Hi all,
Does anyone have a suggestion for how to format a text message conversation in Scrivener? I’ve tried a few things and am not happy with any of them.
Thank you!
Nelson
Hi.
Styles for which you’d set indents.
…But hope not, it’ll never look like a text bubble in Scrivener, though.
You’ll have to later refine paragraphs of this or those styles in a formatting app ; which Scrivener is not.
2 Likes
A text message exchange distinguishes self from others, for example, by right aligning the messages you send and left aligning the replies you receive.
So, I would define two paragraph styles, one for each of these. You can make these look however you please in the Scriv editor, just so long as you can see that these paragraph styles have been applied.
The trick then is to realize that you can decide later how such exchanges should really look when you compile your finished draft. So long as those two special styles are assigned in the text, you will be able to tell Compile later to automatically cast a finished look of your choosing on the paragraphs of those styles.
As for how exactly to make them look, well, you don’t say what you are aiming for or what you’ve tried that is unsatisfactory.
<begin advice mode>
My personal advice is that you should aim to make the layout signal to the reader this is a text exchange, without trying to emulate how text exchanges on your phone actually (currently) look. Nothing will date your efforts faster than to build into the body of your work the ephemeral styling of your current messaging software interface. So don’t emulate the software, just do the minimum required to make it register with the reader that this is /the content of/ a text exchange (as opposed to a screenshot of someone’s phone).
As for talk bubbles, don’t even think about it. You should no more do that than stamp every instance of speech in a text with a pair of lips.
<end advice mode/>
5 Likes
Thanks all, That is largely what I’d come to conclude, but I always find formatting to be a challenge. 