ugh, formatting

[tsuki_no_bara]

my bigbang posts on wednesday and i have hit a potential problem: there are a bunch of text conversations which i've put in italics to distinguish them from spoken conversations, but there's also a lot of radio chatter, by which i mean the dj talking over the radio, which is also in italics to distinguish it from people talking to each other. how

Comments

[locknkey]

Hey, I have some text convo code. I used it in a big bang. If interested. It looks like little text boxes.

You can see it at the top of this page. I think it looks pretty decent. I just wish I'd added indents.

http://locknkey.livejournal.com/90160.html

I specifically paid attention to punctuation in this last go around and think everything is consistent now. :)

[tsuki_no_bara]

that's an interesting way to do it, but i think the way i've written the conversations, it would look weird and might be distracting. i might try indenting or using block quotes or something, tho.

some of my idiosyncratic punctuation is a style thing, so i kept it.

[locknkey]

indents would work and really I didn't think it was too hard to tell what was going on just using italics.

no worries, bb. I have some of those myself. I use commas creatively. :)

[dear_tiger]

I don't know much details, of course, but I'd leave both radio and text conversations in italics. I usually find extra format creativity like new fonts extremely obnoxious. You context should already tell the reader what form of communication is used in what particular case, and I don't think there'd be any difficulty in distinguishing between a DJ talking on the radio and a text message.

[tsuki_no_bara]

the only problem is that once or twice this happens:

dj says something on the radio

maybe a paragraph or couple sentences of action

someone texts the radio station

the dj texts back

which might be kind of confusing. altho i'm trying to make it clear from context what's going on, because formatting all those texts for a specific font is a pain in the ass, and i don't want to put anyone off with the odd formatting.

[gestaltrose]

I like Dee's idea but depending on how much of your story is text messaging that might be a bit dauting. I think a clearly (perhaps some old basic text font) different font for the text might make it more readable. *shrugs*

[tsuki_no_bara]

i think a set font would be more readable too, but i also think it might be kind of obnoxious to force a font where people might have set their own layouts. also it's kind of a pain in the butt in an html sense. i don't know!

[apiphile]

I'd use indentation for the texts!

[tsuki_no_bara]

or block quotes, as below. i'll see how it looks. it might work.

[apiphile]

yes that was the word that i meant and managed to forget due to being a thimble-headed nitwit.

[tsuki_no_bara]

no worries, i do that all the time.

[wesleysgirl]

What about blockquotes?

[tsuki_no_bara]

i hadn't thought of that but it's not a bad idea! hopefully less obnoxious than a forced font, altho it might look like i'm quoting a block of text from somewhere else. i'll see what it looks like, tho.

[wesleysgirl]

Yeah, you're probably just going to have to try a few things and see what looks best. I'm still editing!

[tsuki_no_bara]

me too! i have tomorrow off, thankfully, but still. IT'S NOT DONE YET.