1. “Oh, what does he want now?” Jill thought. “Yes, Jack,” she answered.
2. Oh, what does he want now? Jill thought. “Yes, Jack,” she answered.
3. Oh, what does he want now? [New paragraph?] “Yes, Jack.”
The first and the second are standard, but the third is non-standard and differs little from the original unaffixed dialogue except it uses non-standard punctuation (the italics). If the author does create a new paragraph between the two sentences in example two, that presents a violation of the one rule of unaffixed dialogue: alternation. This rule creates the context and means to associate the dialogue or internal monologue with the character without dialogue tag.
On the other hand, in keeping with proper use of italics, a phrase or sentence contained within a paragraph of first-person narration will and can only be associated with someone else.
Old man Max. That’s what Alec began to call me when he was ten. I replaced my Porsche with a Jag on my forty-ninth birthday. C’mon, how many times are you going to be forty-nine? The smart aleck said. Old man with his old-man car. I had thought him to be a quiet, even rather stupid boy, when he was little. A phone call in the night changed my mind. Should I kill them?
The italics serves three purposes at the same time.
1. The words are not Max’s in thought or speech.
2. The words are emphasized.
3. The words are not within the immediate context of the present action or narration – at a different time and space.
How to maintain context of who is speaking or thinking between more than two characters?
1. Consistent explicit quotation of only one character.
2. The addressed character identifies the quoted character.
“Come here!”
What you want, Mom?
The reader does not know who thinks or says the response, so the quoted character must, in turn, identify him or her or have already done so in that first sentence.
“Mike, come here!”
What do you want, Mom?
Or…
From character to character, certain phrasing or code words (by them, but in different ways) identifies the quoted character. In the next example, the quoted character, Andrea, is sometimes identified by name, or by the perceived sound of her voice, or both.
“Elena!”
Oh, the sound of her words is always like chalk on a board.
[…]
“Alexandros.”
Yes. I answer Andrea.
[…]
“Hector?”
That voice can peel paint off the wall. I ask Andrea where Astyanax is.
[…]
“Cassandra!”
The baby seal on the Canadian ice shrieks.
So why do this? At the sacrifice of narration of action to advance the plot—for the story must halt for the moment while the reader digs around in a character’s head—the underlying motivation, whether conscious or subconscious, is explained without the author telling through his own narration. Implicit in the lack of quotation marks is the mixing of thought and explicit speech of that character, perhaps, even to the extent of no speaking at all. In the example below Príamos begins in thought, but of a special kind, rather than These cookies taste good or “These cookies taste good,” he thinks, but in subconscious underpinnings to active thought, and never “thought” in the way authors commonly use “thought.” This is quite an economy of words, if the reader catches on, rather than through either a lengthy flashback or author-intrusive musings.
Por la Raza Todo, Fuera de la Raza Nada. This wigger, this reverse oreo, Alec! Come here, Hecuba. Let me squeeze your tits.
“Oreos should be yet on the way to your raza cosmica.”
Niggers with heretic whites? No.
“There is no specificity to the actual mix along the way to a future race of all races.”
We can simply decimate gringos and niggers by heroin as they did us with blankets of small pox. This continent, this whole hemisphere, belongs to the natives and the Holy Roman Church. Reconquista by our women’s wombs. Twelve sons, and some daughters, too, by three of such wombs that belong to me. Hecuba, will you bring your tits over here!
A nasty guy, the reader knows, without having to wade through thousands of words authors usually use to get the reader to that conclusion. Notice, too, Priamos begins with quoted material (a slogan) which is for that reason italicized. It is improper and unnecessary to ever italicize the entire internal monologue. Hecuba, speaker of the quoted sentence that follows, is identified by Priamos prior to her appearance, as Andrea did for Elena, but the quoted/thought exchange is reversed.
