Formatting telepathic conversation?

Lunatique · Mar 24, 2012

If two characters are having a telepathic conversation in their heads, sending thoughts and reading/hearing thoughts back and forth, how would that be formatted?

I can't remember how the past books I read formatted telepathic conversations, and I can't remember which books had them. Surely it's not just quotation marks but with the dialogue taqs changed to thought-related ones? Or maybe it's like regular dialogue but italicized and the tags changed?

amschilling · Mar 24, 2012

I have no idea if it's right (so I'm curious what others say), but in my WIP I've got telepathic conversations and just used italics. No dialog tags because it was obvious who was talking each time.

robjvargas · Mar 24, 2012

E.E. "Doc" Smith wrote the Lensman space opera in the (I believe) the 1930's. He did exactly that. Quotation marks and occasional dialogue tagging.

I don't think there's a set standard to this. This has been discussed before, and you're probably best off reading those older conversations.

redwren · Mar 24, 2012

Italics is what I see most often in fantasy books. It's sort of understood that italics are thoughts, and then there is usually a bit of narrative about what's going on. That thought was in so-and-so's voice! Or, the character hearing it freaks out about hearing thoughts not his/her own, until the character talking to them says something along the lines of Relax, it's just me.
Though, the freaking out really isn't necessary, it's best to explain what's going on, anyway. Just in case the reader isn't familiar with the convention.

goldhorse · Mar 24, 2012

I always write them 'like this' because when my characters are just thinking I put them in italics.

SomethingOrOther · Mar 24, 2012

"You're not the only one who can use ESP," the specter said telepathically.

"You're an illusion," James divinated.

"No. I'm not," the specter foretold him.

"Who are you?" he psinquired.

"Claire," the specter ki-jaculated, "Claire Voyant-Lee."

(Don't do this.)

RichardGarfinkle · Mar 24, 2012

I usually use italics. But there are other ways.

Have a look at Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man or Julian May's Many Colored Land and Jack the Bodiless books for some nice methods.

Kriven · Mar 24, 2012

I think Animorphs they used something like this:

<Do you see the fire hydrant over there?>
<Yeah. What about it?>
Marco wagged his tail. <Since we're dogs, lets go pee on it!>

n3onkn1ght · Mar 24, 2012

<I've seen telepathic conversations done with these things.>

JQTrotter · Mar 24, 2012

I usually see it in italics but I'd recommend you do whatever feels right for you. If that turns out to be the wrong way then when you get to the point of finding a lit agent they will probably suggest you format it differently before it goes to the publisher so in the end it doesn't matter much. I don't think there is a universal right or wrong for telepathic conversations, though. Good luck

Chasing the Horizon · Mar 24, 2012

≈I do it like this.≈ Because I knew I'd seen other books use weird sideways quote things, but couldn't remember which symbol they were. So I picked that one because it's wavy and I like wavy things . . .

I couldn't use italics because half the conversations in one of my projects are telepathic and that many italics gives certain people (me, for instance) a headache. I make it clear that the sideways squiggles mean telepathy in the first scene and my betas thought it made sense.

Old Hack · Mar 24, 2012

It doesn't matter how you format it so long as you're consistent throughout the book. But I'd use speechmarks for ordinary speech, none for thoughts, and italics for telepathic speech. Something like that.

The problems come if you use a number of differnt ways of signifying it, which makes it more difficult for readers to understand and editors to work with.

Lunatique · Mar 25, 2012

Okay, so how does this look:

John concentrated and tried to reach Dan telepathically. "When he looks away, grab his gun, and I'll hit him in the head."

"Are you sure? There's four of them," Dan telegraphed back, with a slight shake of his head, showing his disapproval.

"Quit making eyes at each other," said one of the guards, his voice gruff and threatening. "If you two try anything, not only will we kill you, we'll kill your families too."

"See?" Dan lowered his head and broke eye-contact with John. "It'll never work."

Old Hack · Mar 25, 2012

Nice and clear for me.

Buffysquirrel · Mar 25, 2012

I just use italics, with dialogue tags where necessary. No quotes. I don't use italics for unsent thoughts, though, which I suppose helps avoid confusion. Ultimately it'll be done in whatever house style the unwitting, I mean lucky, publisher uses, I guess, so all I want to do is to set them off from the regular dialogue and the narrative.

I'm not a huge fan of using italics and symbols. If you have symbols, why use italics? You're just cluttering the page.

My only question over my method is when the character switches in mid-dialogue to telepathy. I italicise but keep it in the quotes, and I'm not sure whether that makes the switch clear or just looks like emphasis.

elindsen · Mar 25, 2012

That whole italics thing worked for me

Atlantis · Mar 25, 2012

Lunatique said:
If two characters are having a telepathic conversation in their heads, sending thoughts and reading/hearing thoughts back and forth, how would that be formatted?

I can't remember how the past books I read formatted telepathic conversations, and I can't remember which books had them. Surely it's not just quotation marks but with the dialogue taqs changed to thought-related ones? Or maybe it's like regular dialogue but italicized and the tags changed?

There are heaps of ways to do it. I've seen authors use dialogue tags, some have it in italics, some use little --- to represent it. Whatever you decide to do though please STICK to that one style. One of my favourite authors uses telepathic communication all the time in her books and she switches how she writes it all the time. In one book its in dialogue tags no italics, in the next its no tags but just italicis, it's really bad writing to switch like that.

I would not use dialogue tags because they are speaking out loud. I would just stick to simple italics. I am fond of using the little --- but that is not for everyone and my last editor made me remove it because she did not like it.

As long as you make it clear who is speaking to whom you really do not need " " or something like said. What I do is describe the characters making eye contact with the person they are communicating with mind to mind. Or I describe the sensation of a mind brushing against another mind, the echo of a telepathic voice entering a head, or the telepathic connection between two characters being like a peice of string binding them together and words travelling along it.

RemusShepherd · Mar 25, 2012

RichardGarfinkle said:
Have a look at Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man or Julian May's Many Colored Land and Jack the Bodiless books for some nice methods.

I love the way Alfred Bester formatted -- and sometimes drew by hand -- his telepathic conversations. I've never had the balls to try something like this myself, though.

Here's a great example.

Spell-it-out · Mar 25, 2012

The latest sci fiction that i read used italics wit occasional tagging!

Lunatique · Mar 25, 2012

Those of you who named examples from existing books--can you guys maybe type an example and show the actual formatting that was used? It's not that easy for me to go and find those books, since I live in China, and since I already have a huge list of books I'm trying to read through, I don't want to just buy them in ebook form and add more to my already too-long list of books to read. Thanks!

Spell-it-out said:
The latest sci fiction that i read used italics wit occasional tagging!

How would the author differentiate between inner thought and telepathic conversation?

little_e · Mar 25, 2012

I think it depends strongly on how much telepathy is going on, and how 'normal' it is to the characters. If there's only a bit here and there, then you'd probably want to put it in italics. If it's a completely normal way for your characters to communicate and they do it all the time, at length, then you might not want it in italics--that could get annoying--you'd probably want it formatted more like regular speech, though you'd still want to take care to differentiate it from regular.

Spell-it-out · Mar 26, 2012

Lunatique said:
How would the author differentiate between inner thought and telepathic conversation?

My bad! Only the Vampires could communicate telepathically! The main POV, the Human did a surprisingly small amount of internal debating to come to think of it.

The book was THE FALL, by G. Del Toro.

Buffysquirrel · Mar 26, 2012

Well, I'm writing in first person, so the character's thoughts are part of the narrative, leaving italics free to be used for telepathy, and the occasional book title or trade name. You can always go with tagging unsent thoughts if you don't want confusion between those and telepathic ones.

So, frex:

Now what? he thought, then, realising Alexander was awake, asked, Now what?

or

'Now what?' he thought, then, realising Alexander was awake, asked, Now what?

or

Now what? he thought, then, realising Alexander was awake, sent, Now what?

RichardGarfinkle · Mar 26, 2012

Lunatique said:
Those of you who named examples from existing books--can you guys maybe type an example and show the actual formatting that was used? It's not that easy for me to go and find those books, since I live in China, and since I already have a huge list of books I'm trying to read through, I don't want to just buy them in ebook form and add more to my already too-long list of books to read. Thanks!

How would the author differentiate between inner thought and telepathic conversation?

Can't easily give an example from Alfred Bester that conveys it because the best formatting is for long conversations. The short form is italics with quotation marks but with punctuation marks for some phrases like #2 for number two. The best bit was two columns with the one telepath's thoughts showing up in the left hand and the other in the right. There were spaces in the columns when the other person was sending, but it was perfectly readable with a clear sense of which character was sending which thoughts.

ccarver30 · Mar 26, 2012

amschilling said:
I have no idea if it's right (so I'm curious what others say), but in my WIP I've got telepathic conversations and just used italics. No dialog tags because it was obvious who was talking each time.

Me too.

Formatting telepathic conversation?

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