How many spaces after a period.

[Aditus]

I had to chuckle.  One of my beta readers and I had a discussion about this not to long ago.  He asked me why I kept double spacing after a period and I told him it was how I was taught.  He told me it was wrong and was fixing them.  I told him no it wasn't and to stop fixing them.  Needless to say, I double space.  It's how I was taught and it's how I still do it.  It looks wrong to me if I don't.

I sat on my hands for about five minutes because I didn't want to comment on your statement, my hands won. We had some changes in how to spell certain words, how and when to use the comma etc. The discussion was very heated, but now it's over and I would be a very bad editor to ignore those new rules, although my fingers twitch every now and then. I was taught to write daß, but it's dass now. *shrugs*

[Pete Bruno]

White space in a document is important visually and I always use a double space after a period.  I was trained that way in typing class in the early 1960's (and yes they had electric typewriters back then).  As I recall, WordPerfect which was the first really good word processing software suggested it.  MS Word which supplanted it did in the earlier versions as well, but I have not kept up with it as I still use Word 2000.  

 

Fortunately, GA does not impose the single space rule after a period or a colon!

I agree, it is important in a document as it is in an advertisement.  Selling newsprint advertising we were always taught that the more white space in the ad, the more eyes it drew. 

[Former Member]

I sat on my hands for about five minutes because I didn't want to comment on your statement, my hands won. We had some changes in how to spell certain words, how and when to use the comma etc. The discussion was very heated, but now it's over and I would be a very bad editor to ignore those new rules, although my fingers twitch every now and then. I was taught to write daß, but it's dass now. *shrugs*

 

I was in high school studying German and my teacher said they were moving away from using the ß.  But it was just so convenient that it became habit even though I was told not to use it. *shrug*

 

As for the double space.  I just spent the past fifteen minutes trying to unlearn the double space.  But it's just not something I can do.  My fingers automatically put in a double space.  10 sentences that I had to go back and fix.  10 sentences that took me fifteen minutes.  And they weren't complex or anything!  So for sake of my sanity and general writing speed, I am sticking with the single space.  My hands don't know any different XD

[Mark Arbour]

One of the easiest ways to deal with the double space if you're not used to using a single space is to go ahead and type with the double space, then do a search and replace in your document (using Word, presumably) to get rid of them.  

[Former Member]

One of the easiest ways to deal with the double space if you're not used to using a single space is to go ahead and type with the double space, then do a search and replace in your document (using Word, presumably) to get rid of them.  

 

If it ever comes down to a point where I need to NOT double space, I'll keep that in mind.  That seems so much easier than trying to unlearn it.  Thanks!

[Sara Alva]

I had to let go of the double spacing when I decided to publish. Smashwords' meatgrinder (formats in epub, mobi, pdf, etc.) does not like double spacing, and I'm pretty sure Kindle direct doesn't either. So if you're publishing on your own or going w/ a publisher, you'll need those spaces out of there. All the ebook formats tend to do automatic full justification, so the extra spaces can cause problems (or at least, that's what they say. I haven't tempted fate).

 

But as Mark said, it's easy to take 'em out. I did it with my first novel (find and replace) and it wasn't too painful.

Edited July 31, 2013 by KingdombytheSea

[Zombie]

If it ever comes down to a point where I need to NOT double space, I'll keep that in mind.  That seems so much easier than trying to unlearn it.  Thanks!

 

 

Oh no!   Now we need a thread on splitting infinitives!

[Former Member]

Oh no!   Now we need a thread on splitting infinitives!

 

SHHHH.

[Pete Bruno]

Great article, a little off point but I think it fits well. 

http://www.american.com/archive/2013/august/the-words-they-are-a-changing

[CassieQ]

I must be way out of the loop.  I had no idea there was controversy over single vs. double spacing after a period or another controversy over the Oxford comma.  I double space after my period.  I don't think I could change it if I wanted to, I've been doing it so long.  It was how I was taught in my typing class way back in middle school.  No-one has seemed to have a problem with it yet.    

[Zombie]

Great article, a little off point but I think it fits well. 

http://www.american.com/archive/2013/august/the-words-they-are-a-changing

 

An outstanding article excellently written - like the BBC it informs, educates and entertains

 

So, should dictionaries "put the seal on the solecism" ... or not?

[Thorn Wilde]

I've never double spaced... Didn't even know it was a think until recently, and I think it looks funny.

 

(As an aside, though, I've modified how I use ellipses in my stories since the dialogue punctuation discussion, though I still write them the way I always have in informal settings.)

[Former Member]

Could it be a difference between American style writing and English style?  Sasha earlier said she had never heard of double spacing either.  But I mean, I'm relatively a youngster (wow, I really just typed that word) and I was taught to double space too back in second grade.

[LJH]

Look carefully at the double space. It is really quite handsome. Publishers will not reject a good MS because if a double spacing after a fullstop. However, make sure you follow the publisher's guidelines when submitting.

Edited August 5, 2013 by LJH

[colinian]

I always single space following a period (full stop). I always use the Oxford comma.

 

Colin

[Thorn Wilde]

I sometimes use the Oxford comma depending on how I want the sentence to flow. It all depends on the voice of the narrative for me.

[Former Member]

I've never seen the oxford comma as a style/narration thing.  It's always been a technical thing.  Interesting though.

[Thorn Wilde]

I've never seen the oxford comma as a style/narration thing.  It's always been a technical thing.  Interesting though.

 

I think comma use is general does a lot for the narrative of a story. It's like how, sometimes, I will forego the comma entirely and just use 'and' entirely without commas, because it flows. Then, sometimes, I'll add lots of commas, because it makes the sentence less flowy. Observe, original sentence:

 

 

‘You come in here with your stupidly long legs and dark hair and cheekbones that can cut glass, and what the f*ck do you call that eye colour anyway, blue-green-grey-gold?'

 

Then: 

‘You come in here with your stupidly long legs, and dark hair, and cheekbones that can cut glass, and what the f*ck do you call that eye colour anyway, blue-green-grey-gold?'

 

 

Or:

 

‘You come in here with your stupidly long legs, dark hair, cheekbones that can cut glass, and what the f*ck do you call that eye colour anyway, blue-green-grey-gold?'

 

 Or:

 

‘You come in here with your stupidly long legs, dark hair, cheekbones that can cut glass and what the f*ck do you call that eye colour anyway, blue-green-grey-gold?'

 

 

Or:

 

‘You come in here with your stupidly long legs, dark hair and cheekbones that can cut glass, and what the f*ck do you call that eye colour anyway, blue-green-grey-gold?'

 

 

You see how it changes the flow of the sentence, even if it doesn't change the meaning? It's most relevant in dialogue, but I vary it in the rest of the narrative as well. Then one can argue about the correctness of this kind of comma use until the cows come home, but I've always been of the opinion that, once you know the rules, you can bend them to your heart's content for the sake of the style or the narrative, as long as you know what you're doing. Because art.

Edited August 6, 2013 by Thorn Wilde

[Zombie]

I sometimes use the Oxford comma depending on how I want the sentence to flow. It all depends on the voice of the narrative for me.

 

 

That's a good approach - goes back to Cia's advice to read aloud your own writing. If it sounds well then it will read well. A comma, as well as other things, suggests a slight pause. So if your story is read aloud and a slight pause sounds right then use a comma.

 

It's like musical notation, which has an arsenal of symbols that can be used to guide the performer of the composer's intention as to how a score should be played.

[Former Member]

Thorn just rattled my brain...><*  just too dead XDD

[Thorn Wilde]

That's a good approach - goes back to Cia's advice to read aloud your own writing. If it sounds well then it will read well. A comma, as well as other things, suggests a slight pause. So if your story is read aloud and a slight pause sounds right then use a comma.

 

It's like musical notation, which has an arsenal of symbols that can be used to guide the performer of the composer's intention as to how a score should be played.

 

Ooh, I love the musical simile! That is so, so true.

Thorn just rattled my brain...><*  just too dead XDD

 

Aww, I'm sorry, sweet!

[Former Member]

Too much coffee, not enough ACTUAL ATP.

[FSUstringer]

My first editor at the very first newspaper I worked at broke me of double spacing after periods. I had always been taught through school to double space. At the same time I have seen editors who could care less if there was double spacing after a period. I have learned to adapt to the whims of who I am working for at the time. However, for the most part, I use a single space after periods.

[Former Member]

I emailed my old writing teacher about this and she said something very interesting. Or more like asked. She asked me what I would do if I was handwriting something. And the truth of it is, I use a larger space after a full stop even in long form. By no means a hard truth, because it certainly seems more like a style thing, but it certainly is fomenting interesting to think about, IMO.

[The Pecman]

If it ever comes down to a point where I need to NOT double space, I'll keep that in mind.  That seems so much easier than trying to unlearn it.  Thanks!

 

If you're ever published in traditional print, your editors will chide you for the double space, because it's a waste of paper and looks bad typographically. They'll just run a global search (as Mark says above) and replace two spaces with one space. Very standard deal at newspapers, magazines, and book publishers. 

 

I learned to type back in 1967 (which dates me) and stuck with two spaces for more than two decades, but broke myself of the habit by the late 1980s, when I was frequently contributing to newsstand magazines. Even then, my last pass of the completed manuscript would always include a two-space/one-space search, and there would inevitably be a few stragglers in there. That still happens even today.

 

It ain't the end of the world. I'd worry a lot more if the story has guts and if it makes sense and if it grabs the reader. Spaces are of trivial importance in the grand scheme of things, but once you get the hard stuff like plot and character out of the way, it's not that big a deal to fix the minutiae.

 

Read this essay on double- vs. single-spacing between sentences on Wikipedia:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing

 

And read Robert Bringhurst's book The Elements of Typographic Style, which explains a lot of this stuff in extreme detail. There's an art to great typographic design, and kerning, hair spaces, and sentence spacing are all part of it. Not a simple subject. 

Edited August 14, 2013 by The Pecman