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Q&A Using font to highlight a god's speech in dialogue

Visually distinguishing a character's dialogue is not a bad idea. Sir Terry Pratchett used this tool quite a lot. Most notably, his Death spoke in ALL CAPS, including small caps when needed. (Small...

posted 5y ago by Galastel‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-12T21:57:41Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47730
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T12:52:07Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47730
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T12:52:07Z (almost 5 years ago)
Visually distinguishing a character's dialogue is not a bad idea. Sir Terry Pratchett used this tool quite a lot. Most notably, his Death spoke in ALL CAPS, including small caps when needed. (Small caps make reading significantly easier than just all caps.) There was also a special font used for the Golems' speech in _Feet of Clay_, a character in _The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents_ spoke in **bold** , and that's just off the top of my head.

In all those cases, Pratchett used the special fonts to illustrate the fact that the voice speaking is very much an inhuman voice. Which is also what you're trying to convey.

What I would check is whether different-sized fonts render correctly on e-readers, as well as on different browsers. Any environment that lets the user change font size - you'd have to make sure it interacts well with your "bigger font". I'm not tech-savvy enough to answer that issue.

To sum up, **using some font effect to illustrate the inhumanity of a character's voice in text is perfectly fine. Using font size, specifically - make sure there are no technical issues.**

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-08-31T09:58:11Z (about 5 years ago)
Original score: 46