The past few months we’ve covered various different ways to write things in books, be it a fight scene, writing character thoughts, or even writing time skips so that they flow naturally. Continuing this article tradition, we have another brief blog on how to write a text message in a book. Texting dialogue can – for certain narratives – expand the plot and help you to develop your characters.
Without further ado, let’s dive in.
How To Write a Text Message in a Book
When writers ask this question, generally speaking, they mean how to format the text message in their manuscript. As far as formatting goes, there are a few options, but these options depend upon your circumstance.
If you are writing for a certain publication, then they’ll more than likely have formatting rules for the inclusion of text messages in a manuscript. These house rules should be followed at all times. However, if you are writing without a definite end point for your manuscript, then you can choose any format you like (as long as it’s clear and consistent). Clear in that it is obvious the reader is reading a text message and consistent in that if you have multiple different text messages displayed throughout the book, your formatting needs to stay consistent for them throughout the book.
Top Tip: if your house style allows it, you may want to consider putting texts into your novel using a different font.
Before we get into the different methods you can use to format the text messages, I need to stress that no one way is better than another!
Using Italics for Texting Dialogue
This is one of the simpler methods of adding in text messages to your work, and would be formatted like so:
Trudy felt her phone buzz in her purse. She opened her purse’s latch and fetched the old Samsung phone from the bottom of her bag to find a new text message notification. She opened up this text message which read: Hi Trudy, it’s Ben. We met the other night at the blind date event. I was given this number by the event organiser. Are you free next week for a coffee? Trudy smiled, she had hoped that they’d be able to connect. Hi Ben, that sounds like a great idea! Trudy briefly glanced up from her phone to check the traffic light, How does Thursday evening sound? Before the lights changed to green, she slid the phone back in her purse.
This kind of formatting is my personal favourite, as I feel it is a great way to add the information you need while maintaining the flow of the narrative and scene. However, for those of you out there that want it to be more obvious or want to place more emphasis on the texting, using indents is an option to consider:
Writing Text Messages Using Indents
Using indents is another way you can include text messages in your manuscript. I’m not a huge fan of this format unless it is used for long text conversations. Note that i’ve used dashes to emphasize the indentation. For example:
Trudy felt her phone buzz in her purse. She opened her purse’s latch and fetched the old Samsung phone from the bottom of her bag to find a new text message notification. She opened up this text message which read:
———————Hi Trudy, it’s Ben. We met the other night at the blind date event. I was given this number by the event organiser. Are you free next week for a coffee?
Trudy smiled, she had hoped that they’d be able to connect.
———————Hi Ben, that sounds like a great idea!
Trudy briefly glanced up from her phone to check the traffic light,
———————How does Thursday evening sound?
Formatting Texting Dialogue Using Speech Marks
A text message is, at it’s core, a way for people to communicate. To this end, some authors and writers prefer to incorporate text messages like normal speech, using the same formatting rules. This format style is fine, given you state its a text message before beginning the dialogue. Such a format would look something like this:
Trudy felt her phone buzz in her purse. She opened her purse’s latch and fetched the old Samsung phone from the bottom of her bag to find a new text message notification. She opened up this text message which read,
“Hi Trudy, it’s Ben. We met the other night at the blind date event. I was given this number by the event organiser. Are you free next week for a coffee?” Trudy smiled, she had hoped that they’d be able to connect.
“Hi Ben, that sounds like a great idea!” Trudy briefly glanced up from her phone to check the traffic light, “How does Thursday evening sound?” Before the lights changed to green, she slid the phone back in her purse.
The only downside with this format is that this style can easily be misunderstood. For something like YA, it may be best to use a more obvious formatting style.
Writing Text Messages Using Brackets
The final way I’ve seen text messages conveyed in a manuscript is by using brackets. This is my least favourite formatting style as I feel it breaks up the flow of the text too much. This is what using brackets would look like:
Trudy felt her phone buzz in her purse. She opened her purse’s latch and fetched the old Samsung phone from the bottom of her bag to find a new text message notification. She opened up this text message which read: (Hi Trudy, it’s Ben. We met the other night at the blind date event. I was given this number by the event organiser. Are you free next week for a coffee?) Trudy smiled, she had hoped that they’d be able to connect. (Hi Ben, that sounds like a great idea!) Trudy briefly glanced up from her phone to check the traffic light, (How does Thursday evening sound?) Before the lights changed to green, she slid the phone back in her purse.
You can also take a new line using brackets to make it clearer, like so:
Trudy felt her phone buzz in her purse. She opened her purse’s latch and fetched the old Samsung phone from the bottom of her bag to find a new text message notification. She opened up this text message which read:
(Hi Trudy, it’s Ben. We met the other night at the blind date event. I was given this number by the event organiser. Are you free next week for a coffee?)
Trudy smiled, she had hoped that they’d be able to connect.
(Hi Ben, that sounds like a great idea!)
Trudy briefly glanced up from her phone to check the traffic light,
(How does Thursday evening sound?)
Before the lights changed to green, she slid the phone back in her purse.
When To Include Text Messages in a Book
Text messages are a strange thing for books, I find. There are only a few instances where including a text message would make sense, as most information shared via text message in the real world can be conveyed in other ways. A simple phone call is a good example. When it comes to including text messages, I’ll usually try to exhaust all other options for my manuscripts (i.e have two characters call one another). That being said, there are some valid reasons to have text message dialogue in your book. For instance:
- – Your character could suffer from social anxiety. Adding text messages is a great way to remind the reader of this character trait. Someone with social anxiety would rather text, than call.
- – You want to drive home how ‘busy’ your character is. For a bustling city environment, adding in texting dialogue plays into that kind of atmosphere.
- – For something like a crime novel or a romance novel, a text message could contain evidence. Eg. if your character suspects their partner of infidelity, they may decide to check text messages. Similarly, a police officer may check someone’s texts with a warrant as part of a criminal investigation. Both these circumstances would likely require adding in text messages to your book.
There’s obviously many more reasons, but these were a few that came to the top of my head.
In general, i’d avoid adding text messages unless it is pivotal to the narrative and characters. It can get messy and confusing if it isn’t formatted well!
Learn mORE wITH lORE
Lore Publication is all about sharing awesome fiction (that’s free to read), and informational articles to help writers with their craft. Why not check out these next:
- How to write thoughts in a story
- A list of 450+ sci fi words for writers
- How to write a fight scene
- How to write a book with no experience
Be sure to also check out our fiction!
FAQs About How To Write a Text Message in a Book
How do I indicate text messages in a book?
Aside from the various above methods, such as using italics, using indents, using speech marks or using brackets, it is always useful to indicate a character is reading or writing a text with description. Above all, it is important that the reader doesn’t get confused between conversation and text message dialogues. You can also indicate text messages by using a different font.
How do you write a text message into a script?
Scripts are different from books, as the final product will be in the visual medium – be it a short film, TV show or a film. If writing a text message sequence in a script, it’s often best to write it as dialogue with a brief descriptor for the director that the sequence of dialogue is text messages. This will allow the director and post-production teams discuss the best way to incorporate it into the final cut.
How to write texts in a manuscript?
As discussed in detail above, when writing text messages in a manuscript the most important thing to remember is to make it clear for the reader. No matter what kind of formatting you decide to use, being clear and concise is paramount. When formatting you can treat text messages like dialogue, put them in italics, put them in brackets, use indentation, use a different font, or a combination of these formatting styles.