S1E9A8N5

How do you distinguish between the two?

For example.

The first thing he noticed upon awakening was a plate of untouched food that sat on the nightstand beside him (cold and dry by the looks of it).

I want the (cold and dry by the looks of it) to represent the narrators thoughts but in this example you would assume it's the characters. Should I just scratch that part and come up with something like "Cold steak and potatoes filled the air". Or something. Do you know what I mean?

__________________

Mr Sci Fi

The way you have it is fine, minus the parenthesis.

__________________
"The writer you envy today will probably have reason to envy you tomorrow." - Orson Scott Card

Dawnstorm

I agree that - spontaneously - the bracket comment sounds like the thoughts of the character. But it's hard to say how it would sound in context. For example, if you've established early that bracketed comments are the narrator's thought, then we'll be more inclined to attribute this bracket to the narrator, too.

You could use the first-person pronoun:

"The first thing he noticed upon awakening was a plate of untouched food that sat on the nightstand beside him (cold and dry as far as I can see)."

But you'd have to have your narrator use the first person pronoun more often in comments (there's no set value; once every two chapters could be enough), or it would sound strange.

It's very hard to answer this question, as most of it depends on your general PoV situation. The same line can be read differently in different texts.

Fossy

You could use a metaphor - such as; The first thing he noticed upon awakening was a plate of untouched food sitting on the nightstand beside him; it looked cold and dry, like the frozen entrails of a chicken (Not chicken entrails maybe, but I can't think of anything else at the moment)

__________________
Originally posted by Sam Winchester.
Fossy's good too. She gives good advice.

Kane

That would be a simile, not a metaphor... at any rate, it's a poorly crafted sentence. As for the distinction between narrator and POV character, I don't think it is necessary, or even functional, to use the both.

If you are using a narrator's voice, it is the narrator who is telling the story. We are seeing the story through the narrator's eyes. He is telling us what your main character is seeing, or is not seeing.

If you are using 3rd person POV, the story is unfolding through your character's eyes. We see what he sees, hear what he hears, etc. In this case, we wouldn't need the narrator to stop the flow of the story to tell us the food looks cold and dry when, if that's the first thing the character sees, you can tell us it looks cold and dry through his perspective, rather than bringing in the narrator.

Fossy

Ooops, sorry. Was going to use a metaphor, but couldn't think of one - still can't think of one.

__________________
Originally posted by Sam Winchester.
Fossy's good too. She gives good advice.

Rabid Euphoria

I've always found it simple for the characters thoughts to be in italics to distinguish them and it appears to be commonly used. You can used to narrator to describe what they are thinking and feeling and use italic dialogue (as I call it) for their thoughts. In my experience, I've found unless what the character specificly thinks helps their characters shine or develop it's essentially useless. You don't need to have the character think I wonder what time it is when the narrator can easily say 'he pondered the time' or something alone the lines.

Then again, it all comes down to style.

S1E9A8N5

All the more reason to use it!?

But that is not my intention. Thanks for the advice everyone. I appreciate it.

__________________