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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40214
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40214
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

What should be guiding you with formatting in creative writing is first and foremost clarity. If your intent is clear, easily understandable, doesn't require the reader to stop and wonder what's going on, that's good enough. Often more than one option of formatting exists. It is, however, very important that you stick with one way of formatting throughout.

Now, it is a good idea to see how published books format similar texts, since those influence, and are influenced by, readers' expectations. Which in turn makes this formatting easier to follow (it's all about conventions, after all).

Tolkien, in _The Lord of the Rings_ uses _italics_ for written notes - a nice visual way of indicating cursive. New paragraph, of course, but no indent for the section. Verse embedded in the note is centre-aligned, as is all verse in the novel.

> Inside, written in the wizard's strong but graceful script, was the following message:
> 
> _THE PRANCING PONY, BREE. Midyear's Day, Shire Year, 1418._
> 
> _Dear Frodo,  
> Bad news has reached me here. [...]_    
> (J.R.R. Tolkien, _The Lord of the Rings_, Book I, chapter 10 - Strider)

In _Pride and Prejudice_, at least in my copy, there's not even _italics_ - only a new line. Not even a double line break, for that matter.

> With no expectation of pleasure, but with the strongest curiosity, Elizabeth opened the letter [...] It was dated from Rosings, at eight o'clock in the morning, and was as follows:  
> Be not alarmed, Madam, on receiving this letter [...]  
> (Jane Austen, _Pride and Prejudice_, chapter 35)

_Harry Potter_ uses both _italics_ and an indent.

All examples are of long letters, rather than one-line notes, but even with a short note, I'd start a new line. The same way you start a new line every time a different character speaks - here it's the note "speaking", but that makes no difference.

(I have seen a one-line note in-line with more text, in _Les Trois Mousquetaires_, but I'm not sure if formatting conventions were different at the time in French - they certainly are different in how dialogue is formatted, or if something else guided that decision.)

Original score: 1