Texting in Novels – It’s a Thing

• The average American checks their phone 47 times a day.
• 23 billion text messages are sent each day worldwide.
• 98% of US smartphone users send text messages regularly.
• American smartphone owners aged 18-24 send around 2000 text in a month.*

With texting behavior like that, texting is going to show up in our novels. But while there are rules for how to format dialogue, no rules exist for texts. What’s a writer to do? I tackled that issue in my post today on DearEditor.com, after a writer posed the question to me:

Dear Editor…

How do you suggest presenting texts in print? I looked at Julie Buxbaum’s book HOPE AND OTHER PUNCH LINES. She bolds the names and indents the texts the same amount as the indent at the beginning of regular paragraphs. What do you think?

Sincerely,
Want to Get It Right

I replied that with clarity and “voice” should be your guides. Then I went deep into some nuances writers should be aware of in so that they can use texts to reveal and build their characters just as they do with regular dialogue. If you’d like to read the whole answer, here’s the link: http://deareditor.com/?p=13069

Happy writing! Happy reading!

*Source: “35 Must-Know SMS Marketing Statistics in 2020”