Huh. I never thought about it. Of course most of the English novels I've read lately are pretty modern, too.

I've seen "erm" used a lot by British writers, but that's in fanfic and modern day settings, so I don't know how widespread it is. I know Douglas Adams used it quite a bit in his Hitchhiker books, but those aren't regency era. So, I got nothing, but I had to chip something in because sometimes I feel pretty darn useless in this thread.

"erm" is pretty common among modern day Brits, but I don't know about Regency-era.

Susan, are there sources you can check for that? How did Thackeray do it, or early Dickens?

Ahem:

MATTY GROVES IS SHIPPING!

Susan, are there sources you can check for that? How did Thackeray do it, or early Dickens?

I'll have to look next time I'm at the library on those, which probably says something bad about my home library. (Though, given space and budget constraints, I've made a conscious decision only to buy classics I'm sure I'll re-read regularly, because I don't have to worry about them going out of print or being tough to track down in a library system.)

Anyway, what I ended up telling her was that the "Umms" and "Uhhs" distracted me in interior monologue, because they seem more like filler sounds than filler thoughts, and that made sense to her.

Apparently my brain really wants to be writing Chapter 12. When I started chapter 10, I entitled it Chapter 12 and then was scratching my head about what was wrong with word when it wanted to name the file that, until I realized my mistake. Then I started Chapter 11 and again typed in 12, realizing my goof a minute or so later. I hoping this means Chapter 12 is going to kick ass when I get to it, because my brain seems really entusiastic about it.

I'm nearing 42,000 words, over halfway to the end. It's hard to believe I just started this up in earnest only 7 and a half weeks ago.

I do have a rather odd formating question. I know when you're writing a character's thoughts verbatim, you use italics. The problem is, I have a character that only communicates telepathically (really long story I don't want to bore you all with) and I'm sure entire conversations in italics with no quotation marks would drive most editors nutty (and many readers as well). So how how should I handle it? At the moment I've been bolding it to differentiate from the protagonist's thoughts, but I've read that using bold is a big no-no for manuscripts.

Kalshane, what you could do for now is t put telepathic thoughts in brackets.

That could work as a temporary measure. BTW, if you want to see a neat example of telepathy portrayed in writing, check out "The Demolished Man" by Alfred Bester. It's worth reading, even though it's a bit dated (it was written 40-50 years ago, and is obviously a product of the times.)

Kalshane, I agree that bold is a bad idea, but I think underlining, italics, brackets, or anything along those lines is fine as long as you're consistent and clear.

ION, is it OK if I whine here a bit?

Brackets could work. I'm just worried about people's eyes melting having to read a page full of italics.

"The Demolished Man" by Alfred Bester.

I'll look for it. Thanks.

ION, is it OK if I whine here a bit?

You have my permission. Though as the thread's newbie, I doubt that counts for much.

If whining isn't part of writing, I don't know what is. Hell, I'm about to make a request of my own.

Kalshane, there's a chapter in one of mine that's basically three characters communicating that way. I displayed their thoughts this way: Character one, the primary from whose POV the episode occurs, is in straight normal text. Character two, Character One's young niece, was in parentheses. Character three, a used to be human killer who is related to both one and two, was in italics.

I'd stay far the hell away from bold. Really.

A request to all and sundry: if you haven't already, could you give your local library a call and ask them to order "Matty Groves"? We loves and depends on the library sales, we do.