Nathan Bransford - The Forums

taylormillgirl wrote:I'm in the seventh circle of revision hell. Among many other things, I'm questioning the way I've indicated internal monologue for my characters. I'm curious what your preference is.

A. Italicized thoughts in first person present tense: "Yes, sir." God, you're such a jerk.
B. Third person: "Yes, sir." God, he was such a jerk.
C All of the above, mixing and matching throughout.

Me, italicized thoughts for big drama, the rest of the time option B.

Italics are like spice in soup -- too many, and well, you know what happens. You go to McDonald's.

JenLT wrote:Internal monologue in 3rd person POV needs to be italicized or in quotations marks. Either are correct, so you can mix and match between those all you want. My personal preference is italicized.

I'm the opposite. ;) I think it's basically a personal preference.

I think it depends partly on how deep your Third Person POV is.

Take, for instance, an objective Third Person POV where the POV is almost a video cam mounted on the POV character's head. I think Hemingway used this sort of objective Third. Internal monologue in this sort of POV might be confusing if it isn't italicized.

I tend to write in extremely narrow Third Person, completely submersed in one character's POV, so even the narrative bits are in that person's voice to some degree (i.e. I don't use vocabulary that person wouldn't know). In deep POV like this, even description is colored with the POV character's emotion and experience, etc. With a POV this deep, the internal monologue is a integral part of the exposition, therefore it would be jarring if it WAS italicized.

I did 3rd the same way, Katrina, and good points.