lettered | Let's talk about word emphasis. And sundry.

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Let's talk about word emphasis. And sundry.

G. TKP: I shaved my arm-pits.
TKMom: Cool. Let me see.
TKP: Look. (hooks index in t-shirt sleeve to reveal self.)
TKMom: They're so sparkly!
R. Got 4th rejection letter. Am waiting to get rejected to 3 more grad schools. Go me.
A. Writing month! It's a time to discuss how we write, why we write, what we write. DISCUSSION, it squeezes me up out of defjection from rejection (marvel at my rhyme) like a tight hug or one of those stress things, the ones you squeeze and have to keep grabbing hand over fist lest they slip from your hands entirely. It's about being constructive, and possibly positive, and gazing at our navels with shining, dewy eyes and wondering words that tumble from our mazed-parted lips in the form of, "I'm beautiful; I'm really beautiful!"

V. Er, the point of this post...

I've seen people use
bold font
*astrisks*
/slashes/
\backslashes\
-dashes-
_these thingies_
CAPSLOCK
"quotes"
'single quotes'
~are these things called tildas?~
=equals signs--no, really!=
underlined text

and much more in order to:

-emphasize a word or phrase
-signify a thought taking place in a character's head
-denote a flashback
-emphasize a word occuring within a sentence/phrase/whatever that's already italicized because it's a flashback or a thought

Me, I only ever use italics for these things inside a fic (what I do in my posts and comments is a completely different story to me). When I want to emphasize something occuring already inside an italicized phrase, I un-italicize the word I want to emphasize, as demonstrated above. I only use italics for these purposes for several reasons:

-this is the way I see it done in published fiction.
-uniformity, which is somewhat connected to the next to ideas, so I won't go into it that much. In short, the reader doesn't have to guess why I emphasized some words in one way and other words in another way, or try to decipher whether the different ways of emphasis connotate different levels of importance.
-if I need another tool besides italics to convey my meaning, my meaning is probably convoluted, and could stand simplification until I only need italics in order to make my point.
(e.g., in Down There In The Reeperbahn I really wanted the dialogue bits to occur with as little narrative background as possible, and thus I had a problem of signifying who was saying what lines. I ended up using italics to signify Dru's voice. If it was still unclear who was speaking, there was a problem with my concept, my dialogue, and my presentation, and those are things that can't be fixed by resorting to using other "signifiers" to denote other people talking.)
-how they look. Italics are subtle and don't call a lot of attention to themselves. For me, all those other things do. Bold, CAPSLOCK, and underline have a tendency to draw the eye. (When skimming my flist, I almost always read the CAPSLOCKED text, the links, and the cut title first, because the colors and size call attention to themselves. It's lead to me missing important information contained in the regular text.)
Asteriks, slashes, dashes, et al, not only call attention, but add something to the text that is not meant to be read. This bothers me a lot. I feel that everything in most kinds of fiction should be a part of the text. Asterisks used to emphasize a word are not things that we read, but visual clues that the words they enclose are important.

I'd like to note that I am a big fan of making text a visual experience. Poetry, notably through e e cummings and the like, uses the shape of words and the space on the page as part and parcel to the piece itself. Prose is a different thing, but I don't quite believe it when people say this is the difference. Reading is looking at marks on a page, whether prose or poetry, whether the text transports you to a new world or not.

As such, I love prose that experiments/does new things with space and those marks on said page. The first time I saw it done in prose was Toni Morrison's Beloved, in which she eliminated spaces between some words in order to produce confusionurgencypanic. I've seen some fic-authors use that same technique to extraordinary effect. And when it comes to this kind of experimentation, I feel there is no right and wrong. Pynchon uses mathematical equations in the middle of text, and even though I for the most part don't understand it, I fangirl the effort.

But when some fic-authors use *asterisks* merely to emphasize a word, it doesn't appear to me to be trying something new with space or text-shape or anything like that. It appears to me to be just another way to emphasize a word, and in a way I find distracting and detrimental to the look of the text as a whole. Bold or CAPSLOCK could be used very purposely to draw the eye--to trick the reader into reading in a non-linear fashion, which could, if the author is very clever, produce an effect the reader would not otherwise experience. But when some fic-authors use Bold or CAPSLOCK , again, they seem to be doing so only for word-emphasis, and again, in a way I find distracting and detrimental.

That said, there are uses for some of these styles other than word emphasis. Some are:

-underlining book titles.
-boldfacing titles of segments of the text (part one, part two, so on.)
-boldfacing a sign, or business card, etc. Some books seem to want to physically show you the business card or sign. The block of text saying what's on the card is usually indented and formatted to look like a sign. I usually stay away from this use; it falls into the category of "if I can't show this through regular text, there's something wrong with my writing, not my visual presentation." But, I've seen some authors do it, so there, exception to the "way it's done in published books" rule of mine.
-CAPSLOCKING a disembodied or really powerful voice. For instance, JKR probably wore out her capslock button on Book 5. I stay away from this use also, for the same reasons as above.
-"quoted" or 'single-quoted' words obviously have their place in text, but they shouldn't be used as italics are, imo. I'm told there's an episode of "Freinds" and Ross air-quoting "thanks" that could probably explain the difference.

Anyway, I've seen excellent authors I admire use many of these styles, especially boldface, CAPSLOCK, and *astrisks*. No matter who's writing it, it throws me out of the text. But that's me, my opinion, my way of writing, and my way of reading. What're your thoughts on the matter? How do you use these tools, if you use them? What do you think when you see them in text?
Y. "Cheekbones so unreal they must be sparkled with god-dust"...The lovechild of Kiera Knightly and James Marsters could split atoms with his cheekbones.
!. Mmm. Brains.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Crazy ass formatting such as italics and boldface, etc. was one of my HUGE issues. I still struggle with it. But when I finish a fic that has no bells or whistles like those in it, I know that I've said what I wanted to say with just my words. As it should be.

Since I'm fairly new to the party--what discipline are you planning on studying in grad school?

Sucks about the rejections--but remember, you only have to be accepted once!

I used to be a graphic designer and I've always been fascinated with typography, so I am totally on the same page with you on this. I use almost exclusively italics for emphasis in my fiction writing. Very rarely I'll use caps, for example in the case of a sudden, jarring, very loud sound. THWAP.

My big pet peeve is underlining because typographically it's an editor's notation that simply means that text should be italicized. In the old days when we used typewriters that couldn't do italics, underlining was proper form, but now it's just a dinosaur that needs to be exterminated.

And don't even get me started on the whole hyphen/en dash/em dash problem (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/emen/). Yes, I am a bit of a pedant.

All of the formatting that you've listed really bugs me. But that doesn't mean that I won't use one or two myself. I use mostly italics when I feel the need to emphasize a word, but it always feels like cheating, like I shouldn't write:

"What?" Angel said.

I should write:

"What?" Angel said, the word a sharp, bright flash of anger. Gunpowder in the night.

But, AUGH. Who *wants* to do that for every time Angel emphasizes a word, you know? THE TEDIUM.

I let myself off the hook a bit more when I'm using formatting shorthand in the actual dialogue, too. In the narrative, I tend to shirk away from it altogether, although I've used it there, as well, especially as the narrative with each piece is getting tighter and tighter in the 3rd person POV. But that's another quandry, and perhaps a discussion for another day.

The whole idea of the characters thoughts being transcribed in between the paragraph breaks of the story, in italics or between brackets or otherwise. God. No. I put my foot down. Down it goes.

Also, boo. Boo, I say, to grad school rejections.

Here, this will cheer you up: Smile! (http://www.bitboard.com/0798/armpits.jpg)

Yeah, I think we talked about this before, but I had trouble getting into your fic at first because the ones I started with had a few too many of those "bells and whistles" for me. But while I admit that I still find some parts of some of your fics over-wrought, a few tricks you use(d) really taught me a lot about both what I'm saying about the look of text and not only non-linear story-telling but...well, non-linear text. If that makes any sense.

And yeah, even italics I try to use as little as possible, because I want the weight to be in the words and not the slant of the text.

I am mostly with you on all of those - and also if there are too many italics. Which, I know I tend to over italicize myself and have to try to go back and break myself of the habit. But if anything is bold or uses unusual characters, it stresses me out because it makes it hard to get lost in the fic.

Capslocking doesn't bother me as much, if it's done for a particular and consistent reason. I've seen the voice of GOD done in caps and it works well, but it has to be something where it's there for power, not shouting.

Special formatting for letters, telegraphs, faxes, business cards, etc wouldn't bother me if they're reproduced entirely. It might throw me out of the fic a little, but I think that's actually the POINT of it, that we are experiencing the same experience as the characters as close as possible. Although I might be ascribing too much to the author's motivation!

I don't like book titles underlined in fiction, though, because it doesn't feel natural.

My main thing is that the physical words should not distract from the message contained within the text.

I'm applying to creative writing MFA programs. I always feel the need to clarify that it's very different than applying to a grad program in say, English. Most people don't ever get rejected to English programs and if they are, it's because they shouldn't even be applying in the first place. Creative Writing MFA programs, OTOH, are a lot more like...applying to med school in terms of how MANY people get rejected. One school I applied to took 6 out of nearly a thousand. That makes me feel better about getting rejected, but ...still. I applied last year and didn't get into any. I don't know what to do with myself if I can't go to school, because all I want to do is sit around and write. I guess we don't always get what we want!

And thanks for the sympathy and listening to me whine. :o)

I don't like caps even for THWAP. I like "his hand made a loud thwap! on her bottom".

I didn't know that about underlining--I'd always wondered. I learned that underlining was correct in referencing books, but I never saw it in published novels that referred to other books. Maybe I should change the above.

And hahahahaha! The next post I was going to do in my "writing" vein was going to be about punctuation, and I was wondering if I should do a whole separate post to explain hyphens, en dahses, and em dashes!

I should probably say this off list but since once again I am at work (and now I pine for Friday - at least I figured out what was wrong. This time I'm clueless as to how it happend. Ah, the mysteries of computers) but is an MFA even necessary?

I don't think anyone can teach you the craft of writing. Maybe give you some useful critques, maybe help you with some professional doors but truthfully, how many of our greatest writers actually went to school for it.

If you want to (have to, it's a need inside your gut) write, then write. The only problem with writing is supporting yourself. And that's the rub. But people do it. It's an issue in any of the arts, obviously.

My husband's been lucky in that regard - he married me.

What do you see yourself getting out of an MFA program? I remember my sister knowing that when she graduated college (she got a BFA) that an MFA would be useless for her. She takes drawing classes all the time, mostly for models, but also to get concrit. Maybe what you need is to join some writers' groups (do such things exist?) and get fb that way.

I try to restrict myself to italics for emphasis, for the occasional interior thought, and to indicate things like dreams or out-of-body experiences. Very rarely (if, for example, I need to emphasize a word in a passage which is already in italics) I will use bold face, though more often I just de-italicize the emphasised word. I will also occasionally use all-caps to indicate that someone is shouting/screaming very loudly. I used it once for the dialogue of a supernatural creature which was supposed to be boneshakingly loud. And I will sometimes use specialty punctuation to indicate telepathy as opposed to regular speech--when I was writing Elfquest fanfic, for example, the convention was to use ** to indicate when a character was sending rather than talking out loud. (In the original comic book, the difference was indicated by the shape of the word balloon, but that wasn't feasible in prose.)

And back when I was posting to non-HTML mailing lists a lot, I would use = to indicate "This would be in italics if I could do italics in this format, but I can't, so you'll have to imagine it."

Regardless, I try to limit my use of these things, because I think they do tend to make the page look busy, and if they're overused, they can lose their effectiveness and be downright annoying. But I probably still use them more than I really should.

Gunpowder in the night.

I love your comments because you so often do these fic bits that are really vivid...I wish I could think of words and phrases and little scenarios off the cuff like that.

I use italics for word emphasis in dialogue, but I would only very rarely use them on a one word dialogue like that, because as you demonstrate, you can very easily put the emphasis there without italics. But if the word is in the middle of a sentence, I'll do it just because it feels more immediate that way:

"But Doyle, you are my snuggle bunny," Angel said.

--which is how dialogue should be.

I'll also admit to sometimes emphasizing words in the narrative and more often than I should. And it is a result of me working almost exclusively in a tight third person limited--that is, slipping into free indirect discourse within the third person POV. Which is, as you say, a whole new can of worms...I read this great essay once on omnicient, limited, and intimate third person, and all the levels in between, which I'd dearly love to discuss...I'll get around to it.

The whole idea of the characters thoughts being transcribed in between the paragraph breaks of the story, in italics or between brackets or otherwise.

Oh yeah, I didn't even get into that. One thing which I mean to say in the post was that I rarely use italics for thoughts. I would much rather see:

He didn't think Doyle was his snuggle bunny.

or even

"Doyle's not my snuggle bunny," he thought.

than:

Doyle's not my snuggle bunny, he thought.

I sometimes play with dashes, but this is mostly because I am computer illiterate (truly, until about six months ago I didn't know how to turn one on) and I don't always know the right kind of coding to use. In the best of all possible worlds, I would only ever use italics, and those rarely, unless I was chanelling Salinger.

When I'm reading, I can get thrown out of a story by asteriks and excessive capslock. Dashes and equal signs are unobtrusive enough not to bother me, and I've seen bold enough not to mind. Sidenote--I've seen bold used to emphasize a word occuring in a sentence that's already italicized in published works. In fact, I think Robin McKinley uses it in Spindle's End or Sunshine or possibly both. *shrug* I don't love the effect, but I don't think it's awful.

heh! Thanks. I bet all their pits are sparkly.

What's getting overlooked here is that *asterisks* and _offset-underlines_ are holdovers from posting fic in text-only forums. If you posted to UCSL, for example, you'd have no choice *but* to use the typographical emphases. Additionally, many automated archives reject html markup but *do* convert asterisks and line-offsets. The trouble comes, of course, in the fact that different forums translate differently; at the BFA, *asterisks* become italicized, while other places bold the phrase, reserving italics for the _linethingies_.

I consider emphasis, however it's expressed visually, to be one tool among many in the toolkit of rhythm and sense. Overdone, it's as bad as anything else; used judiciously, it's lovely.

I doubt I ever used bold in a fic piece. I dodn't even use it in my LJ entries on a normal basis. Italics I'll use for thoughts, but very sparingly. I think the one time I ittalicized a paragraph was because Angel was remembering something tht had happened in the past and that seemed the best way to alert the reader to that.

And I use dashes (actually, you make me put in dashes, lol) because I am a huge fan of interupted speech when I write. I think people rarely let other people finish talking especially during emotional conversations.

Totally with you on the over-using italics can get almost as bad, thing. I try to limit myself, but I do get carried away.

There's something about capslocked text that turns me right off, even if it's a voice of power, as you say. It's possibly because I'm used to thinking of capslocking as yelling, due to too much time on the internet--which is weird though, because some lj-ers use lotsa capslock for emphasis on posts, and it's fun and entertaining because they just come off all enthusiastic or excited. But in fic ack! The other reason it turns me off is because it honestly takes me a lot longer to read. I'm a slow reader anyway, and the letters look different in caps, and they're just harder for me to decipher. Especially when it's a font with serifs. How picky is that?

It might throw me out of the fic a little, but I think that's actually the POINT of it, that we are experiencing the same experience as the characters as close as possible. Although I might be ascribing too much to the author's motivation!

No, I think that in the case of published fiction, you're right; that's what they're going for. But it personally throws me too far. Even if the business card is important to the story, if it's the only--or one of the few--blocks of texts that's emphasized in that way, it makes that bit of text stand out more than any other text in the novel--and is it really all that important? If it is, right on. If it isn't--I myself would prefer the card to be described, or a line on it to be told in dialogue.

Yes, we did talk about it before- b/c of LMR! D'oh. I find a lot of my old fic overwrought as well. My god if I'm not beta'd to hell I am so purple I am eggplant. But I keep up all my old stuff. If for no other reason than to be able to look at it and go I GOT BETTER! In all caps. Just like that. *G*

*nods*

Oh yeah, I was assuming that the card of the fax or whatever was essential to the story. If it's just there because it's a gimmick - well, gimmicks in general tend to bother me!

Hee! Well and if anybody used capslock in a fic like I use them in an LJ post, I'd have to go over to their house and beat them over the head.

Eidelweiss... Eidelweiss... Bless my homeland for ever.

I'm sorry, were you saying something? Got caught up. :D

"But Doyle, you are my snuggle bunny," Angel said.

--which is how dialogue should be.

No, definitely. I've actually gone totally out of the way to avoid italics, such as:

"And what's this?" Spike asked, heavy weight on the last word, finger jabbing into Xander's rib for further emphasis.

And I think that that can get to be a really bad thing after a while, too. I mean, I'm trying for a balance between clarity and style and efficiency, and sometimes a simple, "And what's this?" Spike asked, more than suffices.

I read this great essay once on omnicient, limited, and intimate third person, and all the levels in between, which I'd dearly love to discuss...I'll get around to it.

I look forward to that.

And in terms of Angel and his snugglebunny, my 3rd person limited has grown so tight that I'd probably write that as:

Angel kept his eyes on the pages of his book until he heard the soft snicker of the door closing. He tried to concentrate on the words - De így csak akkor megy tovább - but he kept getting distracted. The cleaners were in the office next door, working their vacuums around all the furniture. From Cordy's desk, the jelly donut she'd only half eaten oozed a sugary, artificial scent. The smell of burnt coffee made his nostrils itch.

Heh. And I'm out of time, but you know what I mean. Eventually the next paragraph would lead to: He didn't know where Doyle was, hadn't asked. Doyle wasn't his snugglebunny.

And the narrative would serve as thought.

Oooh, yes, I have heard that MFA programs are a particularly brutal grad school field. Brutal to get into, and brutal to get through as well. More power to you for trying!!

Heh--well, you can always sit around and write! I think the trick is getting paid/supported while you do it. *grin*

I have a very large vat of sympathy for grad school-related whining. I'd better, or no one would ever put up with my whining in return!

can I say, "huh???" you lost me after I saw...

***G. TKP: I shaved my arm-pits.
TKMom: Cool. Let me see.
TKP: Look. (hooks index in t-shirt sleeve to reveal self.)
TKMom: They're so sparkly!***

I did try to read the rest of it but it made my head hurt :D

Very wise, Grasshopper. That advice was given to me by a very well-published author early on, and it changed the way I viewed myself, my art, and my career.

Writing's a tough field, regardless. I applied for every job that had the word 'writing' in the description and eventually got on the lowest rung of a publishing company and battled my way up and out. Invaluable experience, but hard, hard, hard.

I eventually did graduate work in publishing so I could understand the business mechanics of the deal -- in this day and age, it really benefits to understand the business end of things.

If you've got negligible talent and a great head for the biz you can be James Patterson. But if you've got a buttload of talent ::::stares at Joy:::: and biz savvy, you can pick your price.

So I take the middle view on this one: you've got the creative chops, you've got a ginormous brain...what about a publishing program that will get you on the inside, and on the shelf where you belong?

Your... whats ... are sparkly? Um... glitter deodorant?

So, yeah, I'm in the "I only use italics" boat. I use them for word emphasis, thoughts, and not so much for flashbacks. I would use a heading for a flashback, or just let the reader guess. Normally flashbacks are long enough that they give me a headache if they're all in italics.

Bolds and capslocks make my head hurt too. I've beta'ed at least one piece that made use of each of those, and maybe it's a personal choice, but my reaction was: "No! This! Change! Hate!"

I see the other things on your list less frequently, I think, and they vary in the degree they would annoy me. Underlining, _underscores_ and =equals= are high up there.

And I'm sorry to hear about the grad school rejections. Here's hoping for better luck for the other three! Do you have any alternate plans?

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Let's talk about word emphasis. And sundry.

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