When including email exchanges, what style do you recommend to use to differentiate it from the text? What I've done so far, since I don't like to abuse italics, is to keep the font but have smaller spacing between the lines (1, instead of 1.5 for the rest of the text). I'd like to hear other people's ideas. Thank you!
I'd just use italics and have it set out as an email, e.g From:, To: Cc: Title (or whatever it's called haven't used an email in a long time): Maybe the time it was sent too.
Don't use italics, and don't play games with fonts. Italics have specific uses, even if those rules are often ignored. And a manuscript is submitted in a single font. If the publisher chooses to use fonts to distinguish different types of text, that is their prerogative, and theirs alone. The correct way to render an email, or a handwritten or typed letter, or other quoted missives, is a block quote. A bock quote is merely a range of text indented from the normal margin, with no quotation marks enclosing it, and no first line indent on each paragraph.
Does it matter? If you get published the publishers will want to do it their own way. Just indent it. And your manuscript should be double-spaced for submission; you will annoy editors if you use single or 1.5 spacing. If you are self-publishing then I would still say don't play with line spacing. What happens if it's a single line? Either just indent it or if you must play around use a monospaced font such as Courier.
it matters if you want agents and publishers to consider you a pro and not an amateur... pros do it in their mss the way cog said... if their publishers want to arrange it differently when the book is styled, that's up to them...
I was wondering... What if it's very short? For example, let's say there is an exchange of two emails. Character A sends a long email, so the block quote is great, but character B emails "I'll see you there." Wouldn't it be better to have that response in normal narrative format and in quotation marks? Thanks.
If it is very short, treat it like dialogue: Lane typed, "I'll meet you there at 4:00," and clicked the Send button.
Well, my suggestion of courier was if self-publishing, in which case you set the rules for email submissions to yourself!
och well in which case you can use Italics lol which in my opinion work much better for emails and letters - it may not be correct but I personally prefer to see it. Have done since university introduced the idea for block quotes. My Penguin punctuation book seems to grudgingly admit it can be used as such (it is very grudging).
Cogito, your suggestion was great. Now, I have an extra question: Do you leave any blank lines between the rest of the narrative and the block quote. I haven't, but just wondering... Thanks again.
