posted
Oh dear...you have not hit upon a yes or no grammar question but hotly debated topics that probably have no right answer, though I will fight until my face turns red to keep excessive italics out of prose, such as in character thoughts! But others will say I'm wrong and they will have valid points and so will I and in the end who is right?
And as for descriptive prose vs. grammatical perfection, I tend to like a little bit of liberty in my prose in the form of sentence fragments and the like as long as they don't get too annoying or overwhelm the manuscript. They work well for making points or making something stand out, but once again that is my opinion and others will tell you never in a million years! Who is right? The editors, in the end.
So when people tell you that you should or shouldn't do something like that you consider their arguments. If your sentence fragments and liberties with the language are driving a multitude of readers to distraction then rethink them, and if one soul on a mission from God says you shouldn't then follow your heart, as with all critiques.
When I wrote scenes where the character was in 3rd person and then I showed their thoughts. In five reviews four people thought the thoughts were a pov error. but simply placing the thoughts in italics suddenly everybody thought it became clear.
ex:
Melissa was glued to the scene, shock and curiosity held her in place. How could they hire someone so retarded to operate a deep fryer?
vs
Melissa was glued to the scene, shock and curiosity held her in place. How could they hire someone so retarded to operate a deep fryer?
The bottom does seem clearer to me. Yet I wish there was a website that might discuss these points so a newbie like me could research it more thoroughly.
I did some searching and found this site that best explains my stance on character thoughts and describes perfectly how I go about intertwining them into the text. Since it's on the internet you know it must be true. But seriously, it is well-said, IMO, and may give you an idea of something new to try or maybe you'll decide to go on doing what you're doing.
posted
Use italics only to quote a subvocalized thought of the POV character.
Your example was perfect, Melissa is just short of saying it out loud. Quoting her exact mental wording of the question shows not only what she is thinking, but just how emphatically she thought it.
This is the origin of using italics for mental quotes. We understand naturally that when someone almost says something, the thought was by no means subconscious or anything like that. For the same reason, you should use this device very sparingly. In the example Christine linked, it is simply unrealistic that the thoughts would be explicitly framed and formatted for output. In a situation like that, the longest mental quote should have no more than four letters
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