Trying to capture the rhythm of a text message conversation

[joy_of_cooking]

I'm curious what people make of the following snippet. For context, Kelly had just given the narrator a blow job when the narrator's toddler woke up and started banging on the door.

I had to go out and put Mei Mei back into bed, leaving Kelly huddled behind the door in her bathrobe. By the time I returned, Kelly was gone.

I texted her. "I'm so sorry. Next time we'll do you first, okay?"

"Bold of you to assume there will be a next time," came the reply.

"I'm sorry?" I typed, then erased it. It was perfectly clear what she meant. I wavered between fear and indignation. This was the reality of being a parent. I had thought she understood that. I typed a sharp reply, then chickened out and deleted that too. I was still working on another, more conciliatory, reply when a new message appeared.

"That's a joke."

Then, "I'm sorry, I should have added a wink or something."

"I'm really out of practice."

"I should have said something like"

"I'm not keeping score." This time she did include a wink.

Rapidly, I typed and sent a total lie. "No, I got it."

Then, a technically correct statement. "I was just trying to think of something to say back."

And finally a truth: "I like when you kid around with me."

I want to quote texts as spoken dialogue, because there's not enough in this story to justify establishing a special typographic convention. (Although if I did I would totally use

<kbd></kbd>

and a left/right-aligned thing.)

But I wanted to capture the distinct rhythm that comes from the breaks between messages.

There's a convention for quoting multiple paragraphs of speech by the same speaker (you omit the closing quotation mark to indicate continuation) but I don't think many readers know about it. It's also very easy to miss, even if you know.

So, above all, is it clear who's writing what?

And, does this work for you, as a reader? What do you think of it?

 

[Bamagan]

I'm always a little jealous to hear about people whose texts are replied to sooner than the next day.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think it works fine to handle texting in this passage similarly to the way you would handle dialogue. I would make a few changes, but these are highly subjective judgment calls.

I would write "she replied" rather than "came the reply." Shorter, more direct, clearer, better verb choice.

The part of it starting with "That's a joke" gets a little unclear for me. I'd insert a dialogue tag in one of the lines about midway through just to keep things clear about who is saying what.

I don't care for the narrative sections in the last three lines: "total lie," "technically correct statement," and "finally a truth." The reason is that IMO the narrative tramples over the dialogue. Dialogue should be sufficient; it shouldn't require narrative that explains its meaning to the reader. You wouldn't write

"I'm sorry," I said apologetically.

To some degree I think that's what you are doing in these three consecutive lines.

If the truth of the statements is somewhat ambiguous, let it stay ambiguous. You don't need to spoonfeed the meaning to the reader.

Just my two cents.

 

[Voboy]

I type it exactly like regular dialogue, since that's how I imagine my characters think of it.

I put it in italics instead of quotes, but otherwise it's just the same. Seems to work. But I do it somewhat sparingly, to be fair.

 

[NotWise]

In my experience, the "rhythm" of texting is slow and the acts of sending messages are interspersed with other activities. You've written the text conversation as if the two people are talking to each other on the phone; each seems to have the other's undivided attention and nothing else is going on while they text.

I don't think there's any problem with your typography. I don' t do anything special in my stories to distinguish texts from normal dialog, but--to me--you haven't captured the rhythm of a text exchange.

 

[Hypnobitch01]

I'm curious what people make of the following snippet. For context, Kelly had just given the narrator a blow job when the narrator's toddler woke up and started banging on the door.



I want to quote texts as spoken dialogue, because there's not enough in this story to justify establishing a special typographic convention. (Although if I did I would totally use

<kbd></kbd>

and a left/right-aligned thing.)

But I wanted to capture the distinct rhythm that comes from the breaks between messages.

There's a convention for quoting multiple paragraphs of speech by the same speaker (you omit the closing quotation mark to indicate continuation) but I don't think many readers know about it. It's also very easy to miss, even if you know.

So, above all, is it clear who's writing what?

And, does this work for you, as a reader? What do you think of it?

I would put

I'm curious what people make of the following snippet. For context, Kelly had just given the narrator a blow job when the narrator's toddler woke up and started banging on the door.



I want to quote texts as spoken dialogue, because there's not enough in this story to justify establishing a special typographic convention. (Although if I did I would totally use

<kbd></kbd>

and a left/right-aligned thing.)

But I wanted to capture the distinct rhythm that comes from the breaks between messages.

There's a convention for quoting multiple paragraphs of speech by the same speaker (you omit the closing quotation mark to indicate continuation) but I don't think many readers know about it. It's also very easy to miss, even if you know.

So, above all, is it clear who's writing what?

And, does this work for you, as a reader? What do you think of it?

I would combine out of practice and should have said something like.

 

[MrPixel]

In my experience, the "rhythm" of texting is slow and the acts of sending messages are interspersed with other activities. You've written the text conversation as if the two people are talking to each other on the phone; each seems to have the other's undivided attention and nothing else is going on while they text.

This is what I do, including asides at one end of the text conversation with others that may be interested in or even secondhand participants in the texting, "Ask her if she's bringing a boyfriend."

 

[OffNSFW]

I don't know that I have any good advice here, but here's how I handled a text conversation in my most recent story, "The Virgin Islands":

"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 and put my phone back in my pocket.

 

[THBGato]

It was perfectly clear to me and sounded very realistic.

Though "kid around" gives me the ick seeing as he just had to go resettle a toddler.

 

[KeithD]

It looks fine and understandable to me as a text exchange. I don't think any fancy treatment is needed.

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

I'm curious what people make of the following snippet. For context, Kelly had just given the narrator a blow job when the narrator's toddler woke up and started banging on the door.



I want to quote texts as spoken dialogue, because there's not enough in this story to justify establishing a special typographic convention. (Although if I did I would totally use

<kbd></kbd>

and a left/right-aligned thing.)

But I wanted to capture the distinct rhythm that comes from the breaks between messages.

There's a convention for quoting multiple paragraphs of speech by the same speaker (you omit the closing quotation mark to indicate continuation) but I don't think many readers know about it. It's also very easy to miss, even if you know.

So, above all, is it clear who's writing what?

And, does this work for you, as a reader? What do you think of it?

As a reader, I can confirm that I've tripped up so many times when an author omits an end quote to indicate a continuation of dialogue in a new paragraph, from the same character. It does often have to make me double back and re-read, which ruins my flow.

Based on your passage, it did take me a closer read to ensure I knew who was saying what, just based on being conditioned to interpret every new line as a new speaker. I imagine it would trip readers up if they're speedily reading. But I get what you're doing with the line breaks for each person, which makes sense given the nature of text messages.

For what it's worth, the following convention is what I did for some of my chaptered stories to show a text exchange:

X: "[dialogue]"

Y: "[dialogue]"

X: "[dialogue]"

Another text bubble came from X: "[dialogue, on new line to break a really longer block of dialogue from previous paragraph]"

---

I didn't use my convention above to exactly do what you're trying to achieve. But I think it could work and be clearer to the reader who's speaking, albeit it might look weird. The con of this convention might be having to forgo any internal character thoughts as part of the same dialogue line.

X: " "
X: " "
X: " "
Y: " "

 

[Gamblnluck]

As a reader, I don't like several lines of text or dialog where the identity of the speaker is not expressed. Not all conversations are X then Y, then X again.
All to often the author tends to get blind to what the reader is seeing. (Think of the Febreeze commercial about being nose-blind). He/she knows exactly what is going on and what he said, but the reader does not. That happens often with story plot lines as well.

 

[alohadave]

As a reader, I can confirm that I've tripped up so many times when an author omits an end quote to indicate a continuation of dialogue in a new paragraph, from the same character. It does often have to make me double back and re-read, which ruins my flow.

It seems like one of those style rules that is going out of favor. I know of the rule, but tend not to use it, because it feels wrong to leave a paragraph open.

Maybe if I were writing things that had characters giving monologues or speeches, I'd feel differently about it.

 

[TheLobster]

So, above all, is it clear who's writing what?

Not at all. I had to back up several times to figure out this was indeed the same person speaking -- oh, I'm sorry, texting. And that's having the benefit of your prompt to read the passage carefully and scrutinize. When put into actual story, I'd imagine it'd be even more confusing.

And, does this work for you, as a reader? What do you think of it?

I really dislike the pretense of punctuating text messages as if they were dialogue. They absolutely aren't. As few people pointed out above, the cadence is completely different, and so are the implications for the pace of the story. Ignoring it makes the story feel less realistic for no good reason, particularly since there is an obvious alternative if you do want the dialogue, i.e. a regular phone call. (And if the phone call is impossible but texting is... well, that's exactly the kind of "implications" I was alluding to!).

All in all, there is no reason for not using a bit of special typography for texts, chat messages, and the like. Okay, maybe the unclear ways in which Lit handles <kbd></kbd> is one but the preview window is usually accurate enough, especially when every text message is a separate paragraphs. (Multi-line chat transcripts are a different story).

 

[Mastered_again]

I treat the same as dialog, just giving a clear indication at the start that it's texting, not spoken. I have also used the character's first initial with a colon. If it's an extended exchange, I'd go with the initials

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

In my stories, I italicize text messages and, like Mastered_Again, above, usually include the sender's initials or name at the start of each message similar to how they would appear in a group text chat. This identifies the texter without the need for "said Joe," "replied Thelma," etc., and makes if easier for the reader to identify the extent of the text message. The other thing is to keep them very short to avoid boring the reader. Because of the delays previously mentioned, sometimes only the most critical line is given as a text, with the rest summarized in discussion or in the narrative.

 

[Britva415]

I'm curious what people make of the following snippet. For context, Kelly had just given the narrator a blow job when the narrator's toddler woke up and started banging on the door.



I want to quote texts as spoken dialogue, because there's not enough in this story to justify establishing a special typographic convention. (Although if I did I would totally use

<kbd></kbd>

and a left/right-aligned thing.)

But I wanted to capture the distinct rhythm that comes from the breaks between messages.

There's a convention for quoting multiple paragraphs of speech by the same speaker (you omit the closing quotation mark to indicate continuation) but I don't think many readers know about it. It's also very easy to miss, even if you know.

So, above all, is it clear who's writing what?

And, does this work for you, as a reader? What do you think of it

This is totally fine, it works for me, it's understandable, I had no problem at all with who was saying what, except for one point, and it was a minor re-orientation.

And I'm a fan of just quoting a txt conversation as if it were dialogue instead of inventing a novel typographical presentation due to the fact that there is no standard convention to follow.

I don't know what you mean by capturing the rhythm, other than that "I'm sorry?" one where you captured the rhythm of one person waffling on how to reply while the other person pre-empts it with a new message.

There's a convention for quoting multiple paragraphs of speech by the same speaker (you omit the closing quotation mark to indicate continuation) but I don't think many readers know about it. It's also very easy to miss, even if you know.

This doesn't seem to apply, here, anyway.

The only line where keeping track of who was saying it became ambiguous was this line:

Then, "I'm sorry, I should have added a wink or something."

This line follows "a new message appeared" and then the text of that new message. This line would have been more clear if instead of simply "Then," you had written "Then, another." to make clear that "then" referred to the other person's next message and didn't mean "So then I wrote" or "Then I said."

It was necessary for me to use the content of the message to realize who it was who was writing it. That's awkward and makes the reader spend effort to keep up. It could have been avoided with just a tiny clarification, it isn't a flaw of the typography or of the quoting convention.