Abstract: Creating an animated communication includes receiving from a user a series of inputs, wherein the series of inputs defines turns at expression to be taken by a plurality of avatars, wherein at least one of the turns comprises a plurality of expressive modalities that collectively forms a single turn, and wherein at least one of the turns makes use of a virtual writing surface that is shared by the avatars, and rendering the animated communication in accordance with the inputs subsequently to the receiving. Editing a document, such as an animated communication or a portion thereof, includes rendering the document as a sequence of dynamic frames, detecting an input made by a user during the rendering, identifying a dynamic frame of the sequence of dynamic frames whose time of rendering corresponds to a time of the input, and replacing at least a portion of the dynamic frame with the input.