Formatting txt conversations?

[Brev]

I'm taking a little break from writing fantasy and am writing something based in the real world. My main POV character is a young female who is very attached to her mobile phone and communicates a lot through texting.
Are there any rules or guidelines for punctuating txt based dialogue? Or has anyone seen any examples they can point me toward?

I'd like to show it how it appears on the phone, something along the lines of...

- r u home?
- yes...u coming over?
- yes...c u in ten...x

But does it need " or ' or ??
Any thoughts?

 

[Lenny]

I can't remember where I've seen it, but I'm pretty sure some YA books change the font for text messages to something like Courier. So, for example:

Edgar stared at his phone. What did it mean? Was it the invitation to the brotherhood that he'd been waiting for? A declaration of unbridled love, perhaps? Or possibly his mam asking him to pick up some milk on the way home? Cautiously, he began tapping out his response.

ye..c u in ten lol..ger xoxox

As he moved his thumb to hit send, he hesitated. After checking it over for what seemed like an eternity, he brought his thumb down, turned off the screen, threw the phone back into his bag, and waited. And waited. And waited. After what seemed like an eternity, the phone started buzzing. Slowly, Edgar took the phone out of his bag and looked at the screen. His face went white.

 

[Arkose]

I would agree with Lenny. Keep it limited though, I couldn't read a book with a bunch of text conversations like "ya, c u in ten lol..ger xoxo."

 

[David Evil Overlord]

I couldn't either, Arkose. But I did see a published YA book that consisted of nothing but text messages between three characters.

 

[hopewrites]

will L337 become a recognized language then?

 

[David Evil Overlord]

If Klingon can be, then why not txt?

 

[Brev]

Thanks for the replies.
I am going to keep it fairly limited and stick to the obvious phonetic shorthand, but it does form an important part of the plot. What I need is some way of punctuating the text dialogue so that it looks different from the normal spoken dialogue. I need something to flag up to the reader that it's a text message without having to constantly put 'She glanced at her phone, she read her phone, the text said, etc, etc..'
As for using a different font, am I correct in thinking that would not sit well with Kindle, should I go down that route? I've already used italics for thought.

 

[alchemist]

If you're not going for a different font or italics, perhaps you could frame it with something e.g. [c u tonite]
I'd suggest dropping your ellipses too. It makes it look like speech. I doubt there's a definite way you should do it.
If desperate, you could have one character WHO ALWAYS USES CAPS.

 

[Lenny]

That's an interesting problem. I guess the Kindle only has a single font, that it shows as normal, bold, italic, and bold-italic.

You could show text messages in bold, instead? I'm reading an Iain M. Banks book at the moment that shows communications between ships in bold.

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CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOOOOOL

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An alternative to framing texts could be to start them with a special character. A hash, maybe:

# ye..c u in ten lol..ger xoxox

You could even frame the hash: [#] ye..c u in ten lol..ger xoxox