Just yesterday, I dropped some knowledge on my FB page Beth Gelman's Author Page, regarding ellipsis. Straight from the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. One of my biggest pet peeves are the incredible variances in usage, most of which are horribly wrong. Sometimes I'll DNF if the grammar is that bad, but if the story itself has merit, I'll power through.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about any/all of that.

Have an amazing weekend!

Beth Gelman

Hi Debbie,

My thoughts on that . . . Putting the dialogue in quotes is a must, like you said, because it shows when someone's speaking. That's how we tell between out loud dialogue and internal dialogue (internal thought.) Paragraphing helps that as well. But because direct thoughts have to be from the narrator's POV (scene-by-scene), I feel putting them inside italics pulls you out of that POV. Even in third person. Unless you change tense or to first person from third.

Example: Rob ran the final mile back to the house, sweating. Hot as hell, this day was.(staying in third person with internal thought that's deep POV needs no italics because he's the narrator)

Example: Rob ran the final mile back to the house, sweating. This day is hot as hell (in italics because we switched to present tense from past)

OR I'm hot as hell (in italics because we switched from third person to first.)

Does that help?

Thank you!

The second one because it is a different speaker, so we need a paragraph.

That is a great point! White space is such a psychological trick For our brains to let us know that we can do something. We can read. We can understand. We can enjoy a story.

This topic was inspired by you after the contest you judged. ❤️

Totally with you there. To me, the use of italics for thoughts is exactly like using quotation marks around dialogue. Without it, it looks like random tense and/or POV switching, which I DO see beginning writers do frequently before they understand tenses, or the difference between 1st and 3rd person POVs. Been dealing very recently with a young writer who's learning that stuff, so she switches back and forth randomly.

I have a dialog question tho... Which do you prefer?

1. "Bla bla bla," Joe said. Eve's jaw dropped.

"You're kidding I hope," she whispered.

2. "Bla bla bla," Joe said.

Eve's jaw dropped. "You're kidding I hope," she whispered.

1 or 2?