Style advice: to quote or not to quote

[Jay142]

I'm writing a hot wife story and want to tell most of it from her perspective and a little from my perspective and need advice.

I have it written now where my thoughts are in italics and I have put her portion in quotes. Within her perspective there are quotes from other people within her quotes.

I am just wondering if I will overdo the quotes. Most of the story is "within" quotes but then there are parts where "He said, 'blah, blah, blah.'" I just don't want it to be confusing to the reader.

Any styling suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

"Thank You."

 

[AlinaX]

I wrote a chapter once that was almost purely dialogue, and one of the characters was talking about various conversations she'd had over the past few days, so there were quotes within quotes. But I really don't recommend it. You can get away with the odd quote-within-a-quote, but... People find it confusing.

It's usually a good indication that you're doing something wrong. In this case, it sounds like you ought to have third-person narrative, with occasional first-person intrusions.

...

Daphne dropped to her knees and gazed in admiration. "It's so big," she whispered. "My husband's going to be so jealous when I tell him."

~

And I was jealous. "How big?" I demanded.

She smirked as she showed me with her hands, and my eyes widened with astonisment. "Monstrous," she said.

~

She wrapped her lips about the head as best she could, both hands curling about the shaft and stroking gently. "So jealous," she thought. "I can't wait for Sam to lick the cum from my well fucked pussy..."

 

[John988]

[This content has been removed due to a copyright violation.]

 

[SimonDoom]

I prefer to do without italics because I'm lazy and just don't want to deal with the formatting requirements needed (use of html tags) to indicate italics. Also, I tend to believe that the simpler and cleaner the text is, the better. I also see no need for special formatting, most of the time.

I indicate character thinking without use of quotation marks. That way I distinguish thinking from actual dialogue. I don't think it's confusing and I think it seems to work fine.

 

[AlinaX]

I indicate character thinking without use of quotation marks. That way I distinguish thinking from actual dialogue.

I agree.

It can feel a little amateurish to use quotes or italics with thoughts. (Although I have in the past used italics to indicate telepathic conversation as opposed to spoken.)

 

[ElectricBlue]

I indicate character thinking without use of quotation marks. That way I distinguish thinking from actual dialogue. I don't think it's confusing and I think it seems to work fine.

Yes, this is my preference too, but I've also done inner thoughts with italics - it's a handy short cut.

I don't think I've got any rationale as to which method to use, I think I just follow the lead of whichever way I first did it, in that particular story.

 

[SimonDoom]

This is another example of the benefit of the third person omniscient, or third person limited omniscient, point of view. The narrator is always free to narrate what's going on in a character's head without any special formatting.

I personally dislike reading long sections of writing in italics. Italics should be used sparingly, for emphasis, or to reveal brief interior thoughts. But if you write in third person, you can achieve the same thing you can in first person without need for special formatting.

But even if you use first person, you don't NEED special formatting:

Ex. First Person

Marcia opened the door to my bedroom.

"Are you ready for me?" she asked.

She's the hottest thing I've ever seen, I thought.


Ex. Third Person.

Marcia opened the door to Jeremy's bedroom.

"Are you ready for me? she asked.

He thought she was the hottest thing he'd ever seen. OR

She's the hottest thing I've ever seen, he thought.

 

[GrandTeton]

Putting a significant portion of a story within quotation marks, even if it's something being told to another character, is hard on the reader. I've done it on occasion but have never felt that it worked. It can be done more effectively by using an introduction, such as "And this is the story the way Anna told it to us" if you're in first person, or "And then Anna told them the way it had been." If there's enough to justify dropping the quotations, then split your text.

 

[Emirus]

Could you not have one character in ordinary type and the other in bold? Then if you have any speech you just use italics as you would normally.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Could you not have one character in ordinary type and the other in bold? Then if you have any speech you just use italics as you would normally.

Not really. It's against any publishing convention. As Simon notes, the separation can be done in the text itself. Used sparingly, italics works okay, bold less so, because you can't control the resolution of a reader's display.

Remember too, that many readers will be using phones for their reading, and formatting may be stripped out completely. Whilst the layout issues are different between print and digital (more clear space, for example, in digital, small screen formats), you don't often see print books with a multitude of different fonts. It's the same broad principle - simplicity, and let the words do the talking.

 

[AlinaX]

Italics if you must, but avoid bold for passages of text. It's too extreme.

 

[Jay142]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I've learned a lot.