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Q&A Do you italicize fictional company names?

Generally in fiction writing, you don't italicize company names (even though you would italicize the name of a newspaper). But what do you do if the company name is fictional, especially a name th...

1 answer  ·  posted 8y ago by big_smile‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question style
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T05:08:43Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/21429
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar big_smile‭ · 2019-12-08T05:08:43Z (almost 5 years ago)
Generally in fiction writing, you don't italicize company names (even though you would italicize the name of a newspaper).

But what do you do if the company name is fictional, especially a name that is not a real word (Like Schwaye). Italicizing it would make it clearer to the reader that it is a name (and not a typo). It would also make the name easier to read.

What happens if the text has a mix of fictional and real world company names (e.g. the BBC and Schwaye). It seems a bit odd to have a mix of italics and roman.

Example:

> Alice would always go to Adam's restaurant.
> 
> [Couple of chapters later]
> 
> After leaving Adam's, Angela checked her email. She had got a message from Schway, the famous social network, which was even bigger than Facebook or Twitter.

versus:

> Alice would always go to Adam's restaurant.
> 
> [Couple of chapters later]
> 
> After leaving _Adam's_, Angela checked her email. She had got a message from _Schway_, the famous social network, which was even bigger than Facebook or Twitter.

I'm not sure but I feel it might read easier with italics (especially Adam's)

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2016-03-22T10:59:41Z (over 8 years ago)
Original score: 1