Hi, I'm writing a story that revolves around texting. This may sound silly, but should I put the text dialogue in quotations? Even though it's not verbal talk?
no, not if you're using more than a line or two of dialog from the text... for conversations, the text messages are inserted as block indents, with no " "... and are typed as they are seen on the screen, but with no change of font...
The bottom line is that conversation is conversation, whether its a face-to-face chat, a telephone conversation, test messages, smoke signals, or telepathy. Format it all like conversations. Block quotes, as Maia described are on way to present conversations. One difference, however, is that you can quote both sides of a visual conversation such as a chatroom log in a single block quote. The reason this is acceptable is that you are really quoting the shared content that all participants see on the screen. See He said, she said - Mechanics of Dialogue
I'd go with what Maia said. Look at "I've Got Your Number" by Sophie Kinsella - the whole romance revolves around text messages.
You can indent the test messages and put them in italics or another good way is to put them all in indented CAPITAL LETTERS SO THEY STAND OUT AS OBVIOUSLY DIFFERENT FROM YOUR WRITING.
i would never recommend putting them in italics... nor in all-caps... both would be annoying as bleep to most readers, are not needed, and would scream 'AMATEUR' to agents/editors/publishers...
When i have text messages in my work, i present them like this: [..."text"...] If you are not writing about the actual messages though but rather you are quoting their content, then use what you use in any other conversation aka quotations.
i seriously doubt that will fly with any agents or publishers... and would probably be extremely annoying to most readers...
