Presentation of the speech or thoughts of a character indirectly, as transformed by the language of another: "Hamlet questioned whether he should be or not be." Critics sometimes distinguish between tagged indirect discourse, as in the previous quotation, in which the speaker is named, and free indirect discourse, in which that clue is missing (in such instances the shift from narrative voice into the voice of a character is usually accompanied by a shift in patterns of expression).

[By contrast, direct discourse is the presentation of a character''s speech or thoughts as formulated by the character: "To be or not to be, that is the question." Critics sometimes distinguish between tagged direct discourse, where the speaker is named (Hamlet said, "To be...") and free direct discourse, where the author omits both speaker and quotation marks, leaving the reader to recognize new speakers by their characteristic modes of expression.]