I have some text messaging in my novel, I was not sure handle them. Do I use italics with dialogue would that be ok? How do you use smilies in a novel? I may just stay away from the all together. Thoughts and input would be greatly appreciated...
I use straight dialog like.. Jenny texted, "Pls come pick me up." If my character was reading a text... Jimmy quick to read the texted, "Pls come pick me up."
I just do it like regular dialogue, except specifying texting instead of talking, like @Thundair said, though I don't usually italicize the part the character is reading either. The exception is sometimes in longer messages where I'll have it in its own paragraph and italicized. As for emoticons, that's a good question. So far I just haven't used any, though I haven't had a reason to use any either.
I don't use quotation marks -- those're only for speech, for me -- but I will italicize texts, otherwise treating them like speech punctuation-wise. That can get tedious to read if it goes on for a long while, though. I also tried some shenanigans where I used brackets, like: [this is the body of a text message izzy couldn't be bothered to think of sample dialogue] I wanted to be able to replicate multitexting because I think it's a notable feature of text communication, but I'm not sure if it was a great solution. Setting it off in brackets also made me feel better about observing the common grammatical tics of texting (no periods, lax caps), whereas if I treated it more like straight dialogue that'd seem weird. I think it's a matter of how texting is used in your story. When I tried brackets it was for a contemporary story about a Millennial friend group to whom the intricacies of text communication would be apparent and important, and I wanted to be able to convey metatextual meaning through 'speech' patterns and habits. In another story, where I just used italicization, texting was fully pragmatic between co-workers, often kept brief, only occasionally used. I wouldn't try to include emojis in text, outside of maybe your basic colon-and-end-parenthesis. I'd just have something like "He sent a row of assorted heart emojis" in the narrative.
You can always change the font and set the texts separately. If the novel is for teens/YA that’s what I’d do, as it is fairly common. For adults I’d go with the advice about keeping it as part of dialogue.
How heavily is text messaging used? If characters have long conversations over text messages often, you could use special formatting, something like, ALEX 4:59 "Hey u gong to the dock's tonght????" KEV 5:03 "ye lmoa need more drugss" ALEX 5:04 "drugs are cool lo l"
I just made my own thread on this; wish I'd seen this one first haha. I personally don't care for using quotation marks for texts, since quotes are traditionally known to show spoken dialogue, and I wanted something to set texts further apart. So I settled on French quotation marks, instead -- guillemets. You can use them in much the same fashion as normal quotes, but they have a different and easily recognizable appearance. Such as this: I rolled my eyes and grabbed my phone, hoping to tune out his incessant droning. « Save me, please » I sent to my bestie. « He just started talking about his stamp collection. Literally » After a moment's waiting, my phone buzzed with a reply back. « you're exaggerating right? » « I swear I'm not. I didn't think guys this boring still existed » « *headdesk* omg. i'll come get you. tell him it's urgent; my aunt's husband's sister's pet rat just died and she needs everybody to go comfort her immediately. » I couldn't help but snort, catching the attention of my date. "Something funny?" he asked, the annoyance clear in his voice. "Oh, no," I murmured, smiling innocently. "But I'm afraid I have to leave. Something urgent just came up. Family matter; I hope you understand." I grabbed my bag and began to stand. « I'll meet you at the shop next door » I typed, walking swiftly out of the building after dropping some cash on the table. « girls night out? » came the quick reply. « You know it » I like it because it flows well and makes formatting the texts very easy, since obviously everybody has their own unique texting styles. I know it's quite different from the norm, but I think it serves its purpose well.
Hehe, good question, for me it would also be useful. I'm used to use the following: - What a great idea, - he said. = speech "What a great idea," he thought. = thoughts "What a great idea," he wrote. = written messages. But the first way of writing dialogues isn't normal to English, isn't it? Thus, I was planning on using italics in quotes for thoughts and having written messages in a separate line, with quotes and shifted to the right, just like this: "What a great idea."But, really, what if I need a piece of written message inside a paragraph? It would look similar to thoughts, wouldn't it?
You don't use dialogue tags, nor quotes, or use italics. Use a different font, one that's simple and used typically in emails... Courier, Arial, etc. If it's a text messaging exchange, particularly one that happens in real time; one character's text should be written in the normal way (caps & lower case), the other character, especially if that character is authoritative or in a position of power, or otherwise mysterious, should be written in all caps. Describing the formatting of such an exchange is a bit harder. The conversation via text messaging are written in offsetting columns, side-by-side as it were... if that makes any sense? That's how it's done in The Subtle Knife, by Philip Pullman.
