Text Messaging

[Beneaththesurface]

Lol - you're right. I'd completely not registered that.

Which ironically, sort of proves my point - something comes along which renders an author's clever formatting meaningless, and this reader didn't even notice a default over-ride that threw formatting out the door.

My overthinking mind went back to overthink your comment. And yes I was trying to be clever with the formatting and now see I was only cluttering things up. I think this looks cleaner... how about you? thanks.


I grab my phone and take a selphie and text it to Devin.

‘Mr. London bought me something.’
[photo]

‘Fucking hot — he has great taste like I do LOL’

‘Wish you were here to help me remove this.’

‘If I was there I would rip that outfit right off you. You make me so fucking horny babe.’

‘I wish you could taste, feel and see how wet I am, Devin.’

That gives me an idea. I set up my phone camera and start recording. I slowly tease the camera removing my stockings one at a time.

 

[AlexBailey]

Was the semicolon a typo for a colon? Semicolons don't have this usage.

Thanks, Keith.

I just reviewed colon and semicolon use again. I’m ready for my next round of edits.

There is so much to learn! I was going by a recommendation that colons are not used in fiction writing. I must have taken it out of context.

 

[tomlitilia]

That works, except for those readers with devices that don't render italics - allegedly those devices exist (although I haven't seen a list).

I used italics in one story to render texts, but the html code went wrong when it went over a Lit page (which of course you can't predict), and completely stuffed up the next page - it in fact toggled the italics the wrong way - sending the whole second page into italics. After submitting an edit to fix that one, I've kept it super simple ever since.

KISS principle always works best, I find. As soon as you get too clever, something breaks. Like your quoted post - I didn't change a thing in it, but my preview renders the whole thing in italics. I wonder what will happen when I submit...

There you go - something broke in the html code, right there.

Hmmm... I thought the name tag followed by the colon would make it clear even if the italics fail, no?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Hmmm... I thought the name tag followed by the colon would make it clear even if the italics fail, no?

It would still be clunky for me - I'm reading prose, not drama, and the repeated names would make it feel awkward, reading it.

From what I can see here, folk are trying to replicate the visual look of a text message on a phone, and all the devices they are coming up with to do that just seem unnecessary and get in the way of what matters, which is the words. These techniques have the same effect on me as the folk who keep putting elaborate action tags in as their speech tags - they become belaboured and the prose gets lost. It's putting form before function.

 

[ElectricBlue]

My overthinking mind went back to overthink your comment. And yes I was trying to be clever with the formatting and now see I was only cluttering things up. I think this looks cleaner... how about you? thanks.

There's a convention that single quotes designate internal, unspoken thoughts, and that's how I'd automatically read it, then have to pause to resolve the confusion.

And in English English, single quotes designate dialogue, so that's problematic, too.

 

[KeithD]

The suggested uses of italics and single quotes on Literotica in these instances seems fine as long as they are clear to the readers and consistent, but don't plan on using them in any of these ways in mainstream U.S. system production. They won't fly there.

The only "convention" for the use of single quote marks in the U.S. system is for quotes within a quote.

 

[Beneaththesurface]

I see a lot of good points here and don’t see any one as 100%totally true or false. I did a little research looking for a correct answer at other sources. I can’t find a correct answer on the official correct way. But I did find a response from a poster soencer1990 who says what I’m thinking much better than I can.

It's important to experiment in fiction, with both content and form. I don't care if it hasn't been done before. The engine of art would seize if we looked only to prior established conventions to dictate what we should and shouldn't do. Yes, clarity is important, but so is experimentation. And, maybe it can be a bad idea (with traditional, highbrow publishing in mind) to submit a story with this kind of punctuation, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Maybe it would be a good idea to experiment once someone is more established, but the kind of conformist belief your espousing here is somewhat dangerous to the progression of art as a whole. I won't wax poetic at length about what art would look like if Picasso hadn't blown up perspective with cubism because people "wouldn't know what to think."

All I'm saying is let's not diminish someone who is looking at punctuation in a new way. Language constantly evolves, and with it, so does punctuation. Text messages in fiction are a (relatively speaking) very new phenomenon.

 

[KeithD]

but the kind of conformist belief your espousing here is somewhat dangerous to the progression of art as a whole

Who are you addressing this to? I have directly said to do whatever is clear and accepted by the submissions editor at Literotica, as you wish. How is that a "conformist belief"? And why is it a disservice to point out that it isn't what flies in the U.S. mainstream if you're interested in putting it there? And, also, in U.S. style terms I provided the citation to the U.S. authority on such issues (the U.S. authority accepts block quotes too, but I didn't note that because they are hard to bring off at Literotica). The British system uses single quotes in more instances than the U.S. one does, and I allowed for that in my responses too.

What's with this "conformist belief" stuff? That said, a certain amount of conformity is what readers need, and the need of reader clarity supersedes "it's all about me" "needs" of the writer or you can just write it and stick it in your desk drawer.

 

[SimonDoom]

I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all rule that everyone should feel obligated to follow on this issue. As long as whatever you do is clear to the reader, and you are consistent in doing whatever you do, it probably will work.

But my philosophy is the same as EB's. I believe that as a writer you should, as much as possible, use the content of your words rather than fonts and formatting to convey meaning. I don't use boldface or italics, ever, in part because I'm lazy and in part because I don't like reading italics or boldface.

My initial preference is to handle text the way I handle spoken dialogue.

Example:

"Hey," I texted.

"Hey back," she replied.

"What's up?"

"Not much."

I don't see how special formatting improves on this. This is perfectly clear. It minimizes excess words and symbols and fonts. Why do something different?

Let your words do the heavy lifting, not your formatting or font choice.

I'll note that there still does not appear to be an agreed-upon standard convention in published fiction for this. The Chicago Manual of Style has no definitive guidance on the issue. If there were an agreed-upon convention I might adopt it to minimize reader confusion, but so far there isn't, as far as I know.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I played around and eventually decided to use single quotes, keeping double quote marks for dialogue, but also ensuring I used enough tags and txtspk to make it obvious it was a text conversation - one character texts in perfect punctuated English, one tries but goes a bit phonetic and omits punctuation, and the third is 10 years younger and full-on 'CU 2moro'.

 

[Beneaththesurface]

Who are you addressing this to?

I was addressing the discussion. Sorry I should have edited that part out (as noted I quoted another poster from a similar discussion) I was pointing out that there are a numerous amount of responses with different ways and I feel that none of them are wrong. No one can seem to find an “official” way that states how things should be done so it all comes down to preferences. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[KeithD]

I was addressing the discussion. Sorry I should have edited that part out (as noted I quoted another poster from a similar discussion) I was pointing out that there are a numerous amount of responses with different ways and I feel that none of them are wrong. No one can seem to find an “official” way that states how things should be done so it all comes down to preferences. Sorry for the confusion.

Fine to an extent. I did, in fact, though, note--and cite and then note again--an "official" way to render it in U.S. Style. Double quotes, just like for dialogue (or block quotes for large chunks of it, if your platform allows for that). Chicago Manual of Style, 16, 13.9. It's just "quoted text."

 

[NotWise]

Fine to an extent. I did, in fact, though, note--and cite and then note again--an "official" way to render it in U.S. Style. Double quotes, just like for dialogue (or block quotes for large chunks of it, if your platform allows for that). Chicago Manual of Style, 16, 13.9. It's just "quoted text."

This is where I am. Text messages are just dialog. I don't know why you would use typography to distinguish them.

A lot of real text messages are short snippets of coded ideas. I might include the actual text, but usually I'll let the characters summarize what is said and not quote the actual text.

 

[tomlitilia]

For those who lean towards using standard quoting because texting is just another type of conversation, do you feel the same about emails and/or handwritten letters?

 

[KeithD]

For those who lean towards using standard quoting because texting is just another type of conversation, do you feel the same about emails and/or handwritten letters?

Yes, they are quoted text. You have slugs to use to clarify.

She stabbed at the cellphone. "I hate you, I hate you," she texted.

She took up pen and paper. "I hate you, I hate you," she wrote.

 

[ElectricBlue]

For those who lean towards using standard quoting because texting is just another type of conversation, do you feel the same about emails and/or handwritten letters?

- I'll designate an email the same way I do a text, like this - with context in the narrative. John hit the send key, and there it was, a message sent into the ether.

Maerlyn picked up the quill and began to write. The scratch of the tip on parchment was a caesura to his scattered thoughts.

Words and context is all I use, with a simple designator for current media.

 

[yukonnights]

EDIT: I've done a bit of testing on the use of blockquotes on to story submission page. While it does provide a distinct format, I think it's too drastic. The double space is a bit too much and Lit aligns it full left which isn't technically a blockquote. So, while sounding good in theory, for Lit's style format I wouldn't want to use it. END EDIT

I've been reading online on various writer's discussion sites and came across a pretty persuasive argument for the use of block-quote formatting for the growing use of text messages in fiction. Lit allows block-quotes on the story side formatting;

LAUREL:
1.We allow bolds, italics, underlines, blockquotes, and centered text.

2. So to properly format text in a story we should add the following tags:
<b>Bold text</b>
<i>Italic text</i>
<u>Underlined text</u>
<blockquote>Blockquoted text</blockquote>
*****

So, that might look like the following in a typical story.

Henry and Rick had been planning to attend a big conference on how to format text messages into fiction stories. Now, Henry sat in his room somewhat subdued when his phone chimed.

Rick: When do we meet?

Henry: I'm out. Mom grounded me - found phone & pics you sent!

Rick, pretty shook up hearing that Henry's Mom found those pics sat down on his bed … probably wasn't a good idea to send Henry nude pics of my mother.
*****
So, a block quotation is: A direct quotation that is not placed inside quotation marks but instead is set off from the rest of the text by starting it on a new line and indenting it from the left margin. Block quotations may be called extracts, set-off quotations, long quotations, or display quotations.

I'm not sure how the block quote would appear on the story side - never have run across it. Whether it would be in a box such as this or just normal block quote indentations, etc. I don't really like the box around the text — but it works.

With the growing use of text messages in real life, even those who don't text might find a need to bring such use into a story for believability (ahem, raises my hand ). I find the use of regular double quotes for text messages to be somewhat off-putting, and potentially confusing. I imaging time will sort this a little finer, but for now it's each person on their own.