Thread: What to do with a characters thoughts?

Hello, First my apologies as I am sure this question as been asked and answered on here before. I did search but was unable to find anything that answered my question with the way I was searching. I have seen different books handle this different ways and I am wondering what is the correct way to write a characters thoughts. Should a characters thoughts be in quotation marks? For instance, "This is crazy," Rod thought or should it be, This is crazy, Rod thought as he strapped his self in. My character in my story is very introverted and so there are a lot of times when he thinks things yet doesn't say them. I am just not sure of the proper way to write these as thoughts. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Originally Posted by Quasar

Hello, First my apologies as I am sure this question as been asked and answered on here before. I did search but was unable to find anything that answered my question with the way I was searching. I have seen different books handle this different ways and I am wondering what is the correct way to write a characters thoughts. Should a characters thoughts be in quotation marks? For instance, "This is crazy," Rod thought or should it be, This is crazy, Rod thought as he strapped his self in. My character in my story is very introverted and so there are a lot of times when he thinks things yet doesn't say them. I am just not sure of the proper way to write these as thoughts. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Agatha Christie uses quotation marks for 'thoughts' - but it's well known now, especially in the modern-day, to be incorrect. you usually put thoughts in italics. So, for example:

This day is dragging, thought Simon Bale, if I could only control the clocks.

You can also put this example into narrative:

As Simon Bale sat at his desk, he considered the time and how his day had dragged. If only one could control the clocks.

There are many ways you can portray thoughts. But quotation marks - No, certainly not. It can unnecessarily confuse the reader.

I hope this helps!

Using just italics to indicate thoughts is often sufficient, without including any attribution. I don't really like showing thoughts with italics -- it seems kind of clunky. If the narrative voice is strong, you can often just build the thoughts right into the narrative, without italics or any attribution verb at all -- that's what I prefer.

Personally I never say "he thought" or anything like that. I just put my characters thought directly into the narration. It depends a lot on the overall style whether this can or cannot work. Here's an example of how I do it though:

Rod strapped himself in, feeling his legs begin to shake. Nothing this crazy had ever been done in human history. Ever.

If it's an implied thought, like in starseed's example, just keep it as part of the narrative and don't bother with italics. However, if it's a literal thought, like what outoftheblue used, italics are needed.

I like to just use the narration to describe the character's thoughts.

John Irving, one of my favorite authors, does it all the time:

Originally Posted by John Irving

Its mouth was wet, so it couldn’t get a good grip on the doorknob, but it wouldn’t stop trying—eventually the dog would get in, Tom thought.

Originally Posted by John Irving

And if I let myself love Ruth, Marion thought, what will I do if something happens to her?

Does point of view have any influence on how a writer portrays a character's thoughts? If the narrator stays inside the head of the POV character, that character's thoughts closely resemble narration. If the narrator is omniscient, bouncing around from one character's head to another, don't thoughts have to be handled differently? C.M.

Thanks for the replies. I can see I have been doing it wrong which is why I asked. I have read a few different books that have expressed thought with quotation marks. However, earlier this year, I read "The Mote in God's Eye" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. In the book they used the example given by outoftheblue. They really couldn't use italics though as they used italics for all thoughts, narration, and dialogue for an alien race. Every time they story shifted to the aliens point of view, it was written in italics. I found it confusing sometimes though. I remember having to go back and re-read some paragraphs and sentences in order to understand them. I remember not really liking it but was not sure how it should be done.

Thanks,

Does anyone think it is easier to deal with thoughts if you are writing in first person as opposed to third person?

Originally Posted by Robdemanc

Does anyone think it is easier to deal with thoughts if you are writing in first person as opposed to third person?

Not easier, just different. In a sense, First Person is the character's mind and nothing more.

In the example of The Mote In God's Eye, when a large portion of the narrative is in italics then words and phrases which would normally appear in italics, such as thoughts, and stressed words, are written in normal text to differentiate them.

The Centurion drone cruised the corridors of the empty ship scanning every possible hiding place where the invaders could have hidden. Its sensors probed each bulkhead and storage locker with quick precision like a mouden searching for crumbs after a biological's meal. In the organic part of its neural processor a signal arose running in parallel with the programming embedded there, Why are they hiding? A biological would call the signal a thought -- the Centurion ignored it and continued his scan.

Originally Posted by johnMG

Not easier, just different. In a sense, First Person is the character's mind and nothing more.

But in first person would you say the reader is expecting the characters thoughts more than they would if it was in third person?

Originally Posted by C.M. Aaron

Does point of view have any influence on how a writer portrays a character's thoughts? If the narrator stays inside the head of the POV character, that character's thoughts closely resemble narration. If the narrator is omniscient, bouncing around from one character's head to another, don't thoughts have to be handled differently? C.M.

Yeah exactly. I'd think they would. The example I used works in the case of my novel because there is one POV character only. It's told in third person but the whole thing still centers around the one dude. If I switched POV between different characters I'd likely use he thought/she thought tags.

Originally Posted by C.M. Aaron

Does point of view have any influence on how a writer portrays a character's thoughts? If the narrator stays inside the head of the POV character, that character's thoughts closely resemble narration. If the narrator is omniscient, bouncing around from one character's head to another, don't thoughts have to be handled differently? C.M.

I think it does. If the point of view focuses on one character then their thoughts may be expressed verbatim in the narrative. The book I'm writing however, has a narrator who is more like a physical being and is accompanying the main characters through the story. Like a real person, the narrator doesn't actually know what any of the characters are thinking; they deduce it from the context and from the characters' behaviour and tone of voice. These kind of thoughts can only be expressed through the narrative, like in starseed's example.

I've done away with the whole "Italics" thing, except where I use it to "quote" things that aren't said aloud. Like a placard on a painting or something. These days, characters' thoughts just go on the page along with the rest of the print.

Doing that helps me to avoid using a character's thoughts as a crutch. You probably know what I mean: you have some portion of the story that would be a pain in the ass, you think, to reveal the right way, but there's no one around for your character to discuss it with.