M. Lori Motley

Here’s an article by my close friend, Melanie, about writing character’s thoughts in fiction.

In quality fiction writing it is often important to tell what your character is thinking. There are multiple acceptable methods for doing this. The method you choose depends largely on the point of view of your story, and the specific publication you are writing for.

Fiction Writing: How to Write Your Character’s Thoughts – Read More Here

The two main methods of how to write your character’s thoughts in fiction are through the use of Italics or quotation marks and commas. In the first example, your characters thoughts would be written in italics without any quotation marks. You would still put a, between the thought and the thought tag such as “she thought.”

In the second example, your characters thoughts would be witnessed the same way as spoken dialogue. The actual thought would be in quotation marks and you would use a comma before the speech tag.