The Word Cloud

A friend, sending her manuscript for criticism, has been advised to write quotes in italics, instead of enclosed in "..." as we have been doing. Is this the generally accepted method now, or is it down to house style? I've seen both ways in published novels, and my last criticism advised against using italics unless necessary to convey correct meaning. She made no comment about the use of "...".

I would say certainly " " for a quotation that's in the run of the text. If it's a block quote, separated out, then I'd say still " ", or possibly italics.

But I would also say that fundamentally it's a copy-editor's problem, and to do with house style, so as long as what you've done is clear and consistent it really doesn't matter much. Publishers with limited budgets for editiong (academic, for example) may ask you to get the house style right, but only once they've taken the book on.

I'm 99% sure your friend will be submitting a novel (in which case go with what Emma says), but I've come across a few different and specific requests - mostly producers - regarding script submissions. Apparently some are (self-admitted) blind, prefer quotes in italics AND any italics also always underlined. This kind of thing is rarely mentioned in publishing house submissions guidelines, so is not normally something to worry about with novels. Only comply if it is specifically stated.

An overall general point from this is the importance of reading house submissions guidelines. Most follow similar patterns, but occasionally you come across a funny one with their own foibles. The odd one seems to change their pickiness with the wind direction. It all feels like unnecessary hoop-jumping to me, but I don't like taking the risk of having my work rejected purely because I didn't title the file name in the correct sequence for a bizarre on-line submission procedure.

The other thing about house styles is that for speech marks some prefer " ", while others want ' ', the latter being more common now, I think. I've used the single marks in my novel for speech and, therefore, have use double ones for any quotations. Had I used double for speech, I guess I'd have used singles for quotes.
I've reserved italics for thoughts. Where some writers simply put characters' thoughts in speech marks, I differentiate between speech and thought by utilising italics.
But I agree with Emma; a large chunk of quotation - a paragraph or more - could simply be italicised and probally indented, too.

Thanks all. I'll pass your advice to her.

I've noticed that other media are much pickier than novels - I suspect the format for scripts is so tight because they need to be thinking in terms of time all the time, whereas our baggy monster of a form is much more relaxed.

And academic houses and small publishers get you to do the formatting for them, much of the time - they want the electronic equivalent of camera-ready copy. But they'll give you instructions for that.

"speech marks some prefer " ", while others want ' ', the latter being more common now,"

It's a US/UK difference. The UK default has shifted to single, with "" for inside single, the US has stayed with the more traditiona ", keeping ' for quotes inside that. . So older UK books and co-productions may have ".

The real mark of amateurs and unprofessional carelessnes is not to spot when your 'smart quotes' have turned an apostrophe into a closing single quote.

Emma

I like putting thoughts in italics, however, I have read it better to put them in ' ', also that if I want to emphasis something it shouldn't be in capitals or bold, rather underlined. This then being changed to italics when printed. This is all very confusing to me. Why such a debate about " " vs ' ', italics vs bold etc? Why do the rules change so often?

I'll watch those closing quote marks.

"that if I want to emphasis something it shouldn't be in capitals or bold, rather underlined. This then being changed to italics when printed. This is all very confusing to me."

Putting thoughts in ''s really has gone (though you'll see it in older novels, or new editions off-set from them) and a good thing too, because the reader does need to know from the first word whether something's being said aloud or in someone's head, before you get to the 'he said' or 'she thought'. Some books put thoughts in italics, lots don't (I don't). Personally I think it's better for many reasons to learn to handle free indirect style properly but that's just me in grumpy old bat mode.

Some of the conflicting messages have their origin in typewriter days - historically, underlining was the only kind of emphasis, so it was how the writer gave an instruction to the typesetter to put things in italics. But of course now we can all make our scripts look roughly like printed books (although with double spacing, which no book has) we assume we should. But we shouldn't, specially if you're looking at an oldish printed book.

Also, lots of advice for scriptwriting is irrelevant to novels, but gets transmitted in a general way, and loses its 'Scriptwriting only' tag which ought to have a health warning saying 'Don't bother to try this in your novel'.... Things are much stricter that side of the fence.

For novels, the only thing that really matters is that it's clear, consistent, and obvious what you're wanting to do. Editors aren't stupid. If you do something reasonably sensible, they'll get it. Yes, you want to appear professional, but you're not trying to produce camera-ready copy, only something which means that agents and editors know what you mean.

I do think a lot of the fretting we do is displacement activity for the fretting we're really doing but don't want to acknowledge: Is this good enough? Am I good enough? Will I ever get anywhere?

If in doubt, buy or borrow a copy of New Hart's Rules and do what it says, then forget about what you read on the net or on other forums. Most of it is rubbish, or out of date, or irrelevant to book-writers. Or rubbish.

And did I say that much info on the net is rubbish?

"I do think a lot of the fretting we do is displacement activity for the fretting we're really doing but don't want to acknowledge: Is this good enough? Am I good enough? Will I ever get anywhere?"

This is nearly the truest and most honest observation I've come across on the Cloud. Only I would have gone further (perhaps too far) with "Fretting we SHOULD be doing, but aren't". Some folks (no one on this thread, that I know of) worry about piffling things that won't trouble a novel agent/publisher one iota, when they should be worrying about the content of their story, their characters, their plot and making their novel much better overall than it actually is.

I agree!

Spangles, I love the analogy. I will steal it and use that elsewhere.

We all have the capacity to improve. It begins with learning, which is ongoing, and pinnacles at honesty with oneself.

I think it's very understandable that people who are new to writing find it hard to know what matters and what doesn't - it's the same with any craft. Punctuation really, really, really does matter, italics-vs-"""s may not - obvious to us that punctuation is at the heart of writing expressively, but the other thing is house style and convention. But it's not to non-writers, any more than I would be able to tell, when visiting a nuclear powerstation, whether the fact that the carpets were black-and-white in stripes was a key safety issue, or just because the contract decorator's a Newcastle fan...

So I do try not to be sniffy about the most dotty-sounding query, just as I hope that Mr British Nuclear Fuels wouldn't laugh in my face at the idea that stripey carpets matter (or don't matter).

I do also think that some more experienced aspiring writers do put the cart before the horse in a more serious way, in thinking that it's more important to network, blog, raise your online profile, etc. etc., than it is to learn how to write a bloody good book, and then how to make it even better.

The thing is, blogging/tweeting/networking/fretting about italics (I'm all for fretting about commas...) is something you can control. Writing a fantabulous book isn't, not altogether.

Just to lob a banana into a choppy sea, it was mentioned at the York Festival that while UK books generally have a single quote mark, UK magazine stories use double quotes as a convention. Just saying. :)

That's interesting Whisks, and explains a lot. In some fonts single ' are hard to see - I use " on my blog for that reason.

Cloud has been great, its let me see many of the issues I really haven't considered too seriously yet. However, I am being bogged down by it. That bloody good book you mention EmmaD, that is the point. Thanks for reminding me.

There's a stage we all go through, I think, when we've taken a whole lot of new knowledge and understanding on board - I call it the Ugly Duckling stage. It can be very dismaying, because things that used to come naturally suddenly go all awkward and self-conscious, you're trying to do harder things and not quite managing, and so on. But you do get through it. The great thing is to keep going, to remember that if a thing's worth doing then it's worth doing badly... No one ever got better by doing things they already know how to do.

The advice and writing on the Cloud has taught me how much I don't know. I have the desire to learn it all, but not the capacity.

This site teaches me something new every day. The main source being Emma. What would we do without her?

Struggle, Weens. Here's to Emma's next thousand posts.

Ok, I get it, I'm not alone and yes, my novel is worth writing. I have been writing on and off since school and have never manage to finish anything, I am determined to get an actually to this one. I want to take it more seriously, but I need perspective ... and this seems a great place to get it, so thanks ...

EmmaD you're great, thanks. I was looking at your book A Secret Alchemy, dare I ask how many words it is? It looks a real door stopper, great covers! 1006 posts, impressive.

You're welcome, Green Polka.

ASA is 127,000 words - the long end of normal, and definitely normal for hist fic, whose readers are happy to feel that they're buying a meaty read. (It's actually shorter than its predecessor, which is 141,000, but I was fascinated to see that they typeset ASA in a bigger pointsize, so that it looks the same length.)

The covers are good, aren't they. I've been very lucky indeed, considering it's the most common point of friction between authors and publishers...

Excellent piece by Blake Morrison here, on the hazards of quoting song lyrics in your work...

Bloody Hell! Thanks for that, Emma! My novel is all about music, so I've quoted loads of lyrics in it; looks like I'd end up with a net loss even if it was a world no1 bestseller. I'd better have a rethink!

One tip I got from a friend was to see if you can approach the songwriter directly, perhaps through their website or whatever, rather than via their management. Sometimes a human approach to a real person results in the real person being amused and friendly and saying, 'Of course I don't mind - carry on!'