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Comment by _Microft | Hacker News Reader

Are there any books that use different fonts or font sizes to convey for example feelings of a character? Large bold font when they feel strong; tiny, scribbled text when they feel frightened, and so on?

There might be a few things that could be explored here, turning a book from a simple way to present text into an indispensable part of the piece it contains.

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Not for emotions, but House of Leaves makes excessive use of different fonts and typesetting techniques to interesting effect.

House of Leaves made me scared of my own house for months. +1

I'm thinking of Death in Terry Pratchett's Discworld, who speaks in sᴍᴀʟʟ ᴄᴀᴘs.

And that full page NO.

Works best in the hardcover where the text doesn’t leak through the page.

And if you want a perfectly cast voice in your head for him, play Discworld II for the PC.

According to IMDB¹, that was Rob Brydon. Although I thought that the voice of Death in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather (2006) was good (by Ian Richardson).

1. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199468/

I found Sir Terry to be great with various mannerisms and speech patterns he devised for his characters. Just this small detail can add so much memorability to a character who may have been relatively minor otherwise. Like Inigo Skimmer's regular "mmh-mmph" in The Fifth Elephant which could be a sarcastic snigger or a nervous laugh and to some degree it is left up to the imagination of the reader to interpret it based. It somehow makes the character relatable and realistic.

Interesting. The ambiguity itself must create the kind of mental state associated with empathy. Clever trick for a writer of fiction, I'll have to steal that.

Check out House of Leaves. Some sections have text in every orientation possible. A engrossing and difficult, but rewarding, read. I now want to read it again.

I believe this was done occasionally in A Series of Unfortunate Events.

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