How should a letter appear in your story?

Scottish Writer · Oct 29, 2012

Hello,

My story is about to move into a place where one of my main characters is writing a series of letters to another character. I want someone who was reading the story to be reading it at the same time as my character would. My question relates to how should this be written down and appear on a page? I was thinking line break - ident- italics- line break.

Is this a correct/effective way to write this? Or are there any other suggestions out there?

Thanks
SW

Stacia Kane · Oct 29, 2012

I'm a little confused, sorry. Do you mean the novel becomes epistolary at one point, or do you mean the letters are breaks in the mss, as in "She sat down and opened the letter.

Dear X,

&C?"

If it's the latter, then I had a similar situation in my WIP. I did basically what I have above; a line break, and then the note, with another line break after. I personally changed the font for the note as well, though my agent may want me to change that before submission (I did it, well, just 'cause it was fun

).

Scottish Writer · Oct 29, 2012

Ah Stacia, yes I see why my post would be confusing! sorry about that. I was meaning the latter you refer to in your post. There are breaks in the story (although the letters themselves are part of the story if you know what I mean).

I wasn't sure if I had to line break the note. I will do now. Font is an interesting one, never thought of that. Italics was my original idea but I use them when the character is thinking so it may get a bit much.

Stacia Kane said:
I'm a little confused, sorry. Do you mean the novel becomes epistolary at one point, or do you mean the letters are breaks in the mss, as in "She sat down and opened the letter.

Dear X,

&C?"

If it's the latter, then I had a similar situation in my WIP. I did basically what I have above; a line break, and then the note, with another line break after. I personally changed the font for the note as well, though my agent may want me to change that before submission (I did it, well, just 'cause it was fun ).

jaksen · Oct 29, 2012

I wrote a short story with a series of letters running through it. (My shorts are long, btw.) Anyhow, I wrote those sections in italics and the publisher kept them that way. (The letters were fairly short; possibly if they were longer, they would have not used italics.)

One other thing, the letters showed a parallel story, and were not directly tied into the main story, per se.

retlaw · Oct 29, 2012

It wasn't a letter but a promtional door hanger for me, still - a piece of paper someone read in their heads - I used italics.

Jamesaritchie · Oct 29, 2012

I've used letters in a couple of stories. I indented an extra five spaces, and used italics. The publishers left them alone.

Roxxsmom · Oct 29, 2012

I have a couple of letters in my nip, and I simply left a line break, and wrote the letter, as the character would see it, in italics, then left another line at the end.

I've seen it done this way in other novels I've read, so hopefully it's all right.

Debbie V · Oct 29, 2012

If I recall my typing class correctly (High School was a while ago), letters and such get an extra tab.

blacbird · Oct 29, 2012

In academic writing (e.g., MLA style), long quotes from source material are done as "block quotes", indented five spaces throughout. That would seem an appropriate format for a letter quoted in a story. Mainly, you just want to make it clear to the reader that a letter is being quoted. Chances are that any publisher will have a house style for such things, at which point it becomes a typesetter's problem.

caw

Graylorne · Oct 30, 2012

In one of my books I had an important letter.
I opted for: white line - text in italics - white line. My editor found it excellent and so ít's published.

How should a letter appear in your story?

Scottish Writer

Stacia Kane

Girl Detective

Scottish Writer

jaksen

Caped Codder

retlaw

Jamesaritchie

Roxxsmom

Raised by Wolves

Debbie V

Mentoring Myself and Others

blacbird

Graylorne