The Editing Agenda: Expressing Thoughts

A huge challenge every fiction writer faces is finding a way to express characters’ thoughts. Many writers use italics or quotation marks; in fact, a lot of authors do. But too many italics are overwhelming, and quotation marks can be confused for those of dialogue. So which is the best method? In my opinion, neither is. So how do you effectively convey a thought without relying on italics or quotation marks?

Option 1: Tags

When using tags to indicate thoughts, structure the sentence just as y...