Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemurion
It's generally seen as wrong when combined with indented paragraphs. As a rule, you get one or the other.
The block paragraphs (no indents) and blank space system works, but it leads to problems with longer documents. If every paragraph has a space after it, it's hard to distinguish scene breaks unless there's a symbol that divides them. Indented paragraphs provide more flexibility because you can use spaces for something else, and they make it easier to tie paragraphs together as a unit.
|
Exactly. The idea of a blank line between paragraphs never even really appeared, in any recreational reading, prior to the advent of the web and the then-inability to create first-line indented paragraphs for reading. Only textbooks and that type of non-fiction material used white-space to indicate the change from one paragraph to another, primarily because said book would also include other formatting challenges (say, bulleted/numbered lists, charts, tables) that would look peculiar with the traditional first-line-indent paragraphy style.
I mean: just walk around your own bookshelves and pick up books at random and look at them. You will not, in fiction, see any--not one--that has white-space between paragraphs, or block-style. It's a massive waste of space (which is even more valuable on an e-reader) and increased printing costs. I've seen myriad complaints (and read them first-hand from people coming to us to "fix" books that they've self-pubbed) from readers with devices sending emails to Amazon, etc., about how much of their screen-space is wasted by block-style paragraphs for no reason. Smartphone and small tablet readers are particularly aggravated by this, it seems.
FWIW.
Hitch