A reader writes to ask: My manuscript contains text messages from one character to another. How would you suggest I format them? When you present an exchange of text messages in fiction, you're essentially presenting a different form of dialog....  read

I wrote the original version of my manuscript formatting guide in 1993, modeling it after a much older two-page guide I received from Damon Knight in 1985. Back in those days, even for those who'd made the switch to composing...  read

A reader writes to ask: How should I differentiate the character's thoughts from the rest of the narrative? Some people have suggested I put them in quotation marks, but I find that when I read novels in which the character's...  read