Nowadays, almost every movie based on modern times, involves a phone conversation or a text message. There is at least one scene where someone in the movie uses it for calling or messaging. And perfect screenplay formatting is vital if you wish to sell scripts to producers.
So, how do scriptwriters write text messages in screenplays? This post covers it all. There are 2-3 ways to write it.
- Writing Text Message in the Dialogue
This one is simple and is discussed by John August in his blog here.
- Write (Text) after the Character’s name.
- The message has to be in Italics.
Here’s an example:
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- Writing the Text Message in Action
This is useful when there is not a lot of exchange of messages. Otherwise it can get confusing.
You can also write the text message like this below.
This is how they are formatted these days and you can use any format you prefer. If you are writing a Tweet, just write The Tweet reads: “Can we meet up for dinner tonight?”
The important thing is to let readers understand that it’s a text message or a tweet that is being read by them. It’s not a dialogue.
Hollywood may adopt another style 10 years down the line. Screenplay formats are adapted to be in sync with the current trends.
I imagine how we’ll be writing conversations in Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in the near future.
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