Quotation marks for thoughts?

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Anonymous  #202555  Thu, 02 Mar 06 06:26 PM

If, within a text, there is a passage in which a person is performing an action and then thinking about something, would you use quotation marks around the thought and a question mark at the end of the question within the thought?

e.g. She sat on the rock and looked out to sea. If only Mark were with her. Would he love the view as much as she did? Instead she only had dull Kevin to share it with.

  
Lazarus  #202594  Thu, 02 Mar 06 08:25 PM
 Anonymous wrote:

If, within a text, there is a passage in which a person is performing an action and then thinking about something, would you use quotation marks around the thought and a question mark at the end of the question within the thought?

e.g. She sat on the rock and looked out to sea. If only Mark were with her. Would he love the view as much as she did? Instead she only had dull Kevin to share it with.



I have seen authors use all kinds of methods to punctuate thoughts.  Some use the same punctuation as dialogue, but I've also seen stars, slashes and single quotes framing thoughts.  Personally, I would italicize your sample (another option!), particularly since there is no she thought included.  Other opinions abound on this subject.

Cheers--
Lazarus
  
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Anonymous  #498870  Thu, 10 Apr 08 10:01 AM

Quite commenly authors use this

 'Damn" she thought,

 

The italic text is used to distinguish between normal speech and thoughts, even though the "she thought" after the thought does give it away many authors prefer the method. I know when I am reading books i quite like how they write text in italics.

  
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