Quote:
Originally Posted by Catlady
But the OP did not mention the use of both extra lines and indents in the same work--of course that's redundant.
A preference for indents does not mean that the use of an extra blank line instead is wrong.
ETA: Just curious. Do you folks who change formatting to echo that of paper books want all lines justified?
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I don't think an extra blank line is wrong, but it does make a lot of fiction harder to read because it makes it more difficult to distinguish between a scene break and a paragraph break.
In my own writing, I use a block paragraph with a space before it to start each scene or chapter. I use indented paragraphs thereafter. It makes it easy for readers to see things like changes in POV and reduces reader confusion. If I were to use blank spaces between paragraphs, I'd have to find another way to distinguish scene changes.
It's not something I do to replicate a paper book on a screen, it's something I do because it's the most efficient way to delineate the difference between scene and paragraph changes. I do it the same way in print and electrons because both sets of readers need to be able to distinguish the two.
On the other hand, I do use ragged right on electronic releases because it reflows better than justified text. So for me, it makes sense to break from print practice on justification but not in paragraphing.
In short, I'm not replicating paper so much as applying the same solution to a common problem: how to distinguish new scenes from new paragraphs.