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Do you capitalize the sentence after an internal dialogue (a.k.a. thought bubble) that uses a prefix tag? That is, in an example like:

Will thought, My father must not like me.

Or do you do:

Will thought, my father must not like me.

I'm leaning toward capitalizing, because if you wrote this out with quotation marks then you would obviously capitalize.

Will said, "My father must not like me."

But when using internal dialogue and italics, the capitalization leads to a strange effect because you would not normally capitalize after a comma.

(For the purpose of this question, please assume I'm editing a book where I would prefer not to modify the sentence structure unless I absolutely have to. If it were my own writing, I would not use a prefix tag with internal dialogue.)

Elliott Slaughter
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    Does this answer your question? Capitalization with quotation marks when the quote is not direct speech – Edwin Ashworth Sep 12 '20 at 18:14
  • You're writing narrative. There are no punctuation rules for dialog in narrative, especially for internal narrative. Good grief, where do people think writing rules come from? God? – John Lawler Sep 12 '20 at 18:49
  • Why would you not use quotation marks? Even though Will hasn't spoken the sentence he has formed it in his mind. He is, in a sense, holding a conversation with himself so it's still direct speech even though the words were never spoken. – BoldBen Sep 12 '20 at 18:49
  • @EdwinAshworth, sort of, the author of the answer gives an opinion, but the passage quoted from the Chicago Manual of Style actually says nothing about capitalization, but only use the use of quotation marks (or not). – Elliott Slaughter Sep 16 '20 at 05:36
  • @BoldBen, at least in my experience the use of quotation marks for internal dialogue is an older style, vs italics is a more modern style. E.g. compare Jane Austen and Frank Herbert. I suppose it could go either way but I was planning on using italics to render internal dialogue in this case. – Elliott Slaughter Sep 16 '20 at 05:38
  • Young recommends using almost zero punctuation, but << My father must not like me, Will thought >> looks a lot better than << Will thought, my father must not like me >>. And Sven's advice looks better than some things I've seen elsewhere in CMOS. // ... – Edwin Ashworth Sep 16 '20 at 13:46
  • Grammar Book gives << I thought, “How creepy.” >> OR << I thought How creepy. >> – Edwin Ashworth Sep 16 '20 at 13:50

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