How to format common words that are made "special"?
In my novel, there's something that the characters refer to as "darkness". It symbolizes the bad thoughts of depressed/suicidal people.
A short silence. I imagined Joel nodding his head in the dark. "After an outing, you feel as if something has crept inside you. Something dark and murky, like crude oil. It travels gradually, silently, polluting every cell in your body. You can feel it. Eating you alive. And the worst part is, you're the only one who's aware of it. Yes, you can explain it to people, but just skin-deep. They can't help you. So you have no choice but to fight alone. Fight this darkness alone."
Perhaps this darkness, despite coming from the same source, varied depending on the person. Like when you press a drop of ink between two sheets of paper. Sometimes you get a butterfly. Sometimes a face. And other times a shape so amorphous it doesn't resemble anything at all.
Was this the darkness Joel had talked about?
How should I format this word? Italics? Capital? Should it be formatted differently when it is first mentioned?
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Italicize it. Boldface makes it look like a title or graphic point. As suggested before, rename it with an adjective/noun combo. These suggestions entirely depend on how great a role this element will play in your story. If the entire story is all about "the darkness", don't draw emphasis to the words, try to reframe them i.e. "The darkness is looking over my shoulder" "going into the darkness". Use language rather than text design elements to make your statement.
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Typically, italics indicate when a word is being used in a non-standard manner. This seems to me the best choice for the examples given. I could see capitalizing if it was being anthropomorphized or used as a title ("The Darkness"), but that doesn't seem to be the case here.
So you have no choice but to fight alone. Fight this darkness alone.
Perhaps this darkness, despite coming from the same source, varied for person to person.
Was this the darkness Joel had talked about?
(It's also worth noting that capitalizing nouns that are not proper nouns can feel old fashioned --this was once quite common in English, but does not match the modern style. If you are deliberately seeking a old-fashioned feel, it might be the right choice.)
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I feel very strongly you should not use any style to set the darkness off. Let your writing create the feeling for the reader that the darkness is more than just a figurative incidental lack of light. Allow the reader to give the darkness an identity, or even a persona, on their own. It will become a much more powerful entity that way. I second Dale’s aversion to “emphasis-by-formatting” and Crumbs’ idea of having a transitional event whereafter the darkness become the Darkness (if your narrative goes way). Hope your writing is coming along well!
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Capitalizing it is good, but coming up with another name for it is better. Churchill famously called it the Black Dog. Yours could be the Black Oil, or Dark Oil, or Devil's Touch, et cetera.
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