What is the considered the best way (if any) to differentiate, in the written form (obviously!) between actual speech and thoughts - along the lines of 'blah, blah, blah," he thought to himself/wondered etc. I'm wondering particularly about the use (or otherwise) or speech marks versus italics. In my drafts I seem to be using inverted commas for actual speech, and italics (or even italics with speech marks!) for thoughts, but I'm not sure what is actually the correct way. It's starting to irritate me now, as I haven't resolved this issue yet. So far, it hasn't mattered, because no-one has seen anything I've written yet, but I obviously want to get it right at some point! Thanks!
Congratulations on publishing your book, Lorraine. Is it on Amazon?
Clare
Jimmy, the American preference is for doubles for speech, the British for singles - but that's by no means etched in stone, and house styles may apply.
In my novel, (which I have finally published, so I haven't been idle), I use singles for speech, and plain text and no quotes for thoughts. I've used italics for other specific purposes.
It's a balancing act, whichever way you go with it.
Lorraine
Contemporary novels use a different style of text for streams-of-thought. A slanting text is common. It immediately becomes obvious, that this form of text is stream-of-thought.