4 / 20
May 2019

Hello everyone!

I'm having trouble when it comes to characters texting inside a book. I've done it before, and it's worked great, but I was curious to see if there were better ways ( styles readers have received well that is ). Would anyone mind sharing excerpts from their books (or other books) and tips? If you have an opinion as a reader, who has read text scenes between characters that'd be great as well!

Currently, the P.O.V in my book is third person limited. Feel free to promote the name of the book you use as an example, but no advertising unless providing examples.

Thank you in advance!

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    May '19
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    May '19
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My fall back is something like this. Often I incorporate brackets to signal this is on a display or device. I saw it used in a Sci-fi novel and it really added to the reading in my own experience so I try to incorporate it into my own writing:

[TOMMY: Are u 4 real?]
[BRIAN: Don't make me send you this picture of my thigh cut open.]
[TOMMY: Who drove you to the ER!!!!!]
[BRIAN: me...]
I paced the floor, how on earth Brian did it was beyond me. Staring at the phone, I finally tapped my thoughts to him.
[TOMMY: Dude, ur pain tolerance is off da chartz O_o]

Oooh, I like this! I also like how you wrote, "I finally tapped my thoughts to him" instead of, "I texted back".

That's pretty neat!

Or even italics:

Blah blah blah blah.

Character 1: wut r u up 2 dawggg
Character 2: Please type normally.

Blah blah blah.

This works too. I know I use a lot of internal dialogue in my storytelling, so in fear of confusion I defaulted to brackets.

The key at the end of the day, is BE CONSISTENT on how you use and format these things.

That’s a good point. I used italics for inner thoughts a lot.

This is my current style! How do you differentiate it when it comes to inner thoughts. Just through narration?

This works well. You broke it out which helps a lot as well. And the way you setup the moment and inter-played the narrative some was a good way to prep the reader.

Thanks! That’s how I sort of differentiate between an inner thought. My texts are seperated by gaps. I sort of slip my inner thoughts in to a sentence... not sure if it’s linguistically correct for a novel, but oh well!

The first part of the second paragraph is usually how I deliver an inner thought.

Now that I’m looking at this I want to separate that bottom quote from that paragraph lol. This has been productive.

I was shuffling similar stuff today in revisions LOL! But great stuff ^_^

Me too! Today I was reading my story from the start like, oh dear... we’ve some work to do. :joy:

... A Text Message...

[OlympicQueen:] {Aphrodite! My husband is cheating on me again! :cry: }

[TheHuntress:] {I am Artemis. :expressionless:}

[OlympicQueen:] {He's probably fooling around with a Goddess from Egypt or Norway :female_couplekiss::. Hermes blocked me :mute:. Go after that man right now! :airplane: :point_right:}

[TheHuntress:] {I am busy watering the forest and teaching my handmaidens how to sew. I am busy :hammer:.}

[OlympicQueen:] {If you find that :rooster:, take pictures. Still don't know how to use the d*mn camera on this thing. Then :crossed_swords: off his :cactus:.}

[TheHuntress:] {I refuse. Too violent. :-1:}

[OlympicQueen:] {Please Aphrodite! You're the only one I can trust! :sob:]

[TheHuntress:] {I am Artemis. :japanese_ogre::]

[OlympicQueen:] {:KJB:U:H:HKHHLGIUGIU&(TR&^YG)(UO^R&%RUFYHLIGIU~!!!!! :rage: :mask: :violin: :8ball: :ballot_box: :video_game: :skull_crossbones: :jack_o_lantern: :elephant: :cactus: :calendar: }

[TheHuntress:] {Hera. Please stop pressing random buttons while throwing a tantrum again. You're embarrassing us Goddesses :see_no_evil:.}

(The End?)

I'm also using [ ]-brackets. I leave the name outside though. Only if it's part of the text, I put it inside the brackets. For example, in this part:

[Lao Lao: Heh, Gong Gong, did you hear that?
Gong Gong: ???
Lao Lao: I think I heard something shatter right now.
Gong Gong: Might be the hearts of some girls. You know … BB brought a beauty to work.]
Attached to the post was a sneakily shot photo of Nie Chang and Su Yan hugging.
Nie Chang looked at it and gulped. Heavens! They really looked close on this photo. If he didn’t know it any better, he would really think that they were a couple that was very much in love. In fact, with how his head was lying on Su Yan’s shoulder and how he had turned his face toward his friend, they looked like they were kissing.
Indeed. A look at the comments showed him that this assessment wasn’t just his own wishful thinking:
Xiao Ming Ming: [</3 Must be my heart you heard! How can you do this to us, BB?!]
Little Water Fairy: [Big Boss, you’re bad! I thought you wanted to marry me! .( ̵˃﹏˂̵ )]
Miao Meow: [Look at what she’s wearing!!!(*〇□〇)……! Are those BB’s clothes?! :heart:✧。 (⋈◍>◡<◍)。✧:heart:]

The first part is a social media post where the user included the names. The other messages below are the responses other users sent so it's "Username: [Message]"
For private text messages I mostly don't include the username and just include it into the rest of the narrative:

Su Yan stared at the so-called special mission with an unbelieving expression. Was this really a task equivalent to pairing up compatible people? This seemed too easy! To prove he was right, he closed the Lovely Writing System and wrote a message on WeChat.
[Ah Chang, say, what’s a reason to break up?]
Nie Chang who was lining up to pay took out his phone. As soon as he saw the message on his screen his brow beaded with cold sweat and he wrote back:
[Please tell me that going out to shop for groceries isn’t]
Su Yan scratched his head. It seemed … the task wasn’t as easy as he thought.

In that case, you could try adding a backslash in front of the arrow. That is in a lot of programs the notice for "interpret the following symbol(s) as text rather than a command".
Like "\"< text"\"> (without the " of course)

I always go back and forth on this! I think I change the style with every book! For my book, "This Book Sucks!", I did this (bold text, clear space between the texts and the action, so it doesn't look like a mess):

Val: No and I don't know.

I sunk into the leather seats, letting that information materialize and become real. Another text came through.

Val: So... are you always this emo? Or can I ask about your favorite color or something? Damn! That was two questions! You're a master manipulator.

Sunday: I just cant believe you use proper punctuation and no emojiis

Val: What part of this conversation has warranted emojjis?? Hey! Sorry, I can't answer all your supernatural questions! But hey! Here's an eggplant emoji! :eggplant:

@auburnmorrow Changing it for every book sounds fun actually. Has it ever affected your writing style or flow (In a way where things play out differently)?