Quotation Marks on "Thoughts"

runeblade

I dont know if thoughts should be placed in quotation marks.

Obviously "...[a] speech, a quotation, a phrase or a word" (wikipedia.com) can be in quotation marks but does that include inner thoughts not expressed out loud?

I just read a Mickey Spillane novel - The Killing Man - in which a specific thought was placed in quotations but I just can't seem to find an authority that defines a rule on this...and that book was written in the first person which is really ALL inner thoughts, so it may have been done for emphasis (E.P, Dutton editors seem to play a bit loose with the rules sometimes).

Anyhow does anyone know of any ruling on this? American or British.

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runeblade

Oh here this is helpful:

Acoording to Sparknotes, "You can surround thoughts with quotation marks or not, according to your preference." (http://www.sparknotes.com/writing/style/topic_156.html)



While D.G. Jerz of Seton Hill University states:

"Quotation marks signal direct speech (the actual words a speaker spoke). In creative writing, you may choose to use direct quotes to indicate interior thoughts, though you might instead use italics or nothing at all." (http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/grammar/quotes/index.html)

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Jonathan_Philips

As far as I am aware there is no definitive rule Rune.

This was discussed a while back at LL and I am afraid I cannot remember what conclusion was reached.

I have used both quotation marks at times and italics at others to denote thoughts in my writing and now, having decided that punctuation is there to make a text more comfortable to read as well as to get across the writers intent as clearly as possible - rather than it being a set of rules to adhere to, I am in the italics camp. This way there is no confusion to the reader about what is spoken and what is not.

I will probably change my mind next week though.

JP

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msounds

Hi there runeblade,

Haven't heard of any ruling - myself - however.. I am pretty sure that on all the books I have read italics was the 'standard' method to be used for thoughts and quotation marks for dialogue or exact quotation of a [usually] non-present source..

Personally, I sometimes use square brackets for such thoughts or additional details in the story - but of course, that is just a personal style/preference. To me - it seems to be a more powerful way to clearly separate that text from the story line or main idea [and I'll keep doing it].

--

I looked briefly on the net searching for such a ruling - couldn't find much. If I see anything, I will hit this reply button again in no time!


Here,
MSounds

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lushi

Rune,

In the discussion that JP and I were involved in on the LL I think the consensus was to use italics for direct thoughts. However, the LL story upload process messed around with italics so the conclusion was to use single quotes, as opposed to double quotes. The premise being to separate thoughts from dialogue in possibly confusing portions of the story.

I prefer single quotes as those are hardly ever used for anything else and italics might be confused, for what I don't know, but still. lol Plus using single quotes allows the thoughts to continue as a key component of the paragraph and aren't set out in the same way as double quotes are.

But that's just me. So you have a selection now:

zoundsy's delightfully unique [thought box];
JP's standard thought box, and;
my boring but cute 'thought box'.

Whatever you select, I am sure it will be wonderful. [Oh, and it's my understanding that each publishing house uses their own style manual so it wouldn't make that much difference anyway.]

Lush

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