When you are writing a story and want to include the text of a letter, notice, or a text message on a phone, how do you write it? I thought about italicizing it, but then how do you differentiate between the text message and your character's thoughts? I have a story where a character gets a text on her phone then thinks Who is this from? How do I write so my readers can tell text from thought?
Context and presentation should hopefully do it. Have the thought on the same line as the story, maybe?
Jen's phone beeped and she glanced down. Who on earth is texting me at this time?
She smiled when she saw Liz's name.
Giiirrrrrrrll. Where are you? I've got a tasty foofaloof in need of attention and it ain't gonna lick itself. Get that fine ass over here right now and bring some friends. I'm in the mood to get freaky!
Jen laughed aloud and started scrolling through her contacts. Hmm, who is freaky enough for this particular mission...?
Alternatively, you could use single quotes to differentiate. But having the messages separate from all other text should work, I would think.
If writing in first person, you don't necessarily need to italicize their thoughts - but if third person (or even first), I've done something like this:
Mark walked to the door, looking down at his phone. Who the fuck is texting me this late?
James: Hey, just got offered tix to the big game and I need to let them know if we want them in the next hour.
Me: Hell, yeah, I'm in!
"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.”
― Carl Sagan
I always italicize. But you are right, you have to carefully write it so the reader can tell what is what. In one story, a character was receiving multiple sexts and I put 'Ding' right before the text message in italics. This told the reader the character was being notified of texts by his phone. Readers seemed to get it.
I've always just written it as dialogue, using attributions like "he texted" or "she typed". Not that I've used it much but a text conversation plays an important role in "The Bride's Awakening" and "Wedding Night Blues" (it's actually the same conversation in both, just shown from different points of view).
When I was submitting an early version of one of my stories the Lush moderators bounced it back more than once because I wrote out the text messages. They insisted they be treated the same as dialogue and punctuated. I still think it makes it clumsy writing.
