By definition, anyone who is considered an illiterate should not be able to read or write. But as someone who may be savvy in the keywords of forum roleplaying, illiteracy means something else entirely, and by my definition/understanding, it means: "Not being able to write a scene properly." What I mean by that are short one-liner paragraphs when it's dialogue, followed by asterisks for actions, actions that are not very fluid, and if you're lucky, not an entire wall of text. Let me try to look for an example from an old story, but what I'm probably going to provide will be more of a guideline rather than the prime example of the thing I'm asking for. Spoiler Now as authors, or really, any creative-based creator, we strive to better our works... but what if we want to l̶a̶z̶y challenge ourselves by going out of our comfort zone to be """"""humbled"""""" with style in creating anything. But before embarking that journey, I have to wonder, other than "just writing properly," are there guidelines of the Dos and Donts of more unconventional writing styles? In my head, I'm thinking of a sexting-styled story, something that a friend of mine by the name of Selzara is doing with a story of his. And I also know another writer who does this kind of stuff, but their reputation is not as solid from what I have seen in the comments of their story. Before my train of thought derails once more, I'm basically asking this: tl;dr What do you suggest to people who can't convey a scene and rely more on "short bursts" of words?
I'm not 100% sure I get the whole post but I'll attack the tl;dr question. The first thing to consider is why you'd want to "convey a scene" rather than a series of "bursts" of thoughts. I believe the easy answer is that many readers want to be able to construct a mental scene and form meaningful connections between events in the story. If all the reader is given to chew on is strictly "this is happening now; this is how the character feels" and it isn't organized in any particular way and is given only a small amount of descriptive detail, the reader is left to do a lot of the legwork of forming the "who, what, where, why, and how" of the story. Only a reader with either a vivid imagination and too much time, or so engaged in a niche form of writing that they'll settle for seeing their interest represented anywhere, is likely to engage. So, I'd suggest that it helps writing quality to "convey a scene." How should one learn to do that? I'd say the easiest answer is really to pick up a book and see how non-experimental published writers do it, and try to ape that as a start. The nuance can be learned later, but putting an effort into basic setting, description, and characterization are where I'd recommend. ... I think the elephant in the room is really that such "thought burst" stories are often missing more than just proper literary construction: they're missing basics of English writing like capitalization, punctuation, and grammar. Ignoring why specifically those things are helpful, my answer of why those things are important really isn't to be snobbish or gatekeeping: it's that the average reader's brain is probably going to be so programmed to expect those things in writing that lacking them will distract them. Upon encountering the lack, it will be natural for a potential reader to find the story difficult to read and to back out before learning if the story itself is engaging or not.
This reminds me of a short horror story I wrote a few years ago in which the entire action was almost completely conveyed via a chatlog. Oh look I found it https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/Scary_Places Not sure if that is exactly what you are looking for, but I like this type of thing. Although I wager it would be quite hard to write something erotic like this lol
I think the first "Do" is to ask why you're choosing to write the story in this fashion. The 'rules' of writing developed over time because they're good for storytelling. I'm as punk rock as the next guy, but before I would significantly deviate from that I'd ask what I hoped to gain out of it. Texting gives you a couple advantages and a couple disadvantages over straight prose. It spares you some of the legwork of getting characters into the same area to talk, so their conversation can continue whenever is narratively important. It allows you to drop pictures [certain kinds of pictures anyway], memes, etc into the story to develop the characters without breaking immersion. It's also a commonly held experience so you have that immediate connection with the audience. Text messaging also has a certain risk since you're never totally sure who is on the other end, that's why its such a horror trope these days. Text messages are also commonly misinterpreted in real life, which allows for some types of drama that wouldn't really happen in a face-to-face interaction. One example is the phrase "She'd kill us if she had the chance." Speaking out loud, you can emphasize whichever word you want and it changes the meaning. However, telling your story via text also limits you temporally and in terms of the characters. Some people consider having serious or sexy conversations via text too risky or gauche, so they wouldn't appear in the story at all. If its exclusively via text then shoehorning in a character's thoughts or physical descriptions would feel out of place. Do those changes support your narrative?
