How to portray a text message conversation?

[SimonDoom]

There's no one right way to do it. The keys are to be clear and to be consistent so the reader understands exactly what's going on.

My personal preference is NOT to do it the way AwkwardMD does it, because to me, personally, it's too much. As a reader I don't want to see all that formatting. I like things to flow in as continuous and consistent a manner as possible and I find the excessive formatting distracting and overly attention-catching. But this is PURELY a matter of subjective taste. If you think that looks cool, then go for it.

I've handled text messages just like dialogue:

"Yo," I texted.

"Yo yourself," she texted back.

It's worked fine. It's very clear.

But there are cases where in the context of a specific scene, say, for instance, a scene that includes both oral dialogue and texting, one may want to distinguish speech from texting.

I've used the arrow symbols "<" and ">" to denote texting, with one being outgoing (from the narrator/POV character) and the other being incoming. I've never experienced problems with this being interpreted as an HTML tag.

So, for example:

I turned to Joe, who had nearly finished his beer. "I'm going to ask her out by text," I said, running my thumb over the phone.

> Maria, would you like to see the movie this weekend?

I waited for a minute.

< Sure, that sounds great!


Also, I've done this:

Me: How are you?

Trixie: Naked. How about you?

My general taste is to go minimal on formatting. I tend to avoid italics, boldface, special indenting, everything. I keep it simple and try to let the words themselves and the punctuation do all the work. Less is more. That's me. Others may differ.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

What does "can't" mean, here? You can enter them into a story and there's no technical reason they couldn't be rendered in the published story page.

Do you mean they aren't allowed?

I was, I gather, just plain wrong. I thought Literotica limited the characters you could use in a story.

-Annie

 

[Cacatua_Galerita]

I included some multi-way office chat sessions in Statuesque. The first example splits across pages 1 & 2. The NATO cablegram I wrote is split across pages 2 & 3, so I'm glad I didn't try any block tags, or the page break would have corrupted them.

I settled for the "kbd" tag (to get a fixed font) and some non-blocking spaces to indent the names to the same offset, then changed back to standard font for the rest of each line to make the dialog part a bit narrower (due to the proportional font / kerning).

Lit has very limited formatting options and nowhere to preview the results before publishing, so don't try anything too adventurous.

This thread was useful to me:

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/how-to-format-computer-text-in-a-lit-story.1554102/

 

[WhiteTailDarkTip]

Wow. All for something as innocent as texting! I put such exchanges in italics. I write all my stuff in MS Word and I've never had any formatting issues when the story's been uploaded. Actually, tell a lie, I copied a couple of lines of song lyrics once and inadvertently made a hyperlink.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Lit has very limited formatting options and nowhere to preview the results before publishing, so don't try anything too adventurous.

Umm, wut??

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I personally use bold and italics.


My phone rang. It was Kim.

up for coffee?

I checked my schedule.

sure why not

I realized I could really do with a cup.


Actually, IMHO, I really doesn’t matter, so long as it’s distinctive, so long as it’s clear to the reader that it’s text.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I tend to put texts/messages/emails in single quotes (as opposed to double ones for speech), and make clear from the surrounding text that it's a message on a screen. And have certain characters use abbreviations and misspellings, while others don't.

Except when I was replicating 1991 mainframe software, when it seemed appropriate to format in capitals (green on black not being an option) -

KAREN: SAY ALL blah blah blah
TOM: SAY KAREN secret message just for her
TOM: SAY ALL random reply so the other readers don't suspect he's only messaging one person...

 

[Bramblethorn]

I hang been expecting a text from him, but the phone dinged when I was on the toilet.

He was just texting, it read, to tell me that he needed me, tonight.

He paused at the tonight with a comma, as if it was an ultimatum.

Here you end the "needed me tonight" with a full stop, but in the very next line you're telling us that no, it was a comma instead. That IMHO undermines the effect you're trying to evoke, and is an example of where directly representing the texts might've worked better.

 

[NikolasMann]

Here you end the "needed me tonight" with a full stop, but in the very next line you're telling us that no, it was a comma instead. That IMHO undermines the effect you're trying to evoke, and is an example of where directly representing the texts might've worked better.

I think you’re being a little pedantic now.. really..

 

[Bramblethorn]

I think you’re being a little pedantic now.. really..

Perhaps. All I know is that I fuss over trying to avoid creating that kind of situation where readers have to go back and reinterpret a previous sentence, and that one of the more common bits of feedback I get on my stories is "your writing flows well".

Are those two things related? I believe they are; YMMV.

 

[Bramblethorn]

A right-pointing (left-opening) angle bracket will work fine.

Confirmed. This worked fine for me:

 

[Cacatua_Galerita]

> Lit has very limited formatting options and nowhere to preview the results before publishing, so don't try anything too adventurous.

Umm, wut??

Limited formatting options:

LitE want to control all font and color decisions for consistency. Primarily so the reading pane can have text sizing and night-mode user controls. But there’s also no drop caps, center justification, indents, <blockquote>, etc. I couldn’t even control the line spacing on my simulated NATO Message Text Format portion. Bold and italics are supported but if you want to use the <kbd> tag then leave a note on your submission, so it doesn’t get stripped by Laurel.

Nowhere to preview the results:

There is a ‘preview’ for submissions but it only renders text, HTML, and RTF(?) submissions. It won’t show you Word (.doc). It won’t show you where the page breaks will land. And it wont show you what Laurel will manually do to your markup when she gets her hands on it. You may as well preview your text directly in your own browser.


Some people are pedantic about their formatting. When Donald Knuth’s book layout got mangled in the 2nd edition draft of “The Art of Computer Programming” (due to the change from Monotype to phototypesetting), he took a sabbatical to create the TeX typesetting program for Unix. I’m not that inspired, I just curtail my stylistic choices to fit within the limitations of the site... and pure writing is all about the words, not the markup.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Some people are pedantic about their formatting. When Donald Knuth’s book layout got mangled in the 2nd edition draft of “The Art of Computer Programming” (due to the change from Monotype to phototypesetting), he took a sabbatical to create the TeX typesetting program for Unix. I’m not that inspired, I just curtail my stylistic choices to fit within the limitations of the site... and pure writing is all about the words, not the markup.

I'm generally a "less is more" person when it comes to formatting. I use italics, very occasionally I use centering for my very occasional poetry, that's about it.

But sometimes formatting does affect how the text will be received. In the post you linked, I went to the trouble of using <kbd> because typed conversations are a very important element of the story and I wanted to evoke that feel, even down to the timestamps. Horses for courses.

 

[AwkwardMD]

A story can be cleverly formatted and cleverly written. You don’t have to pick just one.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

But there’s also no drop caps, center justification, indents, <blockquote>, etc. I couldn’t even control the line spacing on my simulated NATO Message Text Format portion. Bold and italics are supported but if you want to use the <kbd> tag then leave a note on your submission, so it doesn’t get stripped by Laurel.

<center>text</center> works.

kbd also works fine without a note. Unless perhaps you mean kbd won't work in a file upload as opposed to the submit box.

There is a ‘preview’ for submissions but it only renders text, HTML, and RTF(?) submissions. It won’t show you Word (.doc). It won’t show you where the page breaks will land. And it wont show you what Laurel will manually do to your markup when she gets her hands on it. You may as well preview your text directly in your own browser.

That's hardly "nowhere to preview the results". Just because there is no preview from a filedrop (so I've heard) doesn't mean that there is no way to preview something. You can always just open up a new submission, type up test markup in the box and preview it until it looks the way that you want and then copy/paste that into your document. Granted, I do find it rather silly that the site does not support previewing a filedrop, but really it's not much extra work at all. Preview won't show page breaks? It's the only thing that doesn't show and who cares anyways?

The preview actually works really well. It's your friend. : )

 

[Voboy]

Wow. All for something as innocent as texting! I put such exchanges in italics. I write all my stuff in MS Word and I've never had any formatting issues when the story's been uploaded. Actually, tell a lie, I copied a couple of lines of song lyrics once and inadvertently made a hyperlink.

I've occasionally done italics too. No harm, no foul; as long as it's consistent within the story.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Confirmed. This worked fine for me:

View attachment 2438144

That's the mistake I made, using a closing < as well. I turned the entire second page into italics, because I inadvertently generated some html coding, right on a page break.

That was the last time I got clever with formatting, five years ago. Now, it's the occasional italics, maybe internal chapter headings in bold, but absolutely minimal. Words matter, what they look like, not so much.

 

[Britva415]

I think you’re being a little pedantic now.. really..

It was unclear the way you wrote it. Not a matter of pedantry, just a matter of effectiveness.

 

[onehitwanda]

When Donald Knuth’s book layout got mangled in the 2nd edition draft of “The Art of Computer Programming” (due to the change from Monotype to phototypesetting), he took a sabbatical to create the TeX typesetting program for Unix.

God, there's not many things I wouldn't consider doing if it meant Lit would provide a LaTeX-aware publishing system...

 

[OffNSFW]

Here's how I handled it in "The Virgin Islands," my 2024 Geek Pride story:

"did u meet anyone last nite"

If I'd said yes, under any circumstances, Tye's next question would be, "did u fuck her"

I told him no, I hadn't met anyone. Which was the truth, as I saw it. I'd gone there intending to get laid. I'd come away from it having had a pleasant chat with another guy. The most pointless night of my life.

The next message said, "i fingerblasted this one chick for like an hour"

Then, "i might ask her our *out"

We went back and forth like that a bit longer. Then I wished him well with the fingerblast chick was and put my phone back in my pocket.

 

[VallesMarineris]

I'd love to hear opinions, ideas, and examples of how best to accomplish this?

I'd like to look at your question from a different perspective. We're storytellers, not court stenographers. The goal of any formatting is minimum lift for the reader that gets your point across.

Writing dialogue that includes texting is about more than just picking the right formatting. Texting is just another form of dialogue, so the same storytelling rules apply. People show their character in the way they text, but in a different way than when they speak, or when they write an email or a letter. Texting in a story should show that.

For example, here's some dialogue with texting that I feel good about. It's the very top of the opening scene of a story I published here a while back:

Wnt 2 blo U

The text from Avery arrives a little after 9PM. I'm working my way through a scotch and a graduate-level textbook on the Bronze Age that I'd dug up.

Great I reply. Any special fantasy? Avery sometimes likes me to assume certain personas, even once in a while dress up. That takes planning, so probably not tonight.

Idk. Just want to do it 2 U U know how I get. She sends me a hungry bunny emoji. I didn't even know there was such a thing. Followed by: Lyft 43. She lives halfway across town.

One condition, I text back as I head for the shower. She likes me clean and it's been a long day.

Agreed, comes from her before I've finished typing the condition. I send: Toy.

A heart in response, followed by Me too.

I like how you get an immediate impression of my two characters, and how they're different, from the characteristics of their texting. You can see the gaps between them in both age and energy level. I'm hoping that tension (and the promise of a sex scene) will intrigue the reader enough to keep reading. There's no need for elaborate formatting. Describing the emojis seems to work just fine.

I'm reminded of a good exercise for checking your spoken dialogue: remove all the quotation marks and see if you can still tell when people are talking and what they're saying. You should be able to. The dialogue you can't figure out without quotes is the stuff you should think about fixing.

I think that exercise would also work for texting: if you remove the formatting that shows a text in a dialogue, can you still tell it's a text?

 

[SimonDoom]

I think you’re being a little pedantic now.. really..

It seems like it, but I think Bramblethorn has a good point. If the way you do it adversely affects clarity, even a little, if it forces the reader to stop and puzzle over the formatting even for a second, then it's not pedantry, it's a call for greater clarity. I would agree with the point made. It's also redundant. You state the text line in one way, and then you restate it, unnecessarily, in a different way. It would be clearer and more economical just to write out exactly what was texted. It would also satisfy the general idea of "showing" rather than "telling." You "show" the reader the text rather than requiring the reader to interpret your longer description of it.

These things seem extremely picky, I admit, but they make a difference to my reading experience, and to some others'.

 

[SimonDoom]

The goal of any formatting is minimum lift for the reader that gets your point across.

I like this as a general operating principle for resolving the issue raised by the OP's question.

 

[PennyThompson]

This is all extremely helpful, thanks y'all!

I'm surprised at some of the strong opinions about this, but they've all been valuable perspectives to synthesize

I guess my preference is influenced by some of my favorite authors, Becky Chambers and Neal Stephenson and Umberto Eco, who all at different points like to play with text as a visual aesthetic tool rather than just as an information vector.

I'm also a great lover of physical text experiences, like escape rooms or mail games or epistolary novels, which are all about delivering or simulating real tactile information objects in ways that enhance a narrative.

I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's not like I'm doing this for the money

 

[WhO2]

I read many, but not all, posts in this thread, so hopefully this isn't redundant. This is also my first post in AH and I only discovered it last night so I don't yet have the 'feel' for how to do responses here. Hopefully I'm not stepping on any toes here.

For texts or thoughts of one of the characters I use single quotes and double quotes for conversations. I like using emojis but so far just describe them. Here is an example from an upcoming story:
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‘Got time for something naughty?’ she typed before hitting send.

It was earlier in Denver, and she wasn’t sure how long it would be before Nancy would respond. Luckily, her phone beeped right away.

‘Talking to my sister now but I’d LOVE something in 15 minutes’.

‘Tell your sister that the woman who watched you masturbate and cum says HI’, Michelle texted.

‘Hmmmm… guess that’s kind of naughty,’ she thought as she looked for the pictures she was going to send in 15 minutes.

‘Uh, probably not my sister, but I like the way you’re thinking,’ Nancy replied.

‘Off to bed I go’ followed with the smiling devil emoji.
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