Affect your text with text effects

I recently edited a book written by a stand-up comedian, and it got me thinking about conveying tone using text effects. We all know how using the inflection of our voice in speech, our body language, facial expression and so on can help to convey our meaning beyond the literal words we use. This is part of why stand-up comedy works so well: a good comedian knows how to use their voice and physicality to make those jokes land and have the audience in stitches over anything from an observation about air travel, to an anecdote about air travel, to a surrealist ramble … about air travel.

But when we’re writing, we don’t have those physical or vocal tools. Our tone is flattened when we communicate using text (which is why it’s tempting to pepper written messages with emojis and exclamation points so we seem friendlier XD). There are a number of tools in writing that we can use to help convey tone, but – just like you want to take care with the number of exclamation points and smiley emojis you’re using in your emails – it’s important to learn how to use these tools effectively. That means we don’t just spam them in every which way until our novel looks like a circus flyer.

ROLL UP ROLL UP!

This sort of thing

Is What We Want

probably

TO: AVOID

I’m going to talk in this post about some of the specific tools you can use to help convey tone in your writing, how to use them most efficiently, and some common pitfalls you can avoid. This is something a lot of writers struggle with and the misuse (especially overuse) of these techniques is something that can be very damaging to reading flow and flag up a lack of writing confidence for your audience, whether that’s general readership of your book or an agent or publisher reviewing your manuscript.

Italics

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

Italics, where the words lean over a little. They’re a little fancy, a little flirty, a little extra you know?

I’m going to talk more about italics in a future post because … they perform a lot of functions in writing, for better or worse. They tend to be the ‘go to’ text effect for showing that this bit, this bit right here, is a little different to the rest of your copy. Sit up, take notice. For now, let’s talk about using italics for emphasis.

A lot of writers use italics for emphasis, particularly in dialogue. I get it. You hear how your character says the line in your head, and you want to be sure your reader replicates that inflection. Italics are useful for that because readers have been trained to put a little extra stress on an italicised word when they come across one.

What are you doing?

Italics can help make clear which word is being stressed by the speaker: what are you doing versus what are you doing? The effect of the extra emphasis on you says the question is about the person doing the thing; if you put the emphasis on doing, the question is about the action. It changes the meaning of the phrase, sometimes subtly and sometimes in important ways.

As with most text effects the key is to be careful and sparing. If italics aren’t necessary to convey some information to the reader, in general I would try to avoid them. This goes extra for italics, because in some manuscripts they might be pulling double duty as internal monologue, or non-English words, or written communication within the narrative, so you might want to think about limiting their use elsewhere. Again, we want to avoid that ‘circus flyer’ look on the typeset page.

There are other ways to convey tone without italics, and the more writing techniques you have in your repertoire, the less you need to rely on one single option.

One of the most common comments I make on a manuscript I’m editing is querying whether it’s necessary for a word to be italicised. In your writing, ask yourself: is the meaning clear without the italics? What effect am I trying to achieve? Is there another way that might better get my message across to a reader?

Bold text and capitals

Sitting next to italics, yet much less commonly utilised, is the good ol’ bold button. I’m not sure why it’s not as popular as a text effect, perhaps printing presses charge for the extra ink? I generally see bold text in non-fiction as a way to indicate a subheading, often in a list section, or sometimes to emphasise a key word or phrase alongside a definition or explanation.

Similar to italics, I urge caution when using bold text; particularly in the latter case, as scattered through a paragraph you start to get the circus flyer effect, or look like a children’s encyclopaedia.

As for fiction, you might see it more in children’s or middle grade fiction for emphasis, perhaps to produce the effect of a sound being louder.

BANG! The door slammed shut.

In adult fiction, it might be used to separate one kind of text from another; for example, if the format is an exchange of emails or text messages, the character’s names or email addresses might be in bold. You might also use it to intensify a sound or line of dialogue, but this isn’t as common in adult fiction, where an author would generally indicate volume by telling the reader a sound is loud (omg is that allowed? Telling, not showing??).

The door slammed [here the loud bang is implied because grown-ups are less fun].

Similarly, all caps (and I mean ALL CAPS) is something I would more expect to see in non-fiction (as a subhead or occasionally a mnemonic) or in work intended for younger readers, especially to indicate a loud onomatopoeia or a character shouting. I seem to remember JK Rowling utilising a lot of all caps in Harry Potter (ARE YOU A WITCH OR AREN’T YOU!? Was that all caps? I don’t think I have a copy to check but I seem to remember it being all caps). And that is the thing: it can be really effective at making a line stand out as a character really losing it and BELLOWING the line – but, the more you use it, the less effective it will be. It works well as an occasional, or even singular, effect.

In adult fiction you see it even more sparingly. In more dramatic works the odd cry of ‘NO!’ might be in evidence, but overuse is going to make the text seem more juvenile.

Finally, there’s Title Case (or Every Word Is Capitalised). This is becoming more common as an effect similar to ‘scare quotes’ or adding a ‘TM’, to indicate a character/narrator giving a (usually mock) gravitas to a phrase. Something like ‘Oh no, you didn’t touch The Most Perfect Hair On The Planet??’ Basically the author is ascribing proper noun/title status to something that wouldn’t normally hold that status.

I often tell my authors that editors are allergic to capitals, so: sparingly, for an effect, please. I don’t always have my (red) EpiPen on me.

If you’re writing in certain genres (science fiction, fantasy and self-help being the ones that come immediately to mind) you may be tempted to give proper noun status to items and concepts, to convey their importance or difference to our world. Convention these days is to avoid this as much as possible. It will tend to make speculative fiction read as dated (‘You are The One Who Was Foretold. You must find the Sword and Break the Bonds to free the People’ etc.) and otherwise just … bad? Sorry, my allergies make me less articulate. It also undermines itself as an effect the more you use it – if you use it sparingly or even uniquely to one concept, the reader will sit up and pay attention to it. If everything is equally momentous, the reader doesn’t know how to process it. You get significance soup: everything is blended and no one ingredient can distinguish itself.

I’m an editor not a chef, please don’t send me recipes for better soup.

Strikethrough and underline

Pretty straightforward. Strikethrough is usually used to indicate something a character is in denial about or doesn’t want the reader to see. Often used in diary entries or other written materials within the text.

I can’t wait to see J on the weekend. (I hope he brings M.)*

*You'll have to imagine the bracketed text is struckthrough because Wix doesn't have the feature.

See, we get the information that the writer wants to see M but doesn’t want to admit it either to themself or to the world/reader. So it fills a nice dual purpose, but there often aren’t a lot of opportunities to use it in most stories. In general, depending on the genre you’re writing in, you would likely try to achieve the same effect through subtext (of course sometimes that means trusting your reader to pick up on more subtle cues!). Or going into the character’s internal thought process.

‘Can’t wait to see you this weekend,’ she said. She almost added, will M be coming? But thought better of it.

Underline you almost never see in fiction except in written material in-universe, such as letters or diary entries. Even then it’s pretty uncommon – perhaps it’s those extra ink costs again?

Different fonts

Dropping a different font into a manuscript can differentiate a different type of text (e.g. written materials such as news stories, text messages and emails within the story). I've seen it used to distinguish between POV characters (though I'd limit this to books with just a few POVs). Another use is to signal a big shift - for example a descent into surrealism or madness, or supernatural elements colliding with the mundane. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness used a different font to show the thoughts being broadcast mentally to the main character. The more different the font, the bigger the effect, so be careful! In the example of The Knife of Never Letting Go, more text in the different font conveyed a sense of overwhelm for the protagonist, of events getting out of control, leading to the reader understanding this character was in a chaotic mental state and being unsure of where this would lead.

If you've grasped the theme, you'll correctly guess that my advice is to use sparingly and deliberately: make sure you know what you are trying to do if you're getting creative with fonts. I'm sure it goes without saying, but probably avoid Comic Sans and Papyrus too.

You can also use different font sizes to emphasise a BIG idea (mostly for works intended for younger readers) or smaller text can also be quite effective as an aside, fourth-wall break or to indicate a character muttering or otherwise speaking in a low/quiet/small voice for some in-character reason.

Do you find yourself adding or removing text effects when you edit? Do you worry readers will miss your intended tone? This stuff is a tightrope walk for sure (maybe we do need that circus flyer after all!).

For thrilling comments on your manuscript concerning italics and MORE, contact me to discuss your project.