: Re: How to format common words that are made "special"? In my novel, there's something that the characters refer to as "darkness". It symbolizes the bad thoughts of depressed/suicidal people.

@Moriarity138

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Typically, italics indicate when a word is being used in a non-standard manner. This seems to me the best choice for the examples given. I could see capitalizing if it was being anthropomorphized or used as a title ("The Darkness"), but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

So you have no choice but to fight alone. Fight this darkness alone.
Perhaps this darkness, despite coming from the same source, varied for person to person.
Was this the darkness Joel had talked about?

(It's also worth noting that capitalizing nouns that are not proper nouns can feel old fashioned --this was once quite common in English, but does not match the modern style. If you are deliberately seeking a old-fashioned feel, it might be the right choice.)

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