Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Character's conflicting thoughts

This is topic Character's conflicting thoughts in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Gan (Member # 8405) on :

How do you go about showing a character argue and talk with himself inside his head? There are probably many ways to do this, I'm sure, but I'm curious if any are more acceptable than others.

Would the below be a valid method? Viewpoint is close third person, with italics for thoughts.

quote:
He is handsome, but a dolt. Who boasts of such things in the Lowriver? Only the dead and soonly robbed, she thought.

Could we use the narrator as an other-self, at times, or would we want to simply keep it all in italics?

Posted by Reziac (Member # 9345) on :

I don't italicize general internal musings, but if it's a specific thought, or something that might nearly have been spoken aloud, or delivered as if the character were speaking aloud to himself, then it gets italics. But it's a Feel, not a Rule.

<goes off, roots around> Okay, here's an example from my own stuff. The POV character (Rizen) has been busted down in rank twice before; the other character (Rividh) is a telepath who has just acquired the hapless lieutenant as his new aide.

quote:
"Permission to speak frankly, sir."
Rividh hiked an amused eyebrow. "Always."
Great. His next gig would be as an ensign. "Sir," Rizen started as he hopped into the cart's port seat-
[chunk snipped to keep this short]
"You were saying," Rividh prompted, voice flat.
Make that a noncom... Rizen fired up the cart and headed out of the docking bay
[another sacrifice to the goddess of the line count]
"I would have thought you'd have--" better shields than that, Rizen stopped himself from saying, too late to cut off the thought. Forget noncom, at this rate he'd end up in military prison.

At any rate, it's an emphasis and voice thing, not a Rule per se.

Posted by skadder (Member # 6757) on :

Both above examples are fine. I use italics for direct thoughts.

[side note: your character names both begin with V and are about the same length--it gets very confusing...Best advice I can offer is that you choose names with different start letters, length and construction]

[This message has been edited by skadder (edited January 24, 2011).]

Posted by History (Member # 9213) on :

I tend to favor the italics method myself, for "direct" internal dialogue, though I use it rarely--typically for relaying the difference between what characters are saying to each other and what they are thinking--and usually only for the protagonist.

Sounds fine to me.

Respectfully,
Dr. Bob

Posted by Reziac (Member # 9345) on :

Skadder: did you mean mine with the R? They've just met so Rizen is still thinking of his new boss by surname (normally we refer to Rividh as "Rikon", a short form of his given name) .. that changes rather quickly, but we seldom get Rizen's POV in this tale. (This is from about the middle of Book Six.)

And yes, there are several with similar names, but I assure you, you'll never confuse those characters :P Besides, try arguing with these people... they told me it was a cultural thing and I could jolly well bugger off if I didn't like it. It gets worse on Another Planet[tm], where every 3rd girl-child carries some variant of the same historic name. We only really deal with two of them, thank the gods.

Posted by micmcd (Member # 7977) on :

I get nervous about this all the time, particularly because I use the italic internal dialog a lot --- but only because I have a character who is at one point mute, so he "thinks at" people:

quote:

Sister Catherine looked him square in the eye. "Grayson, you have to understand that you can't just take things from people. Please tell me you get that."
Grayson knew a good time to nod when he heard one. I understand you're a gullible dummy.

I also use it when people are literally communicating via thought (it's magic; let it be). When doing that, I use attributors (sparingly) just as I would with regular dialog.

I also use it as internal conversation, but the line between when to just write the POV character's thoughts and when to "speak" them to the reader is a tough one to find.
My rule of thumb is to ask, "Would it make sense if the character said this out loud right now?" If I'm not sure, I go with no italics. Even when I am pretty sure it's right, I still feel nervous every time I hit CTRL-I.

Posted by Reziac (Member # 9345) on :

Good example, micmcd. My eye likes it.

I think it has to seem natural to look natural, and that depends on what it is. Again, we're back to a Feel, not a Rule.

In the Olden Days, it was common for ALL thoughts to be in italics, but lordy, does that wind up being overkill!

Posted by Grayson Morris (Member # 9285) on :

Oh, how very odd to have my name used like that. (I rarely hear or see my name at all, uncommon as it is, unless something's directed at me.)

The "he" helped prevent me from freaking, as clearly this is some *other* Grayson (one of the twelve worldwide? ;-) ).

An Israeli Grayson once made a Graysons of the World webpage, on which I was the only female with the name. (There are others; I've met one.)

Ahem....now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.