Texting in fanfiction

I love it when people put in the time to format texts in any way, really -- there are def apps where you can generate text messages like this. There's one fic I read that's literally told in just faked screen grabs of tumblr posts, instagram posts, and text messages. I love it so much.

I would love it if more fics did this. I have read many that don’t even attempt to differentiate the texting, or who is who in the conversation. I understand it’s probably a lot of extra work though

Oooo, I much prefer it to it being normally written out. I guess it's a work skin!

The only problem is, if it’s done as an image, they can sometimes be really low quality. It’s also a major accessibility problem for screenreaders, unfortunately, even if it’s done as a workskin. I do love it aesthetically though!

it's all great until the image host closes down and the fic is left with a bunch of broken links. seen it too many times already

i do this for my fics using a workskin & html generator i made - i write for a video game fandom, and designed it to evoke the way messages look in-game. i try not to overuse it but i like how it breaks things up visually and opens up narrative opportunities!

there's a good ready-made workskin and guide here (not by me!). what i like about that one is that the messages are still very readable with skins turned off.

I love this but don’t know how to do it!!

I just space it out from my last actual paragraph

John 4:56pm Heyyy

Michael 5:41pm Hi

My only issue with doing this is that if the image breaks, I have no idea what the texts said. There was an older fic I used to read that did this but when imgur got fucked the images broke and the author hasn't responded to comments in years to fix it so rip. I reckon as long as in the end notes it's also written then it's fine, cause at least it's somewhere and at least somewhere for screenreaders too, even if ideally it would be in the correct spot in the fic.

This isn’t too hard to do. It’s just a work skin. You have to code it in with CSS, but if you don’t have the know how there’s plenty of templates online

There are all kinds of workskins to insert all kinds of effects. To repeat a post I made a while ago, about accessible formatting: here is a whole list of posts with instructions on how to format text to look like texting screenshots, or DMs, or social media posts, without making them actual images.

This will make your fic more accessible for readers with low vision, or people who just like text-to-speech. Also, it means everything will be readable if your fic is downloaded, since work skins are stripped out of those. Images sometimes end up too tiny to read in a download if the reader is not on a PC. I think using the CSS formatting is better than just adding alt text to an image - even more accessible, and you don't have to retype everything.

Whatever online thing (or offline - there's stuff for sticky notes, lined paper, newspaper articles, stationery, etc.) you want to imitate, there is probably already instructions for how to do it somewhere. This list is by no means exhaustive.

First, there are Collections for this stuff: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ao3_socmed_work_skin

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/smskins/works

Then specifically:

iOS texts: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6434845/chapters/14729722

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11842407/chapters/26732592

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22703617/chapters/54261724

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24274318/chapters/58941487 (old version of iOS)

Whatsapp: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24273361/chapters/58502308

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15842043/chapters/36893073

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34229317/chapters/85162498

Facebook Messenger: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ao3_socmed_work_skin/works/19249828

other texting: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24838792/chapters/60084040

Snapchat: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24273862/chapters/58504477

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ReferenceWorks/works/26777200

Twitch: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ao3_socmed_work_skin/works/40086258

Twitter: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32042248/chapters/79371028

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ao3_socmed_work_skin/works/26754208

Tumblr: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21099596/chapters/50203892

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ReferenceWorks/works/11474979

Instagram DMs: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26970883/chapters/65832898

4chan: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22666900/chapters/54176428

Gmail: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ao3_socmed_work_skin/works/32895871

other email: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ao3_socmed_work_skin/works/7953412

Twitter, Reddit, and LiveJournal: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ao3_socmed_work_skin/works/15664164

Reddit: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33533569/chapters/83319997

generic forum thread: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ReferenceWorks/works/27063988

Zoom: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27734851/chapters/67883734

Wikipedia articles: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31635317/chapters/78288383

Yelp reviews: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ReferenceWorks/works/28730922

Amazon reviews: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ReferenceWorks/works/28643706

News website article: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ReferenceWorks/works/21974437

and for the really meta, including Ao3 stuff inside your Ao3 fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36866398/chapters/91974304

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20531333/chapters/48733844

There are probably more, check out the various tags on those works, plus the Collections.

Edit: formatting

I don't know if anyone remembers the Shoebox Project from LJ, but it made a lasting impact on me and I'm always happy when people go the extra mile to make their fics more immersive like this.

I actually love this. It's so immersive and helps like, sell it a lot more.

Yeah! That looks really good, and I like that we see the character's reactions to the text conversation as well.

personally it kind of breaks the fic up for me, feels weird, but that could just be cause i'm used to texts being plain text (pun not intended). either way i don't mind it that much, i'd still read the fic

i have mixed feelings. it’s cute, but i’d never want to see it in a published book. it makes me cringe a little, but that’s just my opinion 😭

That looks so cool, I love it.

I never saw this that but I like it! It's very visual and it blends well with the narration.

I love it! Now I don't like it when the entire fic is written like this unless it's just a few chapters. I actually like this format better when writing texts between characters.

Here is a link if anyone is interested in formatting their text to look like real messages. It helps that I have an understanding of coding but it is explained on detail and it's a lot of copy/paste, which makes it easier for anyone. I've been playing around with it but haven't put it in my story yet.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/6434845/chapters/14756650#workskin

I kind of like it, but I wouldn't use it for the simple fact that it might screw up screen readers. So anyone with difficulty seeing and relying on those might have issues. Especially if it's an image. There's also the chance that wherever the image is hosted will change or go down, in which case all the texts are gone and new readers after that point will miss out on them.

Wow this is so interesting! Never saw this before nor knew you could do something like this! Wish I could figure out how to do it.