Talking to themselves in their head?

by Emma Taylor
17th February 2014

Good morning ladies and gents. Just a quick question. When you are writing and the character has thoughts or talks to themselves in their head how do you write it?

We sat in silence. “Alex what should I do?” (The character is talking to herself in her head.

Cheers :D xx

Replies

I use signposts to a persons thoughts. Eg. Alex's sighed inwardly. How was he going to solve his dilemma. His mind wandered. Alex starts thinking.

Then to escape from his thoughts.

Alex's thoughts were interrupted by his mobile phone, or Alex's reverie was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Profile picture for user Adrian
Adrian
Sroka
19900 points
Ready to publish
Fiction
Historical
Middle Grade (Children's)
Young Adult (YA)
Adventure
Adrian Sroka
17/02/2014

Hello there,

I searched something for you, Go through this link.

http://www.aliventures.com/head-hopping/

Hope it help.

gud luck

Profile picture for user ashwerya_33314
Ashwerya
T
330 points
Developing your craft
Short stories
Fiction
Autobiography, Biography and Memoir
Middle Grade (Children's)
Picture Books (Children's)
Food, Drink and Cookery
Business, Management and Education
Speculative Fiction
Adventure
Popular science, Social science, Medical Science
Practical and Self-Help
Historical
Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Philosophy and Religion
Romance
Ashwerya T
17/02/2014

It depends what person you're writing in, in my opinion. With 1st person, I tend to write my protagonists thoughts as regular text (obviously). But when she has a specific thought that needs to be a little punchier, I use italics.

Debbie x

Profile picture for user Debbie-Ellen
Debbie
Ellen
270 points
Ready to publish
Fiction
Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Adventure
Middle Grade (Children's)
Picture Books (Children's)
Speculative Fiction
Gothic and Horror
Romance
Autobiography, Biography and Memoir
Debbie Ellen
17/02/2014