unsaid thoughts in quotes or not?

Discussion in 'CastingWords' started by zinni, Dec 27, 2012.

  1. zinni

    zinni User

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    Here's a quick question I sometimes wonder about. When someone is talking and describing a thought they had in their head, or someone else has a thought in their head, or God is thinking something, is it in quotes?

    Like this:

    I said to myself, "What is this?"

    I'm sure they were thinking, "What is she doing?"

    God says, "That's not right."


    So far, what I've been doing is putting quotes around the thought as long as it sounds like a quote. I wouldn't use a quote in the following.

    I wondered to myself what this was.

    I'm sure they were wondering what I was doing.

    God doesn't like that.


    I also separate the "quotes" as if they were actual speech. Am I doing this right?
     
  2. smorganie

    smorganie User

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    Some people use quotes and some only use commas, I personally prefer using the quotes if it's a specific word for word thought and commas if it's more of a feeling.

    As for quoting god, people usually always use quotation marks when quoting fictional characters.

    Also I'm pretty sure this is not the place for this question.
     
  3. zinni

    zinni User

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    Yeah, fictional characters, I didn't think of that. You're right.

    But why isn't this the place to ask that question? This is the Casting Words forum, is it not? It's a question related to transcriptions, isn't it?
     
  4. ayeembored

    ayeembored Active Member

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    Use quotes when the thought is a direct quote of the actual thought.

    I thought, "Boy, I sure would like some lunch."

    Don't use them when it's not a direct quote of the thought.

    I thought that it was time to get some lunch.

    Borderline cases? Use your discretion. I personally would use quotes in most borderline cases. YMMV.
     
  5. naturegirl

    naturegirl User

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    To add to what's been said, I'd agree that the main distinction for CW in using quotes is whether it's a direct quote or not.

    In that context, it may not matter either whether it's a fictional character. Take the example of God as a speaker that you gave. I would actually not use any internal punctuation (quotes or comma) at all in that sentence, just the period at the end. Why? Because it's the speaker interpreting God; it's not a direct quote. It's a great example of an indirect quote, and although the "says" is there to imply that this is a direct quote from God...it's still not. :)

    (And OP, you were definitely in the right subforum. But sometimes when people are just using the "What's New" function to see new posts, they may not realize the context of your post because they're not noticing where you posted it.)
     

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