Like most struggling authors, I've wrestled with overusing formatting like bold and italics in stories (I now limit myself to italics only, mostly to denote how the text and dialogue is delivered), but I've noted that, almost without exception, most mainstream published authors don't use them at all!
So, the question for everyone, what do YOU use italics, bolding and even all caps or twenty straight exclamation marks for. Let's hear your justification, and then we can argue over which are the most accepted usages, and which seem needlessly extravagant.
As usual, since I led, I'll go first.
As I said, I started out all kinds of usages, and even today, I'll often leave centered, bolder place holders for unfinished chapter sections (which I always remove). But mainly, since both I and my characters have a particular style of speech, I use italics to highlight which words in a sentence are emphasized, highlighting the emphasis in spoken or the narrator's speech. I've learned that even this is largely frowned upon, but still think it aids in my readers understanding of the story—especially as my characters often use somewhat coded terminology, or aliens use different speaking styles than us wee human meat-sandwiches.
Any thoughts?
