Question marks in thought dialog

To me, although I'm no expert, I would use the question mark but leave out the he thought.


Elodie

Use the question mark, whether or not you include "he thought."

MelancholyMan said:

Billy looked at the test. I wonder if I can get help on this? he thought.

But that doesn't look right to me. It is a question and should have a question mark, but there's nowhere to put one. What is the standard procedure for dealing with this?

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I'll operate under the assumption that for some reason, you have to or wish to use the "he thought" tag at the end. You don't have to, but there will be occasions on which you WANT to, so...

This is how I would, and do, write such things:

Billy looked at the test. I wonder if I can get help on this? he thought.

Notice that the only thing I italicize is the thought itself, and since the question mark is part of the thought, it's italicized too. I don't use a comma after the question mark since the question mark (or exclamation point, if that were to be used in the thought) is its own punctuation. And I don't italicize the tag "he thought," because, since it's not part of the actual thought, it shouldn't be italicized.

That's just my take on the issue, I'm sure there are others.

And there are those of us don't italicize thoughts

I agree that if you keep the italics, you can probably drop the "he thought" tag since it's obvious it's his thought:

Billy looked down at the test. I wonder if I could I get help on this?

I tend to not use italics or tags though, because I usually write very tight third person. So my way of writing your examples would be:

Timmy glanced down the street and saw a young woman. Man, was she good looking.

or

Billy glanced down at the test. Could he get help with this?

Obviously, it's a personal preference, but something to think about if you don't like messing with the punctuation!

MelancholyMan said:

I have a goofy question. I've been doing this for years and should have got the answer long, long ago. No doubt the reason I'm not famous yet!

Typically I don't use question marks when I write, thought dialog, such as:

Timmy glanced down the street and saw a young woman. Man, is she good looking, he thought.

So how do I incorporate a question into this. For example:

Billy looked at the test. I wonder if I can get help on this, he thought.

Or should it be:

Billy looked at the test. I wonder if I can get help on this? he thought.

But that doesn't look right to me. It is a question and should have a question mark, but there's nowhere to put one. What is the standard procedure for dealing with this?

-MM

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MelancholyMan said:

I have a goofy question. I've been doing this for years and should have got the answer long, long ago. No doubt the reason I'm not famous yet!

Typically I don't use question marks when I write, thought dialog, such as:

Timmy glanced down the street and saw a young woman. Man, is she good looking, he thought.

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I don't see why you'd use a question mark there anyway, because it's not a question.

Billy looked at the test. I wonder if I can get help on this? he thought.

But that doesn't look right to me.

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And yet it is the correct punctuation.

Billy looked at the test. I wonder if I can get help on this? he thought.

That's fine.


Like others on the thread, I think that:

Billy looked at the test. I wonder if I can get help on this?

is better, but


Billy looked at the test and wondered if he could get help with it.


is even better.

IceCreamEmpress, care to elaborate on why the last example is better?

IceCreamEmpress said:

I don't see why you'd use a question mark there anyway, because it's not a question.

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It depends on the emphasis.

Is she good looking?

Or

Is she good looking.

Which actually is still a question, though a rhetorical one, and should have a question mark.

Billy looked at the test and wondered if he could get help with it.

is even better.

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I agree. I don't much like sudden 1st person thoughts inserted into a close 3rd person narrative.

"Standing on the shoulders of giants, leaves me cold..."

Ditto italics.

Drop the "he thought." And the italics. Instead of "Timmy glanced down the street and saw a young woman. Man, is she good looking, he thought"

how about:

""Timmy glanced down the street and saw a young woman. Man, was she good looking. Dressed all in red..." etc., etc.

Nothing needs explaining. The reader knows this is interior monologue without having to be told. Solves the ? question and the rest of it.

I agree the third version is best, in this particular example, but I have no idea whether this is the same distinction IceCreamEmpress is making. My issue is with the word wonder. If that wasn't involved, I would most likely prefer the second version. There are a couple of (possibly overlapping) reasons why.

First, I wonder if I can get help on this? isn't very believable as Billy's actual thought in that situation. Something like Can I get some help with this? seems more natural to me. Whereas and wondered if he could get help with it is in the narrator's voice, not the character's voice, so merely describes the fact that Billy is wondering.

Another issue--and I'm still fumbling with this one--is that "I wonder..." is a kind of filtering. On the other hand, internal thoughts, like dialog, aren't required to be formally correct. On the third hand, (also like dialog) being completely realistic doesn't work either. That would be much too incoherent and very annoying to read.

Finally, wondered is (loosely) a synonym for thought. Using both is redundant.

MelancholyMan said:

Billy looked at the test. I wonder if I can get help on this? he thought.

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Is he asking himself whether he's wondering? If so, it's a question. If not it's, a statement, and doesn't take a question mark.

That said...

Billy looked at the test. I wonder if I can get help on this, he thought.

Billy looked at the test. I wonder if I can get help on this.

Billy looked at the test. Can I get help on this? he thought.

Billy looked at the test. Can I get help on this?

Billy looked at the test. Could he get help on this?

Billy looked at the test and wondered if he could get help on it.

Billy looked at the test and wondered, Can I get help on this?

Dale

dawinsor said:

IceCreamEmpress, care to elaborate on why the last example is better?

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I think it's better because it's shorter. Also because it avoids the redundancy of "I wonder" and "he thought," as FennelGiraffe has already pointed out.

But if Billy's thought had been "Oh, @#$%&*! I should have studied harder!" then I would have liked the second approach better.

girlyswot said:

Is she good looking.

Which actually is still a question, though a rhetorical one, and should have a question mark.

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Nope, that's not a rhetorical question in US English. It's a subject-verb inversion done for emphasis. "Is it ever hot out there!" "Boy, was my face red!" and so on.