Saturday 23 March 2024
Points Of View And Thoughts
Poul Anderson verbalizes and italicizes the thoughts of a viewpoint character, e.g., Manse Everard of the Time Patrol, while that viewpoint character converses with other characters in the usual way in unitalicized dialogue enclosed within inverted commas. I always found this perfectly clear although one fellow pupil at boarding school had to ask me, "Who is saying this?" while pointing at one of Everard's italicized thoughts. In Dune, Frank Herbert verbalizes and italicizes the thoughts of two characters, the Baron and his nephew, while those two characters are conversing with each other. Most authors accept that you just cannot do this. What would be a more appropriate or elegant way to do what Herbert tries to do? Two parallel columns, the first presenting the dialogue plus the Baron's thoughts, the second presenting the same dialogue but with the nephew's thoughts? That sounds cumbersome but Herbert's existing texts just come over as wrong at least to some readers. There must be some way to resolve this.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
I picked that mechanism up from Poul.
It's very good for contrasting what people -say- with what they -think-.
Which is one of the big advantages of written fiction done in close 3rd person.
Kaor, Paul!
Ditto, what Stirling said! I prefer it when writers like Anderson, Herbert, and Stirling use italics to indicate the unspoken thoughts of their characters, to distinguish them from spoken dialogue using inverted quote marks and plain font.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I agree with all that. It's just that we should only read the viewpoint character's thoughts in any given passage of continuous narrative.
Paul.
From Sean:
Kaor, Paul!
I hope to remember that point when I read such books.
Ad astra! Sean
Yes, that italicization of thought works best with -close- 3rd person -- that is, focusing on one character.
For example, in the book I'm working on now, someone is giving a speech.
He says: "... and foreign guests...
and the viewpoint character thinks: -Yes, utterly terrified foreign guests...-
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I never seem to notice such subtleties--mostly because I don't recall ever having any trouble distinguishing unspoken italicized thoughts by characters from spoken dialogue or speeches.
Ad astra! Sean
Two points:
Italicized thoughts work best with a single 3rd person point of view.
Jumping between different points of view in a single passage is arguably wrong anyway.
Post a Comment