I'm working on a story and I'm alternating between two characters' point of view. They both tell their parts of the story in the first person. It's basically their consciousness telling the story, their thoughts while showing actions. When I use dialogue to describe what other people have said to them, I have it italicized with single quotation marks before and after their dialogue.
examples:
(When I first hung up the phone with that nice man, I didn’t know what to think. ‘Brain trauma. Partial memory loss. Confusion. Anxiety. Feelings of loss, depression.’ His words spun in my head like a blender.)
(He can hardly look at little Bianca and me. I tell him I love him and he says, ‘That’s nice,’ or ‘Okay.’ Sometimes he doesn’t say anything, just smiles and goes into the other room.)
But now I'm thinking that's incorrect.
When telling a story in the first person and it's a stream of consciousness, is the dialogue supposed to be written italicized with single quotations? Or do you only italicize when it's that person's speech? Or only their thoughts? Help much appreciated.
Another example
(He’d look at me and I could see him trying to process it.'Okay. So, I’m her husband and she’s my wife and that’s my baby.’ His sad brown eyes would speak to me.)
Only italicize specific thoughts (I mean, other than emphases and titles of major works and foriegn phrases and all that). When someone speaks aloud, quote them. The rest of the narrative, write it normal and the stream of consciousnessness will be obvious. Also, quotes around italics confuse me. All that said, as long as you're consistent with those stylistic choices from the very beginning, your reader should be able to pick up on them pretty quickly.
Example:
I tell him I love him, and he says, "That’s nice," or "Okay." Sometimes he doesn’t say anything, and I think, you uncommunicative bastard. But then I wonder if there's a reason, whether he's been reading American Psycho again.
Awesome, that's what I was thinking but was a little unsure. Thanks!
