Greetings, writers—
Yesterday, while taking a break from some extremely gory research I’m doing for a new collaboration with James Patterson, I gave some thought to what I might write to you today. Should I talk about using research in fiction? Write about character flaws? Offer reviews of the short novels I’ve read thus far in 2023? Make a list of ways to keep applying the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair when you really, really want to leave?
I didn’t make any decisions, and so, after waking well before dawn this morning, I figured I’d see if Philippe Petit (that guy again) knows what he’s talking about when he writes the following:
When I’m about to fall asleep, I place one unsolved problem, one only, under my pillow — metaphorically speaking, of course.
Once the opacity of sleep has sheltered my mind from the outside world, my subconscious decides on the right direction and travels at sonic speed. It retrieves the solution I need, which sails from outer space to paint my whirling inner space. When the motion stops, I wake up.
Okay then!
I put the ‘what shall I write’ problem under my pillow and slept for another half an hour. I dreamed that I was going to meet with a former student of mine, along with someone she knew who was going to tell me how to be way better at Substack.
If only that’s what the dream ended up being about.
Instead it was about how I didn’t recognize my student right away because she’d dyed her hair purple, my subsequent embarrassment, and my hopes that I’d somehow managed to conceal this failure of identification from her.
Since I’m writing about this now, I guess Petit’s strategy worked. But I would’ve preferred a flash of awesome literary insight. Maybe next time.
I did actually speak to this former student in real life yesterday, about the use of italics in internal dialogue. Pam Statz, whose first novel comes out in 2024 (yay!) (and who also looked pretty good with dream-purple hair), wrote that her copy editor had said the following about her finished manuscript:
I have offset [lines of internal dialogue] in italics to distinguish them from the outward scene description and other dialogue. This may help the reader to understand the inner workings of these characters and build their processing of the scene around them. These moments are a great addition to your writing, and I believe this offset will provide more clarity for your audience.
Suddenly it seemed to Pam that her book had italics everywhere. She didn’t like what they looked like on the page, and she really didn’t like how their conspicuousness pulled her out of the story.
(Related: the word “said” as a dialogue tag is essentially invisible, while other, more ostensibly exciting dialogue tags—e.g., “retorted,” “intoned,” or “quipped”—are more obvious and artificial and in my opinion should be avoided.)
The copy editor had also certain changed internal moments from third person POV to first. For example, her original was:
Why hadn’t he gone after her, he asked himself, his heart aching.
Which they changed to:
Why didn’t I go after her, he asked himself, his heart aching.
But if that’s an actual question, doesn’t it need a question mark? I’m not a copy editor (though for a year I was the world’s worst advertising proofreader—I’d catch every grammatical error but fail to notice when someone misspelled the product’s name, e.g. Budweiser), but I’d think the line should look like this:
Why didn’t I go after her? he asked himself, his heart aching.
And I wonder if the copy editor would have made the change if Pam’s sentence had been:
Why hadn’t he gone after her, he wondered, his heart aching.
Maybe not, because wondering can be a state of being that lasts longer than a specific, singular question asked in thought.
But anyway, there isn’t a truly right or wrong answer to the question of italics; it’s a matter of personal style and preference. If it were my novel, though, I’d err on the side of trusting the reader to know what’s going on and thus to not need a bunch of italics to prove that a character is having a thought. I would also keep Pam’s original sentence.
When I do use italics for internal dialogue, it’s for emphasis, and I keep those moments very short, not to mention few and far between.
If you’d like to read more about internal dialogue, here’s one place you can do it. No doubt there are many, many others.
I really enjoyed talking to Pam (a founding member of Good Ideas—thanks!), and I’d like to hear from more of you.
What writing questions do you have? Like:
How much backstory is too much? Are craft books helpful? What do you do when you don’t feel like writing? How do you write good dialogue?
Stand up and show folks you’re here by putting a question in the comments. I’ve written a lot of books and I probably have an opinion.
Plus, writing is lonely—let’s make it less so.
Congratulations Pam for having your first novel published! How wonderful!
Okay, then, my question is how much is too much backstory? I had someone recently suggest that I write a whole first chapter about my main character. I argued that I wanted to slip in my main character's backstory throughout the story, and I was worried about info dumping if I did otherwise, like write a whole chapter. The person said, 'ah, it would be too much if you stuck in her backstory throughout the novel and besides, I want to hear more about her, I want to know how she became who she is.' But does a reader really want a whole entire chapter of backstory? I've seen it done with Steinbeck, (Cup of Gold, his first novel), and a few other authors. How much backstory, spread throughout the novel and within scenes, (that is what we are talking about here, backstory within a scene? - I need more caffeine, my brain is frozen), is too much? Can a first chapter of main character backstory be done successfully- or how do you do it successfully? Which reminds me of Olive Kitteridge (I just started reading this book, what a gem!), Strout does an excellent job with backstory, current story, mixed with characteristics that define the character all in one go while telling the story. It is smooth and palatable and beautiful to read.
Thanks again for your help with this Emily! My current plan is to remove most italics, remove ‘she thought’ and ‘he thought’ as much as possible, slot in a few 'wondered' (brilliant idea!), and set longer thoughts in their own paragraphs.
Would love to hear how others have approached italics in their own writing!
A few other helpful links I found in my obsessive search for answers! (Am I just using this topic as a distraction from actually writing...?)
https://cmosshoptalk.com/2020/08/18/formatting-thoughts-in-fiction/
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-characters-thoughts
https://theeditorsblog.net/2012/02/28/inner-dialogue-writing-character-thoughts/
https://www.grammarbook.com/blog/quotation-marks/internal-dialogue-italics-or-quotes/