: Re: How would you write the dialogues of two characters talking in a chat room? How would you write do the dialogues of two characters talking in a chat room? I am seriously wondering about the

@Gonzalez219

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Although +1 to Cyn, I would write it as prose, with italics for the words and the commonly used descriptions or character representations of any emoticons (since more than a handful of graphics is quite frowned upon in novels; publishers don't like them).
In other words, describe it as the character reading it, sees it. If there is a laughing face instead of XD, tell us what she saw, don't translate it to characters. Same with a crying face, wink, or wide-eyed happy face; if you didn't see OwO don't translate the wide-eyed happy face to OwO.
Do not make the mistake of thinking the shorthand of emoticons has to translate to a similarly brief message in a novel: Readers don't mind reading. The novel is not to be read in "real time", or the same amount of time it took the characters to experience the scene. It is okay to write several words (or even sentences) to describe what in reality would be a momentary sensation or feeling. We do this all the time when describing sights and sensations, we can spend a page on describing what a character saw in a half second.
I would go ahead and write it out.

Alex's phone dinged, and switched to George's thread. "L8" then two cars and a shruggie.
Stuck in traffic. Alex responded, "10m?"
George responded, thumbs up.

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