Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

I've been reading one story—I won't mention which, to avoid embarrassing the author—and I'm confused concerning his use of bolding in his story.

The standard conversation—in fiction, at east—is that bolded text indicates someone is shouting. Yet in one chapter, they use the following:

I grinned. "Sounds like a good plan. I'd be thrilled to have you as my nurse."

Hannah giggled. "Oh, I'm sure you'd enjoy those sponge baths..."

She nudged me, then shifted in her seat, thoughtful.

And I can't tell what they're trying to indicate. The characters aren't shouting, as it's the narrative voice, and they're mostly simple verbs or adverb phrases, so I end up scratching my head over what the bolding is supposed to suggest.

I've used italics, and at one time played around with using the 'strong emphasis' html tag, as it has it's own particular emphasis when using text-readers for the blind (I quickly gave it up, once I figured the vast majority of readers would never 'get it'). Yet, I'm still completely baffled and befuddled.

Anyone have any idea what they're emphasizing? As it is, the usage mainly stops me in my tracks, which is not helpful in a story, when you want the readers to be actively engaged with the story.

Not this case, however, I have read published stories that the First Three Words of a Chapter(?) or to signify a scene change.

I think that was more common in the 1950's or 1960's? But I have seen it in early online or "eBooks"...

At first I was trying to figure out what was "significant" about those particular words. It didn't take long to realize that they indicated a "new chapter" (but the book did not have explicit chapters); but it seemed to me that in a book with chapters, these would have been the first words of a chapter.

I do something similar, in that when I change scenes with in a chapter I:

Place
Time
writing...

It seems more effective to me, rather than have the characters "talk about" where and when they are: "So Frank, its Friday at Fort Bragg, let's go do our morning PT."

I do think that bold words can be more useful when reading a story on a phone. I'm not sure why, but an occasional bold word helps me "track" better. Probably because of the small screen size.

Looks like they are trying to emphasize certain words that they feel are important in a sentence. Personally, I see no reason to emphasize any of the words in your examples.

Are they a new writer? Is it a good story?

If so, I might tolerate their idiosyncrasy. Otherwise, if they use bold in their other stories like that, I would consider blocking their stories in my account settings.

Perhaps it's a coincidence but I was reading a story by another author and it had a lot of spurious bolding until a chapter or two from its current end. At that point spurious bolding stopped and the author apologised for any subsequent errors but the rest hadn't yet been edited by ChatGPT.

I notice the author of the story in your post is also a ChatGPT fan.

Could there be a connection? Does ChatGPT use formatting characters that SOL interprets as bolding, perhaps?

AJ