Texting/DMs in stories - how do you format them?

[liminal-collapse]

Slight spoilers for my novel, but I'm trying to figure out how to best format conversations that take place by DM or text. They might be lengthy, so a lot of back and forth. Primarily between 2 characters, but there will be a group chat as well, so it'll get slightly harder to follow.

Do people use images?

[ThunderChicken]

I use italics to show the IRC conversations in my story (IRC was an internet chat program). In my actual books the dm's are coloured, because back in the 90's, where this part of the story took place, the IRC program gave each participant in a conversation a different colour (and server messages were purple). Tapas does not allow coloured text, though, so I had to make do with italics.

[liminal-collapse]

I like it, nice and simple!

I knew IRC well. I also hitchhiked to Halifax Pride in 1998.

[cherrystark]

To make it simple, I do it one of two ways.

The first is to summarize the text in prose form. This would be like "He sent her a text message asking her to come over."

The other way is script format. For example:

Jane: Where are you guys?

Tom: Can't find my keys.

Fred: What time were we meeting?

Jane: 7

Jane: Hurry up, guys.

The way I label the characters' names depends on the story. For example, in my comedy series, the texts are labeled with puns based on their name. Other stories, I just use their first names or their first initial and surname.

[Leyelle]

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