Reading a 'letter' in a story

[lovecraft68]

So in my newest chapter I am going to have one of the characters read a letter to someone that she wrote and never sent. Right now I simply have it typed out in the middle of the story and am working on the rest. In the meantime what is the right format to do this?

Do I do it as dialogue? including what the character is doing at this point? I.E. she looked up at that point her eyes filled with tears

Or do I do the letter in italics? Or regular lit "block" paragraphs?

Answer?

 

[PennLady]

So in my newest chapter I am going to have one of the characters read a letter to someone that she wrote and never sent. Right now I simply have it typed out in the middle of the story and am working on the rest. In the meantime what is the right format to do this?

Do I do it as dialogue? including what the character is doing at this point? I.E. she looked up at that point her eyes filled with tears

Or do I do the letter in italics? Or regular lit "block" paragraphs?

Answer?

I'd say if the person is reading it out loud to someone else, just set if off like regular dialogue. If they are reading it to themselves, and it's not very long, you could italicize it. If the person is reading it out loud, you could interrupt every so often with the reader's reactions. Might be a good way to break it up anyway.

I used letters in a story (click here to see) and italicized them, although the writer was mentally composing them to someone.