The Girl from Plainville found a way to depict communication via text messages that challenges our reality

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"Plenty of shows and movies have been faced with this dilemma: how do you convey the same caliber of emotional scenes when they’re happening in written words – sometimes even shorthand?" says Lauren Waters. "So much power and detail is lost this way. Yet, removing important dialogue that happens in text message conversations makes it impossible to tell so many important stories. The Girl From Plainville is a perfect example of this. The series’ main characters, Coco and Michelle, communicate almost entirely via text message. This means that this is how many of the important moments, conflict, and relationship-building between the two characters happens. From texts scrawled across the screen to closeups of characters' phones or message bubbles popping up in the middle of scenes to voiceovers, viewers have seen many attempts at conveying text conversations in an engaging way to television audiences. The Girl From Plainville had its work cut out for it in this way, but in the end, the decision was both risky and smart. Rather than trying to convey layers of emotion through the text messages, the text messages were brought to life."