Emphasizing part of a word

Couldn't find much on this particular stylistic method, but I was wondering: how would one emphasize only part of a word in an informal novel-like case?

"It wasn't new in any way—just newer."

"It wasn't new in any way—just new-er."

I understand that this is likely to be a stylistic choice, but is simply italicizing the "-er" in "newer" and hoping the reader is able to differentiate it as the emphasis good enough? Or is using a hyphen more or less necessary in this case?

Solution 1:

Your solution would be new-er because when you just say "newer" it does not emphasize the independent clause from the dependent clause. However, removing that first bit of text from the front would allow for both of the phrases to work.

Basically new-er allows for more emphasizing. I hope that solves your problem :)