Writing Thought bubble for the voice in the head

[NotaNuffian]

Hi All,

Happy New Year.

Today I just want to discuss the usage of thought bubbles for the voice inside MC's head.

I had gone through Oracle Paths and Supreme Magus and found that they either don't have a designated quotation for thoughts, meaning everyone's thoughts, including the oneechan in Jake's head, are just presented as a simple quote or reformed to become actions, or they are like Supreme Magus, where the loli fairy in Lith's head uses the same thought quotation as everybody else.

For the record, I am in favor of the first type because it is the simplest to read. The cons are obvious when I can't tell what exactly is running in the minds of the characters and occasionally the immersion got broken when the author has to specifically state who is talking what. Even more so when the oneechan is in Jake's head and in order not to muddle her up with others, she seldom speaks when Jake is around others.

Then there is the second version seen in Supreme Magus, where open speech is " " while thoughts are ' '. This applies to all characters and the loli fairy in the work usually only speaks to Lith inside of him, until loli fairy has a body and can interact with others.

What are your thoughts if you were to expreas what is running in the mind of the voice inside MC? Would you assign a random quotation, such as a square bracket, for the voice's use?

Inner-voiception...

Thanks for reading.

 

[HelloHound]

I'm using first person view so this might not be very applicable but when I'm quoting something specific I use ' '

 

[Syringe]

I just put everything internal in italics. If someone else is speaking internally to the MC, then it's in italics and quotation marks.

E.g -

Normal - "Why are you offering me skewers? I hate them."

MC - But man... Those skewers do look good.

A separate internal voice/not MC's - "Then just eat them. No harm in doing so... Well, aside from the animal."

 

[NotaNuffian]

I just put everything internal in italics. If someone else is speaking internally to the MC, then it's in italics and quotation marks.

E.g -

Normal - "Why are you offering me skewers? I hate them."

MC - But man... Those skewers do look good.

A separate internal voice/not MC's - "Then just eat them. No harm in doing so... Well, aside from the animal."

I stopped using italics after AO3 messed up when I paste over to it.

I ended up using square brackets as thought bubble because I thought the single air quote looks too small and stupid. I now feel very stupid.

 

[K5Rakitan]

I like italics for thoughts that the characters keep to themselves.

«You should use guillemets for telepathic thoughts that are directed at other characters.»

 

[J_Chemist]

Depending on where you're posting, using the different kinds of symbols available definitely would help with distinguishing who's talking if there are multiple people in the Character's head. Or if the group is using telepathy. The other alternative is colors, just nothing obnoxious. Subtle colors that don't turn the conversation into a rainbow would be a solution.

Though, I'd just use the characters/symbols for such a task. There are plenty of various brackets available that you could label a plethora of characters with them. Though, I would also utilize formatting to help denote that it's an internal character. i.e; add an indent that causes the "thought"/speech-text to be off-line from the regular text. This way, the Reader's eye line shifts and the change brings attention to the line.

Breaking immersion is certainly an issue with any one of these. But so long as the Writer establishes the rule for how the internal speech is handled from the beginning, or from the start of whenever it occurs, and remains consistent- it shouldn't be a lasting problem even if they add more voices.