Nothing shouts ‘Amateur!’ so loudly as flying fingers hitting the wrong parts of the keyboard. Let’s put to bed one of the most common errors seen in rookie manuscripts: the use of typographical elements to emphasise or dramatise parts of the text. There are those who will tell you this matter is subject to a simple rule: never do it. As usual, things aren’t quite as simple as that.
Example: ‘EEKKKK!!! Desmond! DESMOND!!!! Colonel Farquhar’s just been found DEAD face down in the hothouse aspidistra!!!’
‘How very inconvenient, darling. I’d only just pruned it.’
There are some stinkers there. But there’s also something that is rather handy and worthy of use – as always with the caveat ‘in moderation’.
Let’s deal with the shockers first.
Exclamation marks and other typographical fluff
Some people say these should never be used. I disagree. Exclamation marks are long-standing elements of punctuation that serve a purpose. They add that extra sense of power at the end of a sentence: ‘I don’t care. I’m going to do it anyway!’ I don’t have any problem with that so long as exclamation marks are used very lightly indeed, not sprinkled around like confetti.
What you mustn’t do is think you can enhance the process by adding in more than one. Multiple exclamation marks – or question marks for that matter – are bad punctuation, ugly on the page and look childish. Even worse, never, ever throw in other typographical marks – • * # – thinking they add even more emphasis. They don’t. They just make you look banal.
Writers should stick to the letters of the alphabet, common punctuation marks, and foreign accents when needed. There is no reason why you need worry about formatting at all – someone else will take care of that. This applies to dashes by the way – type them as two short hyphens like this if you like — and the publisher will set them correctly in the end.
Avoid CONTINUOUS CAPITAL LETTERS. Shouty, inelegant and ineffective.
Exaggerated spelling. For example: ‘Eeekkkkk! Wooooo-o-o-o-tttt! Begorrrrrhaaaah!’ You don’t really need me to say it, do you?
The use of bold. Bold is a typographic style principally used in functional non-fiction such as computer manuals, and in journalism as a design feature. It’s not there to emphasise individual words in a narrative work. Fiction, particularly popular fiction, emulates the oral storytelling tradition. Punctuation, used properly, signals the pauses and effects used by someone reading a story. Bold has no place in that process.
Finally something I can and will use. But isn’t it just like bold, you say? A typographic convention? Well, yes, but the italic style is long-established and fulfils several readily understood purposes in books.
Here are some ways you will see italics used.
For emphasis – compare ‘Are you the only one who’s going to turn up today?’ with ‘Are you the only one who’s going to turn up today?’ Same words, slightly different tone, through nothing other than the italics in the second. I can’t think of any other way to achieve that, though perhaps an italics jihadist out there can suggest one.
For foreign words: ‘The abbacchio scottadito was perfect. ‘You’ll often see this in my books since they take place in Italy. But I don’t italicise everything otherwise there’d be a lot of italics around. Very common words such as Questura I leave in Roman (i.e. plain) text since they appear so often they don’t seem so foreign. You wouldn’t want to italicise pizza, would you?
For interior thought. ‘Does he really love me, Rebecca wondered.’ Or simply on a line of its own: ‘Does he love me?’ The first is popular and house style for many publishers, but far from mandatory. The second sounds OK because it represents an entire interior spoken thought, which the first doesn’t. But, like anything, it would quickly become annoying if overused. You decide.
Book titles, newspaper names, ships … The Times, Moby-Dick, the Queen Mary. All OK.
To represent historic passages. You’ll find in some of my American editions, notably Lucifer’s Shadow and The Seventh Sacrament, whole sections printed in italics. Nothing to do with me. This was the publisher’s editorial style. I don’t like it. Italics should be used for a single sentence or two at most. In big chunks italic text becomes unreadable. Under no circumstances submit a manuscript that contains more than a paragraph or two of italic text at the most.
If you genuinely feel a historic or separate element needs to be differentiated visually, just set it in a contrasting font. If your body font is a sans style, say Helvetica, Arial or Calibri, then you could choose a serif font – a more ornate newspaper style one – such as Times, Garamond or Cambria for the separate sections.
But I wouldn’t spend a lot of time agonising over decisions like this. If your target agent or editor chooses to read the manuscript on an ereader – and they probably will – your font decisions will be overridden and they probably won’t see them. Better to put a covering note in with the manuscript suggesting these contrasting sections could be marked by some typographic design in the final book. You’ll be judged on your writing talent, not your ability to format Microsoft Word prettily. Keep things simple and avoid exotic typefaces too (your intended customer may not even see them).
One oddity about italics that people sometimes forget: if you want to italicise something within an italic sentence you revert to the plain Roman style. For example: ‘Perhaps we should put a notice in The Times.’
I use italics sparingly, principally for unusual foreign words and for emphasising single words in direct speech. They can give text a rhythm and texture that’s difficult, if not impossible, to achieve through any other means. If your work ends up appearing as an audio book, italics will also help the narrator understand better the rhythm of the prose.
Remember: punctuation and typography are effective in fiction when they suggest the flow and balance of the spoken word. The rest of the tricks here are best avoided unless you’re writing one of the rare books that genuinely need them.