Written -Not Spoken- Dialogue

[ckatt]

I'm working on a short story where a few of the characters only speak to each other in written form and I'm trying to decide the best way to show those lines of dialogue. Quotations " " are out since I'm using them for words actually spoken and I need some indicator to differential from the internal dialogue of the protagonist as well. I've played with using all caps or a dash -HI THERE- but I'm not sure I like it. I read William Gibson's Agency recently and he uses bold text for the characters communicating with text but I don't want something typographical like that. I don't want to change fonts and italics are often used for thoughts, so I don't want that either.
Are there any standard conventions for this type of thing?
Thanks

 

[-K2-]

I can't speak to a 'standard,' but I do like the idea of a hyphen, perhaps an EN-dash (not an EM-dash):

--Mary, did you talk to Tom today?--

Posting that also makes me feel like proper punctuation/grammar feels incorrect:

--did you talk to tom today??--

Another option might be brackets:
[did you talk to tom today??]... without a space
[ did you talk to tom today?? ]... with a space (better)
[-did you talk to tom today??-]... with a hyphen, ehh...I don't like it. Makes it look like part of the message.

What I believe is 'standard' though can't recall, is using colons or semi-colons, or maybe it was parentheses. But, I use those throughout so (personally) would not use them.

Just my opinions,

K2

 

[ckatt]

@-K2- In the draft I have going now, the dashes are working well enough, but a problem arose when I wanted to use em dashes in other parts of the text and I write in the courier font and there is next to no difference between the en and em dashes. I'm also using parenthesis for certain thoughts so I'm worried that the page will start to look muddy with frequent use of brackets as well.

 

[Trollheart]

Why not just use italics, or even bold italics?

 

[ckatt]

Why not just use italics, or even bold italics?

No other reason that I don't like the way it looks on the page. Mainly because I don't like the idea that the story must be printed a certain way in order to be understood. I know that you're not likely to find a situation where bold is not supported, but my preference leans away from that kind of typography.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

I've used all caps in quotation marks. I think the quotation marks are still crucial.

 

[Trollheart]

Would it work were you to use no caps at all, have the whole conversation is lower case?

 

[ckatt]

@tegeus-Cromis & @Trollheart
Unfortunately, all caps won't work. One character is a child and writes in all caps while the others don't.

I feel like I'm being a bit of a contrarian, shooting down your suggestions. But I've tried on so many things I'm not happy with. That's why I was hoping there was a standard convention, so I wouldn't have to think about it anymore.

Thanks for your suggestions

 

[Trollheart]

What about underlining?

 

[ckatt]

I think it would be too hard to get away from what underlining already represents. And I wouldn't want to be working against that.

 

[ckatt]

@tegeus-Cromis
So if I were to stick with dashes do you think the quotation marks would still be needed?
"-Hi there,-" wrote Frank.
What about a double slash which kind of suggests a quotation mark?
//Hi there,// wrote Frank.
Does that look messy? I think it's a bit messy.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

I think any of those would throw the readers off, as they might seem a convention that they're not aware of? Admittedly, I made it easy on myself by writing before the first line of dialogue, "She wrote in all caps:" Then "He took the pen from her hand and answered" (or something like that). So once the readers have seen what two lines of written dialogue look like, they'll know that the following lines, which look the same, are still written. I also like all caps because the entire line looks different from spoken dialogue -- not just at the very beginning and end of it.

Doing it in italics and quotation marks might work. Then you can still switch from upper to lowercase. When I put a whole letter that a character received in my book, I put it in italics.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

A combination of italics and quotation marks is commonly used for anything written down (the quotation marks differentiate it from internal dialogue where italics are also commonly used). Or else quotation marks and the entire written section deeply indented. (Though that can be a bit of pain when formatting.) Those are the usual ways that it's done, so neither way is likely to confuse readers.

 

[ginny]

I would do quotation marks for the dialogue.// "Yeah I always tell myself that." She caught his eye and winked.

Italics for internal thoughts--although I have seen the internal thoughts done just as regular text and no quote marks.// Yeah I always tell my self that, she thought as she avoided eye contact. Yeah I always tell my self that, she thought as she avoided eye contact.

Written: this depends on whether you mean letters back and forth or messages on a piece of paper back and forth or text messages over a device.

You could always write it out like a play.

Tammy: Yeah I always tell myself that.
Dan: Hows that work for you?
Tammy: Yeah, right.

 

[ckatt]

Written: this depends on whether you mean letters back and forth or messages on a piece of paper back and forth or text messages over a device.

The written dialogue exchanges always happen when the characters are face to face. Much of it is done with a tablet between them and the characters writing to each other with their fingers.

What's important to me is that it feel like natural dialogue. I don't want too much attention drawn to it after the situation is shown, yet it needs to be clear that the words are not spoken.

Now to further complicate things:
If I go with the formatting that @Teresa Edgerton explained is standard. Should I be underlining as suggested in Shunn's proper manuscript format because I write in a monospaced font? Maybe its time I switched to Times New Roman?

 

[sule]

If it's all being written on a tablet and being passed between characters, could you do something simple like a single dash at the beginning of a piece of 'dialogue' to distinguish it? Something like:

-Mrs. James is rambling again.
Jenna stifled a chortle and wrote back to John.
-Do you think this will be on the test?

It feels to me like you only need something at the beginning of the dialogue to key the reader in, and as long as you separate the dialogue into its own paragraph distinct from the description it should be OK. As long as you don't need to include attribution in the same paragraph (and it sounds like you've got plans on how to make each character's writing different from the others') this might work.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I'm not familiar with Shunn, but his advice seems rather outdated to me. I am not sure why the font you use should matter to whether you choose to indicate italics by underlining or ... well, actual italics ... but yes, I do think it is probably time to switch to Times New Roman.

 

[ckatt]

@sule That's pretty close to what I started with. Though I put a dash as the end as well like a closing quote. I'm getting the impression that what I do doesn't matter so much as long as it's clear.

@Teresa Edgerton A number of short story markest, Analog, Asimov's, Abyss & Apex, and others, link to William Shunn’s guide in their submission guidelines. He actually has two, one for Courier New and a modern one for Times New Roman. For monospaced fonts he advises against italics becue they can be hard to read and back in the typewriter days, there was not italics so underlining was used instead. Not that I experienced it myself.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

They aren't hard to read with some of the old fonts like Courier, but they can be hard to distinguish from the regular text at a glance.

If there is formatting advice in the submission guidelines (which of course includes anything they link to) for a particular market, of course you should follow what they tell you. Just keep in mind that it is not necessarily what other markets might ask for.

Not that I experienced it myself.

I actually did experience it, and what you say is true, except it was not just because of what the typewriter was capable of producing, but also for the sake of the typesetters.

My first three published novels were written on a typewriter (this was back in 1989 and 1990—all the books pictured in my signature, below, are reprints of books originally published in the 20th century). And for my last novel, published in 2007, publishers still expected the underlining, even though the manuscript had to be submitted in digital format as well as paper. But I understand that a lot of publishers now want italics and Times New Roman and only a digital copy. This is a time of transition.

 

[ckatt]

what you say is true,

I only know that based on Shumm's explanation.

Though I've always loved typewriters and fantasize about writing on one, I've had a computer in my home since I was a kid in the 80's so I never put in any serious time typing on a typewriter. Maybe someday...