Space Cadet

Here's another one of those articles arguing that one should never put two spaces after a period when one is writing. I not only don't think that's right, I don't recognize that those who claim this have any sort of authority to declare it wrong. You don't like the way it looks with two spaces? Fine. I don't like the way it looks with one space. You have nothing on your side except a couple of Manuals of Style that put forth all sorts of "rules" that most of us don't follow all the time. Stop lecturing me like some governing body has made a law I'm not following.

Typographers say we should have one space instead of two? Well, that's lovely but I'm not a typographer. 98% of the time, I'm not setting type and designing printed pages. I write manuscripts that are intended for people to read. Typographers are usually out to make it pretty and legible — and I think some these days prefer pretty over legible. But all I really care about is legible.

Also, almost no typographers these days work in Courier and their "rules" presume that you're working in proportional fonts. My screenplays and teleplays are in Courier, a non-proportional font. When I write in prose form, what matters is that my script can be read. No one's intake of these pieces has even been harmed or encumbered in any way by two spaces after a period.

I also write this blog, of course. The spacing between sentences is governed by the software so I have no control over that. It doesn't matter how many spaces I put between sentences. I type two, it puts in one. I can live with that. My point is that when I do have a choice, I like two.

I think two spaces makes text easier to read. And as near as I can tell, the argument against two is not that one space makes it easier but that two aren't necessary. Listen, as far as I'm concerned, nothing I write is necessary so that's not an argument to me.

You know what's really not necessary? This "rule" about one space. I'm sorry…I have a natural tendency to question "rules" for writers and I think one of the key things to being a creative writer (as opposed to, say, a technical writer) is to decide which rules to ignore. It's kinda like the way they tell us there's no such word as "kinda." Or when they tell us we're not allowed to start a sentence with a coordinating conjunction like I just did. I want my writing to read the way I want it to read which most of the time is a friendly, informal tone not unlike the way I talk. Too many of the rules that are made for writers are designed to make us all sound bland and identical.

If I'm writing for a magazine that wants all its writers to have much the same voice, that's a different matter. I don't do a lot of that…and when I do, nobody has ever complained about how many spaces I have between the sentences. They may not like the sentences but they never care about how much air comes between them.

The idea here is communication. One person writes something. Someone else reads it. If the reader's ability to get what the writer wrote is impaired by that second space after a period then the reader is probably too stupid or distracted to understand anything. I get the feeling that those who scold you for two spaces have no real case unless it's a case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.