How to format internet chat conversation between characters in a novel?

Go for it like a foreign language

Tell the reader that it's a chat room with a user.
Detail and translate the shorthand.

But I would try to avoid it. Unless it's a major part of the story.


If it's like a txt message:

My phone beeped signalling that I had a message.
"Hi, miss u, lol," Leah had sent me.
I suppose the "Laugh out loud" was too much; as I was previously kidnapped.

Chat would be:

Leah said: "Hi, miss u, lol."
I replied back: "I'm not laughing, I was kidnapped."


Just give the reader a lot of context and avoid copying the chat style.

I wouldn't go BotByte's route at all. I'd treat it the same as I would if a character read a diary or newspaper.

Blank space before the chat begins, the indentation from both left and right margins. Blank line after the chat ends (or any time it's interrupted for non-chat) before resuming normal text.

I'm not sure AW will support the format I'd use, but I'll give it a shot. Pay no attention to the content, which I'm making up on the spot. Imagine the line spacing is double. And imagine the sections which are left-indented are also indented from the right. It doesn't support it well enough to show you how it looks, so I deleted my example.

Maryn, who's sold work formatted like this

If you're writing for people under the age of 50, I think that for every person who needs "LOL" explained to them, there's going to be two people rolling their eyes at how the author thinks they're stupid.

If the chat sessions are expected to be frequent and to go on for pages, I'd be tempted to use a distinct font, like Courier. But some publishers choke on that.

Agree, write it like dialogue because after all, it is dialogue, but I would italicize the messages so they are clearly different from the characters thoughts and or responses to the messages...

I'm going to piggy back on this post because I was struggling with a similar problem in a short piece I did for character development.

I have a hacker type character hacking into a server. He's at home, alone, in front of his computer. During the hack, another 'entity' starts talking to him through the connection.

I have several 'types' of dialogue to try and differentiate.

First, the text that appears on the screen that the MC is reading from the entity. In general, any text being read off a screen I usually put in italics, so I did this for the entity's side of the conversation.

Now I need to figure out how to format my MC's thoughts, which I would also normally do in italics. I also need to format the text that he's typing on his keyboard to communicate with the entity. And finally, I need to format anything he might actually say out loud, even though he's home by himself. It's pretty safe to use regular quotes for anything spoken out loud, but otherwise I got pretty hung up with "he thought"s and "he typed" and things of that nature. Using italics in all cases apart from anything the MC said out loud seemed a bit confusing though.

It's not really an urgent problem for me, because I'm not really planning on doing anything substantial with this piece, but it did make me think about how to format something like this in case I decide to use it in the future.

If it's super brief, I'd write it like dialogue. Otherwise, I'd mimic the way it is on the actual instant messenger as much as possible.

You could experiment with what you like, though, to best express what you'd like.

If you want to keep your characters inner thoughts in italics, then change the fonts for the chat or computer part so it is different from the books normal fonts. One character could use 1 font and another a different font so that way you can distinguish who is typing/saying what...

If you normally use courier, change to Romans or something that looks mechanical. If you know what I mean...

My mysterious lady had signed on again. I squealed with delight, already excited by the implications. I sat down and started typing.

StudPower69: Hey babe is that you?
SexyFoxy69: it sure is, lover
StudPower69: Hey wait you are a chick rite?

I waited for her answer, afraid to breathe. Five seconds later, I had it.

SexyFoxy69: Yes

I sighed. This was going to be a good night.

Thanks for that!

Lunatique said:

Is there a guideline for what's actually "accepted" by editors though? What is the "official" way of formatting internet chat messages in a novel? We've seen them printed a specific way--usually to mimic how chat messages actually look (I'm thinking Microserf by Douglas Coupland), but what did that novel actually look like in manuscript form?

Click to expand...

How messaging appears in books isn't necessarily how it ought to look in the ms.

Obviously people here have lots of opinions on how it ought to be or could be formatted for submission. As I said above, I've sold work which separates it with a blank line and indents from both the left and right margins. But that doesn't mean the other methods are wrong. In submitting, I tend to go for the most conservative (me?) stance when it comes to format when the specifics aren't mentioned in submission guidelines.

As long as it's clear you've got online talk separated from actual conversation, I wouldn't worry a lot about it. Pick one that looks right to you and be consistent.

Maryn, thinking it doesn't matter a whole lot

Domino Derval said:

My mysterious lady had signed on again. I squealed with delight, already excited by the implications. I sat down and started typing.

StudPower69: Hey babe is that you?
SexyFoxy69: it sure is, lover
StudPower69: Hey wait you are a chick rite?

I waited for her answer, afraid to breathe. Five seconds later, I had it.

SexyFoxy69: Yes

I sighed. This was going to be a good night.

Click to expand...

Love it!