Quoting first person text in a first person perspective story

MrSpiderhead

Hey folks,

This is my first post on here, so please forgive me if I was supposed to post in an introductions thread first (I couldn't see one).

I'm currently editing a short story for the paranormal competition and have come across an interesting quandary. In my story, the first person narrator reads out text that is also in a first person perspective. This is not read out loud, so I can't use speech marks. I've seen this done by using a slightly different font, or by enclosing the entire passage in quotation marks, but while writing it, a different font just looks odd, whereas the quotation marks don't seem to delineate the text well enough, what with there being fairly extensive blocks of quoted text. I have considered italics or making the quoted text a point or two smaller but bolded, but these seem to go against good form.

So, while to some degree this might come down to personal style, I was wondering how others on here would go about such a thing, or whether there are specific rules that I am unaware of.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Bill

how about the first person narrator referring to the sender of the text by simply saying " He [or name] writes"... followed by the text, which I would be inclined to italicise.
If he is alone, then he can have an internal thought to the same effect.

heather

You could try leaving a line, indenting it as a block and then leaving another line after it.

Tiny Nell

Hello MrSpiderhead - and welcome.

I would simply use italics.

E.g. I picked up the note which read, {italics} I am sorry for leaving without explanation... {italics}

Phots Moll

Either italics, or quotes but use single if speech is in double (or vice versa). If you do as TN suggests and spell out that the character is reading for the first section of read text, then it should be clear for the rest.

I agree that a different font, or different size will look weird.

I generally use quotes, but if I was showing the whole piece of text eg a short note, then I might use italics.

Phots Moll

As for the introduction thingy, you can post up a bit about yourself if you'd like to, but it's not compulsory.

Liz

Oh, but it is, really. If you post a new discussion, you'll find it in the list of categories, it's called 'welcome writers'.

danfango

I'd go for italics. Having quotation marks of any kind if the text isn't being read out will seem strange. I've seen both italics and using a different font in professionally published books, although the different font approach tends to be for when the effect isn't just a one-off, e.g. in a book consisting of an exchange of letters between different characters. As long as it's obvious what's going on, you shouldn't have to worry about confusing the reader or it looking odd.

I'm not sure I've ever read or commented on an 'introduction' thread, so I'll just say, Hello and welcome, MrSpiderhead.

Claudia

Hi Mr Spiderhead - I agree with using italics.
Hope you're going to return and join in with us.

p.s. of course it isn't compulsory to introduce yourself on a separate thread - nothing wrong with jumping in as you have done.

MrSpiderhead

Hey folks,

Thanks for all your replies, and sorry I haven't replied sooner. In the end I ended up using a hybrid - quotation marks (as it was being read out loud), and italics because it was in large blocks of text throughout the whole story and it was fairly easy to get a bit lost otherwise.

All the advice was much appreciated, and has helped me get to the point of having just submitted my first ever short story for my first ever competition entry (bar a poetry competition back at secondary school about 17 years ago).

Claudia

Good to see you're back - and good luck with your short story.

MrSpiderhead

Thanks. I doubt it'll be a winner, but I'm relatively happy with how it ended up. It was one of those cases where you get to the point where you just have to call it finished or never stop editing. No idea where to even begin for the crime short story competition though. Not really my area, but I still plan to give it a go

Edit: Merciful Zeus, that smiley is terrifying!