Questions About Texting · 2:19pm May 27th, 2018
I'm writing an EQG story that involves a mute Vinyl Scratch. Since it's in the EQG world, there are cell phones, and I figured Vinyl would communicate mostly through texting.
Which brings me to the problem of how to represent that in story form. I can't decide which I like best out of these options. Mostly because I don't really like any of them, especially because sometimes Octavia will talk to her aloud while receiving a text. Below I've got some options.
In the orchestra room, Octavia practiced, her bow smoothly sliding along the strings… until her watch vibrated, enough that she noticed but not enough to throw an artist like her off. She finished the section and then lifted her wrist.
'Remember the girl I met at my quiet spot?'
Octavia pursed her lips as she retrieved her phone, turning off the metronome app to reply. 'I know OF her, yes.'
'We’re coming over to chill in my soundbooth today at four. Please, for the love of syncopation, don’t do anything weird.'
'Weird? Me? Perish the thought.' Octavia smirked as she tapped the send icon. She could almost see Vinyl’s pained expression.
I don't like this one because it doesn't really stand out. It would be good, though, for when Vinyl is texting and someone else is speaking.
In the orchestra room, Octavia practiced, her bow smoothly sliding along the strings… until her watch vibrated, enough that she noticed but not enough to throw an artist like her off. She finished the section and then lifted her wrist.
Remember the girl I met at my quiet spot?
Octavia pursed her lips as she retrieved her phone, turning off the metronome app to reply. I know OF her, yes.
We’re coming over to chill in my soundbooth today at four. Please, for the love of syncopation, don’t do anything weird.
Weird? Me? Perish the thought. Octavia smirked as she tapped the send icon. She could almost see Vinyl’s pained expression.
This one is good because it distinguishes texting from dialogue, but it makes me think of typewriters. The Small Caps option wasn't any better because then it looked like shouting.
In the orchestra room, Octavia practiced, her bow smoothly sliding along the strings… until her watch vibrated, enough that she noticed but not enough to throw an artist like her off. She finished the section and then lifted her wrist.
Remember the girl I met at my quiet spot?
Octavia pursed her lips as she retrieved her phone, turning off the metronome app to reply. I know OF her, yes.
We’re coming over to chill in my soundbooth today at four. Please, for the love of syncopation, don’t do anything weird.
Weird? Me? Perish the thought. Octavia smirked as she tapped the send icon. She could almost see Vinyl’s pained expression.
Leaning against this one because I like using italics as emphasis.
In the orchestra room, Octavia practiced, her bow smoothly sliding along the strings… until her watch vibrated, enough that she noticed but not enough to throw an artist like her off. She finished the section and then lifted her wrist.
Vinyl: Remember the girl I met at my quiet spot?
Octavia pursed her lips as she retrieved her phone, turning off the metronome app to reply.Octavia: I know OF her, yes.
Vinyl: We’re coming over to chill in my soundbooth today at four. Please, for the love of syncopation, don’t do anything weird.
Octavia: Weird? Me? Perish the thought.
Octavia smirked as she tapped the send icon. She could almost see Vinyl’s pained expression.
I like this one because it looks a little like a phone without resorting to anything too crazy. It's easy to intersperse text and action. But it would change who's on the right and who's on the left depending on whose phone we're looking at, and it may show up funny on really big screens.
In the orchestra room, Octavia practiced, her bow smoothly sliding along the strings… until her watch vibrated, enough that she noticed but not enough to throw an artist like her off. She finished the section and then lifted her wrist.
'Remember the girl I met at my quiet spot?'
Octavia pursed her lips as she retrieved her phone, turning off the metronome app to reply. 'I know OF her, yes.'
'We’re coming over to chill in my soundbooth today at four. Please, for the love of syncopation, don’t do anything weird.'
'Weird? Me? Perish the thought.' Octavia smirked as she tapped the send icon. She could almost see Vinyl’s pained expression.
I don't like using colored text. It's kinda gimmicky. And if you're using a different color background, it might not show up right. also I kinda miss it when Vinyl had red eyes
Octavia pursed her lips as she retrieved her phone, turning off the metronome app to reply.
Octavia smirked as she tapped the send icon. She could almost see Vinyl’s pained expression.
I think this will most accurately show the texting part. I think it looks the best. But it will also be a pain to have this imgur album of faked screenshots, and making sure I embed the right one, and if someone downloads an epub or plaintext or whatever I'm positive it won't transfer over. And it will get a bit awkward interspersing texts with live dialogue and descriptions.
And chrome hates emojis for some reason.
So I guess my question is, which of these is least painful to read?
I prefer the 'justified' option
Monospace.
I've seen justified in
work.
A couple of notes:
Fancy site formatting as seen here goes to crap whenever anyone is using non-default font size or line spacing, with the background from one line covering text in the next. A bug report has been filed with the admins, but it's low-priority.
Formatting relying on blocks, alignment, font or color won't necessarily display properly once exported to an epub, depending on the device and software. If you care about your offline readers, keep that in mind.
One older convention is to use either quote markers like so:
> Character 1 text
>> Character 2 text
> Character 1 text
or using angle brackets as quotation marks like so:
<Quoted text 1>
<Quoted text 2>
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I like the >> idea. That hadn't occurred to me.
So it would look something like this:
She finished the section and then lifted her wrist.
>>Remember the girl I met at my quiet spot?'
Octavia pursed her lips as she retrieved her phone, turning off the metronome app to reply.
>I know OF her, yes.
>>We’re coming over to chill in my soundbooth today at four. Please, for the love of syncopation, don’t do anything weird.
>Weird? Me? Perish the thought.
Octavia smirked as she tapped the send icon. She could almost see Vinyl’s pained expression.
I like both screenshots/justifide it's hard for me pick
What about in quotation boxes form?
If not, I like justified and monospace. Perhaps combine the two?
I don't think I care for Justified. It's rough on smooth reading. Perhaps if someone were reading over an archived conversation, but interspacing it with action hurts.
Not as bad as screenshot, though. Ouch. Just... please don't.
The colored text also hurts. The only time I've seen it done well is when there is a LARGE amount of dialog that can't be interrupted to clarify who's saying what.
Italics aren't bad, but I agree that using them would make emphasis difficult to pull off.
Inline text can work, but you'll need something a little more noticeable than apostrophes. Maybe some square brackets. [Like this.]
Monospace is good for me. I don't mind the "typewriter" look.
The angle brackets work pretty well, but I recommend leaning away from enclosing the text as it can come off as a <translated language>.
Just my two bits.
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Also thanks for the fic link. Ended up binging it. I'd seen it update but hadn't given it a chance.
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I wish I could (I think it looks best); but in published stories, quote boxes show up as just a black bar on the left of the text. In the preview, they look fine; but in story, the [quote=Vinyl] part doesn't even show up.
i.imgur.com/JbGjFM7.png
Though I could put the whole thing in the box, that might work. It'd make it look kinda long, though.
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Perhaps take a screenshot of a choice of text, and post it as an image. This allows you to use alternative methods not even available on FimFiction.