: Re: What's a clear way to simulate web text in a story? My novel includes excerpts of things like text from websites, tweets, and internet chats. I'm using Courier for the main novel font. Does

@Courtney562

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Web fonts are all over the place these days; I wouldn't stress that. As Kate S. said, block indent. I think you'll get a lot of mileage out of recognizable formatting and context hints, also:

To:Lynn
From:Erik
Subject: Blah blah blah

This is a recognizable email format. Block-indented, it would be crystal-clear.

Thanks,
Erik

ErikRobson RT @Lynn If I use Twitter, I can tell right away that this is a tweet. (7 minutes ago)

Actual web site text is just... text. Usually nothing interesting about that. And, of course, forum posts have their own distinctive formatting, which varies across forum software.

I would also second Robusto's comment - not specifically for bad spelling and shortening, but it's worth noticing how people write across media. I've seen people who are perfectly capable writers but resort to shorthand and zero-punctuation when doing what they consider to be informal writing. Based on the online community, there are micro-dialects that community members use to fit in and identify each other. That's the sort of detail that I would be looking for from any Internet excerpts in a novel.

Good luck!

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