I keep trying to look it up, but I guess there's no real standard quite yet, or I'm looking up the wrong keywords.
In any case, I took up a dare in one of the dare threads: to do an entire chapter where characters are exchanging notes, except the characters are going to be exchanging texts.
I wanted to know if anybody knew if there was a standard for formatting that kind of thing, and if there's a reference website I can visit?
Any help would be wonderfully appreciated.
Thank you for your time. :]
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37,083 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 16 44
I don't think there is a standard way to format text messages either. I think that you should just write them in whatever way you feel is the most organic way of expressing texts. Maybe change your font, bold them or just use normal quotation marks. I'm using text messages in my novel and I just change the font (although I did experiment with bolding the words). I introduce them with a colon, for example
Character X texted quickly: BLAH BLAH BLAH
You might also want to look into making them block quotes, to mimic the lack of space on a cell phone screen. I hope this helps.
4,443 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 16 52
a little bit, yeah. i'm thinking of getting a picture of a traditional text message and using it as a reference. maybe indenting the text, and using some boldface, timestamps, etc. I use an iPhone IRL, so that's not a great reference for the look I'm going for, haha. :] I have so much room in an iPhone textspace, I never use chatspeak or anything.
42,756 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 00 18
Well, usually the format is something like;
Send to:
Text:
And you simply write out the text. But texts can usually only be a max of a limited amount characters, so keep that in mind. Personally, my phone is 160 characters.
----------NaNo 2006: "Untitled" : 16,324
NaNo 2009: "2013" :
50,438 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 06 32
I would suggest using a fixed-width font like courier new and second the previous suggestion of putting it in a blockquote. I think it would give it a tech feel that would separate it from the more organic narrative. That is if you don't end up using the graphic.
Cheers.
----------David Mayeux
ad majorem Dei gloriam
38,305 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 20 25
i've been wondering about this too!
my characters are not big phone *talkers,* so most of their conversations happen via text. you can only start so many indented paragraphs with "S/he texted quickly:" before it gets obnoxious.
i was considering using different fonts, OR only using a different font for the incoming text.
i just don't know!
*pulling hair out!*
----------peace, love & awesomesauce!
~~melly~~
2009 NaNo Virgin!
33,775 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 21 09
I've only had two or three in mine so far, and I don't think I'll be using them often, but I just formatted them like dialogue. For example, "He/she received a text from Someone. "Hey, movies 2night?" It read." Basically like that, lol.
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