DITCHWALK

A Road Less Traveled

Topics / Books / Docs

About / Archive / Contact

Copyright © 2002-2023 Mark Barrett 

Home > Archives for Space

Space and the Storytelling Reflex

April 26, 2014 By Mark Leave a Comment

The picture you see below is a composite image of the Eagle Nebula titled The Pillars of Creation. It was created in 1995 from photographs taken by the Hubble space telescope, and became instantly famous upon its release.

Whether you’ve seen the image before or not, I still remember my initial reaction because I laughed out loud. To see why, take a moment and ask yourself how that image was edited in order to make it so awe inspiring. When you’ve made your best guess — or, if you’re the inattentive type, when you’ve finished reading this sentence — click the link to read on.   [ Read more ]

Filed Under: ~ Tangents Tagged With: Space, storytelling

The Importance of Scale

April 23, 2014 By Mark Leave a Comment

Much of writing and storytelling involves putting the reader in the right head space so they can understand and even feel what you’re trying to communicate. It’s much more art than science, but it’s also necessary: if you don’t frame issues and provide critical context you can’t maximize the impact of what you have to say.

In many cases this is easily done, but not always. Whether looking for a needle in a haystack or an airliner in the ocean, human beings are notoriously terrible at gauging scale, and that’s true even when asked to give an estimate of something familiar like the size of a bedroom or kitchen. Tell the average person the footpath they’re following rises two thousand feet in three miles and they’ll probably think nothing of it, but an hour later they’ll be taking an extended break if not turning back.

This inability to comprehend scale cuts both ways, however, particularly when vast distances are involved. What we don’t understand can also open the door to plausible-sounding ideas that are in fact beyond fantasy, including space travel. Yes, you can visit the moon if you have the right equipment, but sending humans to Mars and back isn’t simply a longer voyage, it’s an entirely different animal. As for making the leap to interstellar flight the reality isn’t daunting it’s disqualifying, yet most people don’t know that because they don’t understand how vast such distances truly are.

This is how vast.

When you get tired of scrolling there are buttons at the top of the screen that will speed your journey, but they will also necessarily blunt your understanding. Stick with it until you get to Mars if you can. It’s worth it.

— Mark Barrett

Filed Under: ~ Tangents Tagged With: context, Space

Two Spaces After a Period

January 19, 2011 By Mark 70 Comments

It is acceptable to use two spaces after a period.

Why am I moved to make this declaration? Because every so often a typographic tyrant goes off their OCD medication and launches a caustic diatribe at anyone who prefers to use two spaces between adjoining sentences. These deranged attacks, absurd as they are, can do real damage to writers. Ditchwalk will not tolerate anyone who uses authority or prominence to ridicule or intimidate writers, or in any way make writing more difficult than it already is.

The Question in Context
As a writer of any kind — private, professional, traditional, experimental — you have two obligations. The first is to be honest about your own intentions. The second is to communicate your intentions to the intended reader as effectively as possible.

These obligations hold whether you are writing an email to a single person or publishing a work for the masses. They remain your responsibility even if you choose to involve others in the process. Agents, editors, publishers, typographers and others who make a living off authorship are peripheral to your work as a writer. They may be central to your goals as a business person, they may be central to your ability to produce a physical book or e-book file, but they are not writers.

You are a writer. Your job is to write for your readers. That’s true whether you’re an established author or just starting out. The problem, of course, is that when you’re just starting out you’re not sure what you’re doing. Complicating matters is the fact that some of the agents, editors, publishers, typographers and others who make a living off authorship will gladly claim expertise and authority even in matters they know nothing about. This includes everything from telling you what your obligations are as a writer to how many blank spaces should follow a period.

Why would someone do this? Because it makes money. Because they are control freaks. Because they genuinely believe their little corner of the universe is the only thing that matters. Because they have confused the needs of the reader with the demands of the market. Because they hate the fact that you can write and they can’t. Take your pick.

Whether you choose to defer to peripheral voices or ignore them, no choice voids your basic obligations as a writer. There are no shortcuts. You must ask and answer a million questions in order to write well. At times you may find there is no agreement about an issue. In those instances you will have to choose what you prefer or think best, not what’s right or true.

The most important thing I can tell you about navigating any writing issue is this. The second most important thing I can tell you is to always keep perspective. Relative to the eternal obligations of every author, the question of how many spaces should follow a period is a flea on the great stellar flank of our galaxy.

You should also be particularly wary of any agent, editor, publisher, typographer or other person peripheral to the writer-reader relationship who uses a claim of expertise to cow you into conformity. Authorship is about making conscious, informed choices, not about blindly accepting the opinions of others.

How many writers have ever said that two spaces after a period is a sign of amateurism? How many writers would dismiss your content outright if you used two spaces instead of one? Is this a common source of discussion at writing workshops and retreats? Have you ever seen a breakout session at a convention titled The Two-Space Debate? Has anyone ever said, in the entire history of the world, “This would have been a great book, but because the author used two spaces after a period it is an unmitigated disaster.”

If you are writing a book narrowly targeted at people who believe two spaces after a period is a portent of the End Times, then yes, you should probably use a single space after a period. Other than that, you should learn as much about this and every other issue as you can, then make your own case-by-case decisions.

For myself, I have generally used two spaces after a period to no ill effect. No one who has ever paid me money to write, or ever received a document written by me, has ever asked me to use a single space after a period, or even commented about my practice. Recently, however, after twenty-five years of writing, I did come across an instance in which I found two spaces to be distracting, and I will expand on that experience below.

In the remainder of this post I intend to: dismantle a recent diatribe against the use of two spaces after a period; explain when and why I use one space or two spaces after a period; make the case that excessive interest in this issue should be included as classification criteria in DSM-5.  [ Read more ]

Filed Under: ~ Tangents, Publishing Tagged With: one, Space, two