Grammar girl here, November is National Novel Writing Month.

So to get ready for this exciting event, this week we have a fiction themed episode.

I'll have a quick and dirty tip about how to format your character's thoughts.

An excerpt from Jack Woodville London's book A Novel Approach to Writing Your First Novel

or Your Best One.

And a tidbit about the novel as a format.

It may be newer than you think.

Veteran writers often ask me how they should format their character's thoughts, which

are also sometimes called internal dialogue.

Should writers use quotation marks?

Italics?

Something else?

Or maybe nothing?

The hardest part about this topic is that there is no definitive answer.

It's a style choice, and you'll find different credible websites that make different recommendations,

sometimes in very strong tones.

One site will clearly state that you should use quotation marks, and then the next will

adamantly state that you should never use quotation marks.

One will recommend italics, and another will recommend against italics.

It's enough to make you have some internal dialogue of your own.

I will make a few points, but the best advice is to take it all with a grain of salt.

And if you have an editor or agent, see what he or she prefers.

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