How do you feel about italics?

I don't like italics. I think it makes the passage more difficult to read. The meaning can come across just fine without them. I don't even like to use them for the internal thoughts in first person, especially if the story is in present tense.

How do you feel about italics?

 

I use italics all the time, but almost exclusively with dialogue and character thoughts. It adds emphasis to words so that they will be read differently, in the manner that the writer intended. Here's a random example:

"I understand that some of you nationalists believe that.."

"I understand that some of you nationalists believe that.."

The first sentence might express some disdain for nationalists by the speaker. The second version does not convey such a feeling and is seemingly neutral.

 

That does make a difference.

 

Used sparingly and in their proper place, italics are delightful.

 

I lean towards using them for thoughts, and occasionally for emphasis. But less so the latter, if the emphasis can be made clear through the dialogue. I don't use them for emphasis outside of dialogue (or thoughts) though.

 

I use italics for internal monologue, also for foreign words followed by a translation or description. Also for letters etc, the latter I indent one interval

 

Italics don’t bother me. I don’t use them very often but I don’t mind reading books where they’re used for internal monologue, emphasis etc.

 

Just curious, do you find them simply harder to read? I don't mind italics at all myself but it just occurred to me there might be people with visual impairment of some kind who literally can't parse them as well as other typefaces. Now I'm wondering if that's a real thing or not.

 

I'm not sure about harder to read - but I do find them somewhat distracting. A word here or there, not so bad. But reading a whole sentence in italics gets me out of the flow.

My googling tells me that the correct format is to put internal thoughts when written in first person in italics, but that chops up the narrative for me.

 

I can suggest a test group for you. Politicians, many of them seem to have demonstrated a cognitive impairment with reality.

 

I use them for conventional things like book titles and such. I also use them for internal dialog and thoughts:

He can't see me, Linda suddenly realized as the shadow passed her.

And when the speaker intended the word to be stressed. I remember a little girl handing a toy dinosaur to me at a party. "Here's my dinosaur," she announced. But then she added, in a voice dripping with disappointment, "It's not a real dinosaur." I don't know any other way of relating that incident.

 

I do this as well. I've had critiquers suggest that I leave that kind of emphasis out and let the reader decide where the emphasis in the sentence should be. Sometimes, I do exactly that. But other times, I want to be intentional about where the emphasis is, so I use italics.

 

I'm not a fan of italics for thoughts. I prefer thought tags myself, but that's not exactly status quo.

I also try to let emphasis come in through context, though there are times when italics are simply the best option.

 

I'm the opposite, I don't use tags and only use italics. For me, if internal thoughts are being expressed without italics, it throws me off and reduces my immersion in the story. If it was a first person or clsoe thrid person POV, I think paraphrased thoughts would be fine without italics, but direct thoughts for me should always be italicized.

 

I do the same. Primarily for conveying either internal dialogue or telepathic dialogue, less frequently to emphasize a word or phrase within a sentence.

I don't think the use of italics makes the text more difficult to read or to understand.

 

I was just rereading what Benjamin Dreyer had to say about italics. He discouraged them, especially when the were used to convey long sequences of the thought process. He said that readers often find italics hard to read and just skip over them, and editors target them as likely candidates for cutting. He advised writers to use them sparingly, or not at all. And never, never, never use bold-face.

 

Same goes for all-caps. When a writer uses all-caps, it is like shouting at the reader.

Here's a good article on it

NOW HEAR THIS!!! 3 Mistakes You’re Making with Emphasis in Writing

 

Yes. I hear Edna Mode from The Incredibles saying "No caps! No caps!" Or at least, "No all-caps!" There are exceptions, of course, when you're trying to reproduce something that was in all caps to begin with, such as a sign that says NO PARKING or a legend on a building such as SUBTREASURY (a nice plot point in a story by Stephen Vincent Benet, BTW).

 

I wish that I could remember the novel - or maybe it was a collection of short stories - where the author hated italics. He started one section of the story in italics, went on for a while, and then transitioned to something like...

Ah; that's better. My publisher wanted this section in italics, so I gave him a paragraph or two. But I hate italics...


I think it may have been John Varley or Orson Scott Card; just a WAG (Wild-Assed-Guess).

 

Italics are stupid unless they are French. Direct thoughts expressed like dialogue always seemed tacky to me.