean it's the only way.

Here's the question to ask yourself: After all is said and done, who are you trying to sound like in your work? OSC, or yourselves?

---

Amen, brother. Amen.

Normally, I wouldn't have done this, because I was going to rant about it on my own. Now I don't have to -- these are my exact feelings.

And I like OSC's books as much as anyone -- all the ones I've read anyway. I'm currently reading Shadow Puppets and I'm thinking there's far too much talk about having babies, and the very obvious reasons that we have babies -- far more than I'd prefer to read about. I get it. But I'm trusting it'll go somewhere...

Of course, not wanting to have children myself and my frustration over what feels a bit overdone, led me to say the following thoughtless blunder to my wife this morning:

"Crumbs! What's up with all the babies. I'm sick of babies. Babies, babies, babies. Kids having babies. What's he thinking? That humans need babies to survive?"

And she, who doesn't want children either, smiled and then said, "Actually, we do."

quote:

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WIth the preponderance of character thoughts in today's literature, italics is all wrong for the purpose.

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I know it's not the same thing. After all, I can just lean in a bit and see better than anyone with normal vision (I can still focus with my nose touching the screen, it's like built in high-power reading glasses). But I usually deliberately stay far enough back that everythings a bit blurry (for me, that equals about a foot and a half).

quote:

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For one thing, you'll have italics every other sentence.

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