Hey,
How do I tell my readers that my character is thinking in his head, do I do it in italics? Thanks for your help
Hey Laura. Good question.
This is really more of a question for your copy editor when you get ready to publish. There are a couple of different ways to do it, and your copy editor is the person that will make that decision. What’s important for your writing process is that it’s clear in the manuscript what’s supposed to be an articulated thought (like saying it “out loud” in your head). So whatever you decide to do, just do it consistently, then your copy editor can change it if he/she decides to do it a different way.
The Chicago Manual of Style says that internal dialogue (thinking a phrase in your head) should be in quotation marks. I think that doesn’t read very well though, so in all of my publishing companies we’ve used our own style guide and just put thoughts in italics. I think that’s much clearer to readers.
