How do I write a telepathic conversation

I'm having trouble writing a telepathic conversation in my story. I'm using the style JK Rowling uses in that all thoughts are done in italics in order to distinguish them, but I'm having trouble writing the conversation, in that in a regular conversation you use words like "said" but doing a thought conversation, using "thought" feels awkward between lines. Any advice?

You could establish that the characters are having a telepathic conversation first, and then after that you could continue to use "said." The reader should be able to follow that.

Yeah, I would say to just continue with 'said'. It's supposed to be invisible, after all.

I've been working on a story with psychics recently, and I've found some success in using brackets to separate normal speech, thoughts, and telepathy. That way, you can have speech and add emphasis with italics. [See that? That's real psychic power!]

On the subject of "said" vs. "thought", I usually go with said. Not a huge difference, but it all depends on your preference.

For the moments when my characters had their telepathic conversation, they spoke in this font. However, it's a little distrating, but using brackets and similar indicatiors are fine.

You know, I think I'll stick with the first bit of advice of saying it's a telepathic conversation first and treating it as a regular conversation from there. Of course, to differentiate, I'd write their words in italics.

I wonder if this would make a good trope: Telepathic Tense Trouble

If you can find enough examples of it. It's hard finding a bookism for telepathy. I used the semi-awkward phrase "thought to".

edited 16th Apr '11 6:43:14 PM by chihuahua0

Instead of "thought", you could try "sent". That separates private thoughts from those sent telepathically. For example: What do you think of this? he sent.

As a writer, I try to avoid the word "said" as much as possible, even when dealing with actual speech. I use more descriptive words like "asked", "inquired", "Commanded", "Pondered", etc. Words that portray actual actions.

A few years ago, I did deal with a telepathic character, and instead of using thought or said, I would use some of the words above. I might also use words such as "transmitted", "Communicated", or even "Transferred". I believe that gives the conversation a more other worldly feeling that feels appropriate to the situation.

There are several different ways to go about it, my preference is to have each "thinker" use a particular font or font style. Emotions may be indicated like {anger} or {sadness} if it's important.

You may want to look at some Julian May books, she had some extensive telepathic communications going on, among a variety of beings.

edited 16th Apr '11 10:42:55 PM by blueharp

Well, you could go with having no dialogue tags at all for the telepathic conversations, outside of the ones that don't imply speaking. That could be a bit tricky, but as long as you change paragraphs every time the person talking changes, have the person talking move, act, or emote in some way to establish who they are, and keep it obvious in general who is talking through pacing and character voices, it should make sense.

Back in the 1970's Piers Anthony used different keyboard symbols to indicate not only {thoughts} but also the mental #speech# *of* $different$ ~~alien~~ ::species:: in place of "quotes" which were reserved for humanity. You knew things were going to get heavy when a new intellegence entered the story. I forget the name of the series, but it was five or more books in length.

edited 17th Apr '11 8:27:21 PM by Rheinman

I always use <this> to indicate thought speak, based on The Animorphs. And underlined italics for reading thoughts that weren't deliberately sent.

Sometimes, I put no tags on it at all, just make it clear who's talking by context. For example, giving description of what they're doing (if they're visible). Sometimes I use said and such - after all, blind people say 'I'll see you later' even though it's not technically true. Sometimes I use 'thought', 'sent', etc. Do what feels most natural for the story.

Just so people know (and yeah, I'm four years late to the discussion, but you never know when someone will dig something back up) things like different fonts, brackets et al are added by the publisher. If you're trying to submit a manuscript to an agent or editor with them it will likely not go well. Even italics are dubious in sufficient quantity: limit them to actual verbatim internal monologue, as you would normally.

Treat telepathic conversations like normal conversations, with quotation marks and dialog tags/intervening actions. Occasional cues as to the nature of the dialog are probably a good idea, especially early on—you can let up on them as the conversation progresses.

If you have a mixed bag of telepathic and spoken conversation, the said/thought tags are going to be harder to avoid, obviously.

Thus:

Alice fretted. "How am I supposed to get the point across without typographical tricks?" she thought at Bob.

"Just do what you're doing now." He tossed back the balance of his martini as he replied in kind. "A conversation is a conversation."

"Like this?"

"Pretty much." A waggle of his finger over their empty glasses summoned the bartender to them. "Two more martinis, please," he said aloud.

The bartender nodded and set to work. Alice chuckled.

"What's so funny?" Bob's lips went taut as his mental tone became defensive.

Someone's sensitive tonight. "Your accent gets stronger when you drink," she thought. "But not in my head. Only when you speak."

He folded his cocktail napkin into quarters. "Never noticed."

In the above conversation, by the time the reader gets to the last line, the expectation that the dialog is telepathic unless otherwise noted should be sufficiently set (especially if this isn't the first time in the story it happens) to allow it to be the "norm."

edited 26th Dec '15 9:44:46 AM by axordil

I disagree. Unless you read every. single. word. (which most readers don't), you can easily miss the distinction between telepathy and ordinary speech, such as when he's talking to the waiter.

In The Gandalara Cycle (a series of novels), the author distinguishes telepathic "speech" by writing it in italics, plus parentheses and asterisks:

(*Like this*) I thought at him.

He also makes the point that whenever you call someone "by name" telepathically, you're not really 'pathing the actual name at them. It's more an identifying thought. When someone doesn't know the name of a third party being described, they just send a vision of the person's appearance.

edited 26th Dec '15 6:04:34 PM by pwiegle