Hatrack River Writers Workshop: You have a call on line six...

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Posted by Inkwell (Member # 1944) on :

Hey, folks. I've been working on a story that's very 'communications heavy.' In other words, I've had to address several instances of characters speaking to one another over radio analogs, 'thinking' orders/commands to their equipment (only a few instances of which I actually spell out), and even text messages.

The text messages have been especially tricky, since I'm trying to standardize comm formats within the story to maintain clarity for the reader without sacrificing complexity.

I usually do ship-to-ship transmissions in the widely-used italicized dialogue format ("That you, Cap'n?").

Thought commands are simply italicized (Load anti-personnel...fire.).

The text messages, which I call Line-of-Sight-Transmissions (LOSTs) within the context, have been bothering me, though. I can't decide on which style to use, since I've never run across a dedicated textual dialogue format before. As of now, I just put the lines in bold-faced text and organized them with appropriate introductory exposition (On-station, area clear.).

What do you guys think? Any thoughts/suggestions?

Inkwell
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"The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous

[This message has been edited by Inkwell (edited April 30, 2006).]

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

It all sounds fairly reasonable to me. You might have some problem with thick bits of italicized text.

What I do for computer text communications is use ALL CAPS, or, rather, the kind of "All caps" that MS Word calls "small caps": they all look like caps, but the ones that would be lower case in ordinary format are smaller than the full capitals.

Posted by Silver3 (Member # 2174) on :

Your way sounds fine.

I have more trouble reading long stretches in "All caps", MS Word standard or not, than in italics.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Nothing about the formating sounds unreasonable, but you might want to consider why you're using so many different communications formats.

About the LOSTs, I'm assuming that these are tight-beamed burst transmissions, right? The acronym you use might be appropriate, since it's easy to lose a transmission of that sort, but it isn't very informative.

Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :

don't forget... sometimes it's easier to sum it up via narrative, rather than doing it through text/dialog. See if you can't mix it up to relieve yourself of the tedium of texting overkill.

Posted by Ray (Member # 2415) on :

Your system works, although I'll also point out that you don't have to change your text to show different forms of communication. If you want to show something different, you can also change what you use for quotation marks.

Instead of, "I want cheesecake," you can say <Give me a pizza.>

Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :

Just be consistant and distinct and you will be fine.

The first time you use a specific method of communication, in addition to the distinct text difference, be sure to clearly state what is going on.

Posted by RCSHIELDS (Member # 3362) on :

Inkwell you've struck the heart of long distance communications problem, especially for radios. Fortunately for you the wheel in this case has already been invented. The fix is to prefix every transmission with an addressee/sender code, i.e. 'Base, Bravo One' or 'Salt Lake Approach, Delta four one five.' Text messages on teletype and direct connect computers work the same way with abbreviated addresses for both.

Aviation uses such codes as designators for airports, SLC=Salt Lake City, SFO=San Francisco, LAX=Los Angeles, etc. A message from Los Angeles via teletype or direct wire to San Fancisco would have a header similar to SFO:LAX. This way the addressee (SFO) would know that the following message was initiated by the sender (LAX) thus eliminating confusion with the fewest number of characters. (It gets more complicated with international communication, but I'm sure you get the point.)

Even multiple addressees can be designated by just including them. SLC,SFO:LAX. An additional code such as XWU could stand for all stations (X) Western (W) United States (U) the addressee/sender code would be XWU:LAX. All text that follows a header applies to all adressees in the header until a new header is encountered.

Cell text messages are no different, phone numer of the addressee/phone number of the sender, i.e. 8665552836/8885553517

Hope this helps your story.

Rob.