Editing question

[Julia]

If you please,
I am finishing the second personal edit of a manuscript that I hope to submit soon.

After reading some different perspectives on things, I rewrote some of the prose and placed it in point of view narrative rather than omniscient description. This required the use of lots of italics for thoughts. As a matter of fact, as the novel is a time travel historical fantasy with a psych/telepathy element, there is quite a bit of italicizing.

Tonight, I have been reading a book on how to get your m/s rejected. (Obviously, with the intent of getting it accepted instead). The author states that agents and editors hate italicizing and will reject a manuscript on that basis alone.

Now I am in a quandary, and feel as if I cannot continue editing until I get this resolved, because while there is a lot of italicizing, I clearly would prefer not to have the m/s rejected out of hand.

I would love to hear people's opinions on this matter - especially those with first hand experience.

Thank you so much,
Julie Hoover

[Dana]

Italics should be used very sparingly - they should always have special meaning, and that meaning starts to become lost if they're present too often.
However, you don't need to italicize every time a character has a thought either - most of the time you can work those thoughts into the rest of the sentence, especially if you're working with third person limited.
I can't give you much more help than that without seeing the actual manuscript though, so sorry if that wasn't what you were looking for. Or, come to think of it, if you wanted you could post a chapter or so in the Resources section, and then we could try giving you more specific suggestions. Your call though. : )

[Julia]

How do I do that? I'd love to get feedback!

[Dana]

Julia wrote: "How do I do that? I'd love to get feedback!"

1. From the main page, click on the "Resources" folder
2. On the next screen, click on "New Topic" (it's in tiny font, above "last activity" near the top)
3. Name the new thread something like: Help with my chapter, or Problems with Italics or whatever you want
4. Post the portion of your story, probably with a brief description of what you need help with first, just so people don't become confused. : )

And then wait for responses!
P.S. I'm going to be moving this thread out of the Fantasy folder and into the Resources folder, just so you know. : )

[Julia]

Great! Thank you so much. :)
J