Use spacing and action text to clarify the speaker
Start with paragraph breaks where description gives way to speech or a question. You can keep a roleplay readable with ordinary writing; decorative marks around every sentence are not necessary to establish the scene.
To mark an action, enclose it in asterisks and keep the dialogue distinct. For example: *folds the timetable and looks up* Is the last train still running? The movement and the spoken question are recognizable without explaining the symbols in the story.
Check the marks before adding more emphasis
If formatting symbols remain visible, see whether the opening and closing marks match. Text pasted from elsewhere may contain substituted punctuation or extra characters that affect how those marks are read.
Use emphasis where it helps one word or observation stand out. When everything is emphasized, nothing is distinguished. Divide long descriptions and quotations into readable passages, particularly for a phone screen.
Do not confuse visual formatting with control or privacy
A code block or quotation is not a private compartment within a message. It changes the display without hiding the contents from the service processing the chat. Keep credentials, payment details and private identifiers out of formatted text too.
Brackets alone do not give an instruction system-level authority. Director Mode accepts /cmd followed by a writing instruction, or OOC: for the same purpose. Be specific about a requested change of pace or style; these instructions guide the scene without overriding our content rules.
Questions
How can I show an action separately from spoken dialogue?
Wrap the action in asterisks and give the spoken line a clear speaker. Keeping the action brief avoids crowding several movements and voices into one difficult passage.
Are message formatting and generation settings different controls?
Yes. Markdown concerns how text is presented; generation settings concern how the model produces a reply. Neither replaces a coherent prompt or a clear character definition.