Q & A 190

Should italicized internal dialogue be given a separate paragraph or placed at the end of a paragraph? I'm providing an excerpt from my book [Previously seen here in New Beginning 1047] done both ways.

Inside her first clubhouse, Lacy Dawn glanced over fifth grade spelling words for tomorrow’s quiz at school.  She already knew all the words in the textbook and most others in any human language.              Nothing’s more important than an education. The clubhouse was a cardboard box in the front yard that her grandmother's new refrigerator had occupied until an hour before.  Her father brought it home for her to play in.  The nicest thing he's ever done.  Faith lay beside her with a hand over the words and split fingers to cheat as they were called off.  She lived in the next house up the hollow.  Every other Wednesday for the last two months, the supervised child psychologist came to their school, pulled her out of class, and evaluated suspected learning disabilities.  Lacy Dawn underlined a word with a fingernail.  All she needs is a little motivation.  Before they had crawled in, Lacy Dawn tapped the upper corner of the box with a flashlight and proclaimed, "The place of all things possible -- especially you passing the fifth grade so we'll be together in the sixth."Please concentrate, Faith.  Try this one.             "Armadillo."            "A, R, M, … A … D, I, L, D, O," Faith demonstrated her intellect.            "That's weak.  This is a bonus word so you’ll get extra points.  Come on."            Lacy Dawn nodded and looked for a new word.  I’ll trick her by going out of order – a word she can't turn into another punch line.  “Don’t talk about it and the image will go away.  Let’s get back to studying,” Lacy Dawn said.              My mommy don't like sex.  It's just her job and she told me so.
Inside her first clubhouse, Lacy Dawn glanced over fifth grade spelling words for tomorrow’s quiz at school.  She already knew all the words in the textbook and most others in any human language. Nothing’s more important than an education. The clubhouse was a cardboard box in the front yard that her grandmother's new refrigerator had occupied until an hour before.  Her father brought it home for her to play in. The nicest thing he's ever done.  Faith lay beside her with a hand over the words and split fingers to cheat as they were called off.  She lived in the next house up the hollow.  Every other Wednesday for the last two months, the supervised child psychologist came to their school, pulled her out of class, and evaluated suspected learning disabilities.  Lacy Dawn underlined a word with a fingernail. All she needs is a little motivation.  Before they had crawled in, Lacy Dawn tapped the upper corner of the box with a flashlight and proclaimed, "The place of all things possible -- especially you passing the fifth grade so we'll be together in the sixth." Please concentrate, Faith.  Try this one.             "Armadillo."            "A, R, M, … A … D, I, L, D, O," Faith demonstrated her intellect.            "That's weak.  This is a bonus word so you’ll get extra points.  Come on."            Lacy Dawn nodded and looked for a new word. I’ll trick her by going out of order – a word she can't turn into another punch line.  “Don’t talk about it and the image will go away.  Let’s get back to studying,” Lacy Dawn said. My mommy don't like sex.  It's just her job and she told me so.


I would place internal dialogue in the same paragraph, not a separate one. If it's in a separate paragraph we have no way of knowing which character is thinking it, unless you add an unitalicized tag like "Lacy Dawn thought" or "Faith wondered." Even when the internal dialogue is in the same paragraph, an occasional "she thought" isn't a bad idea, especially if it's not a lengthy thought.
I don't see why Please concentrate, Faith.  Try this one. is internal. Why wouldn't she say it aloud?
It's common for a scene to be described from one character's point of view, and since no one knows what another character is thinking, you wouldn't be able to provide internal dialogue from two different characters in the same scene, as you do here. An omniscient narrator would know everyone's thoughts, but if we have an omniscient narrator, that's one more person to which the italicized words could be attributed if they're in a separate paragraph.
Also, as I said in New Beginning 1047, these particular snippets of internal dialogue aren't especially useful to the narrative. Use it sparingly. If a story is told well, the reader can usually figure out what the characters are thinking. It's when the characters aren't thinking what we'd expect that internal dialogue is most helpful. As in this scene from Annie Hall: