I am about to submit a story originally in Microsoft Word format. The characters' thoughts are in italics. I converted the story to .txt, and started the submission process. I noticed that in preview mode the italics were all removed. Any suggestions on how to convert or submit this story and keep the italics? Thanks.
Italics for character's thoughts
- Thread starter Jake4000
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CWatson
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I'm 90% sure you can submit it in DOC instead, which keeps the italics.
You could also experiment. Orson Scott Card doesn't use italics for internal monologue, and most of the time he makes it work; I'm actually trying it in something I have in-progress to see whether I like it.
~CWatson
(contributing nothing useful)
You could also experiment. Orson Scott Card doesn't use italics for internal monologue, and most of the time he makes it work; I'm actually trying it in something I have in-progress to see whether I like it.
~CWatson
(contributing nothing useful)
lovecraft68
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If you are going to use italics your best bet (although a tedious one)
is to use the html tags before and after each thought. Then submit cut and paste style and you should be okay.
But make sure when you preview your story you look closely before submitting
If you miss a "cut off" the italics will run on and on.
is to use the html tags before and after each thought. Then submit cut and paste style and you should be okay.
But make sure when you preview your story you look closely before submitting
If you miss a "cut off" the italics will run on and on.
Darkniciad
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Word has the ability to search by formatting. Once you finish the story, and before converting to plain text ( either by saving as .txt or cutting and pasting into the submission box ) do a search for italics.
At each place where the search hits your italic sections, surround them with the html tags like so:
Here's some regular text and then some <I>italic text</I>.
Even though it's a little tedious, I suggest going this way, as there are too many reports of .doc and .rtf files having issues when you submit that way. Doing it via cut-n-paste or uploading a plain .txt file also allows you to preview and make sure everything looks right, where the other document formats don't.
When you preview, the tags will vanish, and you'll instead see the sections in italics as expected.
At each place where the search hits your italic sections, surround them with the html tags like so:
Here's some regular text and then some <I>italic text</I>.
Even though it's a little tedious, I suggest going this way, as there are too many reports of .doc and .rtf files having issues when you submit that way. Doing it via cut-n-paste or uploading a plain .txt file also allows you to preview and make sure everything looks right, where the other document formats don't.
When you preview, the tags will vanish, and you'll instead see the sections in italics as expected.
PennLady
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As others have said, the best way to keep italics is to use HTML tags, <i> and </i>. You put these before and then after the text you want in italics, then cut and paste your story into the submissions box. The format will disappear in the box, but as everyone noted, you'll see the italics when you preview. This does give you the advantage of being able to see all of your story before you submit it, so you might find other errors.
I am in the habit of entering these tags as I go along in a document, along with the actual formatting. I find it much easier, because if I'm going to submit it elsewhere, I save it under another name and then do a search-and-replace to delete the tags, if I need to.
I believe sr71 has mentioned that current style guidelines in the publishing industry have moved away from this, and thoughts are simply in plain text. I don't like it, and I don't think he does either, but one advantage to this is that you don't have to worry about formatting, or tags when you're submitting.
Either way, as with so many things, be consistent.
lovecraft68
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I use italics for "texting" in stories or once for an "e-mail" the character was reading.
Doing it for thoughts would be too much work.
In my Lex Talionis series the character had a "voice" in his head and each time the voice spoke to him I used italics so the reader would know.
By the end I was like "Why the fuck did I have this guy talk so much!"
A lot of work.
Doing it for thoughts would be too much work.
In my Lex Talionis series the character had a "voice" in his head and each time the voice spoke to him I used italics so the reader would know.
By the end I was like "Why the fuck did I have this guy talk so much!"
A lot of work.
PennLady
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Yep, I've done that. Just something to set it off from the usual text. I like that visual clue. However, setting it off in another graph with an indent works, too, depending on how long your excerpt is.
That would depend on how many thoughts you have going on.
I am actually so annoyed at this current guide of not using italics for thoughts that I often find ways around it, such as writing "She thought that..." For a consistent thing like you had, I think italics might work best, because again you have that visual clue that something is different. Plus if you keep using it consistently, the reader will start to realize, Aha, here is the voice again. I used italics in a story where people could communicate telepathically, and that can be a lot as well.
