: Re: Do I have to keep saying “_____ thought,”after I put italics? Every time a character is thinking something is it necessary to put “_____thought,” if there is italics, so shouldnt they

@Steve161

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First, you'd need to establish the convention that you use italics for thoughts. I've seen different books use italics for thoughts, telepathy, foreign-language inserts, and more. The reader would need to know what you use italics for. (See, here I've used italics to stress a word.)

Once you've established the convention, and so long as it's clear who's thinking the thought, (I'm assuming we're only hearing the POV character's thoughts?) you don't need to repeat the "_____ thought" part - it's sufficiently clear without, so reiterating it is redundant.

If you're inside the heads of multiple characters, you'd still need to make clear every time who's doing the thinking. But this can be self-evident from context, just like it is in dialogue.

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