One Space After a Sentence or Two?
Writers can get in the most heated debates over the smallest of things. Try telling a writer she has to use Times New Roman font or 25 lines of text per page. You'll see sheer ugliness.
You can almost count the seconds until someone informs everyone she's written 7,000 best-selling novels in Comic Sans MS font and her publishers have never said a word.
But one argument that always makes me snicker is the one-space/two-space argument. You see, back in the old days, it was customary for there to be two spaces after every typed sentence. We're talking these old days...
Professional editors and typographers say there should be one space after a sentence. It's in both the Modern Language Association Style Manual and the Chicago Manual of Style. It was officially changed to one space years ago.
Yet, as this article pointed out, there are numerous people who will vehemently argue that there should be two spaces after every sentence.
Aside from driving your copy editors crazy once you're published, there's another downfall to using two spaces: it dates you. Since most editors and agents these days have never even touched a typewriter, they were never taught to do things this way. Besides, since many editors and agents are grammarians by nature, you just might be driving them crazy with your extra-spacey manuscript.
On another note, how cute is this cover from fellow Aladdin M!x author Gail Nall's upcoming release? Love it! Click to add it to your Goodreads list.
You can almost count the seconds until someone informs everyone she's written 7,000 best-selling novels in Comic Sans MS font and her publishers have never said a word.
But one argument that always makes me snicker is the one-space/two-space argument. You see, back in the old days, it was customary for there to be two spaces after every typed sentence. We're talking these old days...
Professional editors and typographers say there should be one space after a sentence. It's in both the Modern Language Association Style Manual and the Chicago Manual of Style. It was officially changed to one space years ago.
Yet, as this article pointed out, there are numerous people who will vehemently argue that there should be two spaces after every sentence.
Aside from driving your copy editors crazy once you're published, there's another downfall to using two spaces: it dates you. Since most editors and agents these days have never even touched a typewriter, they were never taught to do things this way. Besides, since many editors and agents are grammarians by nature, you just might be driving them crazy with your extra-spacey manuscript.
On another note, how cute is this cover from fellow Aladdin M!x author Gail Nall's upcoming release? Love it! Click to add it to your Goodreads list.
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