I now find myself questioning my reasons... It is decided... Single Space! (so I can fit more of the good stuff in)

Movie Magic Screenwriter defaults to two spaces after a period. Nothing I can do!

Those of us over 40 are probably too set in our ways to change now. I, personally, would rather focus on what I'm writing than try to break a habit that I don't even notice when I type. I have, however, taken advantage of the accepted one-space rule when I spot rivers and have exhausted my rewording skills to no avail. It kind of cracks me up when people get all bent out of shape about two spaces, though ; )

I am a stickler for these sorts of things, and as such, I will continue to use a double space in my screenplays. Screenwriting is far and away the most compact and free-flowing of writing styles and I find that the extra space improves legibility and ease of read (particularly in dialogue) but I understand the arguments against it, namely that single-spacing potentially saves you page count, but to counter: using a double space forces you to be even more concise and streamlined in your writing, which is never a bad thing. On the flipside, I will however continue to use a single space in all other forms of writing. Go figure.

I agree, Donna: it is amazing what people are willing to turn into a holy war. There are pros and cons to both arguements and I'm agnostic on the issue. (I'm not agnostic, however, on the bombast and hyperbole in the original article: hystrionics may be cathartic for the writer, but are more likely to galvanize opposition than to win over the reader.) Here's a tip for anyone who learned to type with two spaces and now finds situations where you'd prefer to use one: search and replace is your friend.

The double space certainly doesn't improve readability for me, since every single time I see it I cringe, shudder, and have to make a concerted effort to continue reading despite the overwhelming weight of my own impulsive disdain. (I know I sound hyperbolic, but I have a similar automatic response to typos and grammatical errors, which serves me well as a freelance copyeditor.) In my opinion, the double space looks even worse in screenplay format than normal prose. I honestly struggle not to categorically dismiss a writer for doing this, just because I find it so irksome to look at over and over again.

Apparently computer fonts are designed to look best with a single spaces after the period. And thankfully HTML doesn't allow double spaces, so websites are safe. It's only an issue with fixed-width fonts when there is no kerning between the letters. This includes Courier, which screenplays are typed in, so screenplays should have a double space after the period.

Caitlin, that makes me wonder how many idiosyncrasies we all have in our own scripts that drive readers crazy. When I writer uses 'hoi polloi' with an article, or uses 'plethora' to mean 'many' (and not to mean 'too many'), I struggle not to dismiss the writer, too.

aha! Inevitably, when writing about writing peeves, I am left craving an edit button. Eh bien.

No biggie to me. But I will continue to use 2 spaces on comments and replies. Why? Because I type up a lot of my messages on MS Word, edit them there, then simply paste it over to the blog I am responding to. Usually, the "window" provided is the size of a postage stamp, so I prefer to do it this way. Sometimes - and I really hate this - you are TIMED if you answer right there in their "window" (like with my f***ing bank), so the above also solves that problem 100%. Now, many of the blogs automatically SCRUNCH up your reply when it gets over there. So if you go single spaced, it looks terrible when it comes out. But if you go double, one of two things happens: a) when it gets SCRUNCHED, then it comes out as single spaced (and readable); or b) it remains double spaced (and readable). Since the goal is to read the message, I don't care about counting spaces. I care about the content of the message. John A

Just wondered: what's wrong with 'hoi polloi'? ('Plethora' I absolutely agree with! :) )

I used to double space for clarity. Now I single space. What changed in between? I got reading glasses...

In Sweden we have always had a single space after a full stop. Even when we were using old typewriters. I hadn't even seen it until I came across one of these strangely formatted scripts. Two spaces are awkward to read. It's like I need to hesitate after every sentence. Like it's slippery and I slide between the "." and the following capital letter. Most of all, there is no neeeeed for all those empty spaces. Not today. Not when a computer can fix any proper space needed for you. Then it is a far more relevant discussion when to use all the different lengths of "-".

I think two spaces looks better in general, but it just doesn't look right with screenplays. Just stands out every time. I'm a double-spacer, and will remain as such for the time being. I find it much easier on the eye regardless of what type of print, and in particular when it comes to certain internet sites and comment boards. Like this one. Side note: style and etiquette in such matters are not fixed, as language is far from immutable. Getting irate about this is short sighted and naive.

Vic, I agree with your side note 100%. Save the panic attack for later. Shortly after we moved to Russia, the World Cup was being played, and I bought a local magazine from a street kiosk . I was amazed. It had 2 covers - front and back. And I don't mean ads on the back - I mean an entirely seperate SECOND cover! Then I opened it up. The table of contents was in the back. Wow! The articles proceeded from back-to-front. I complained to my wife: "Look at this shit. They can't even do a sports magazine right" (obviously, she was the Russophile, not me. I was the F.O.O.W.). My wife shot back: "Ah - that's pretty common over here. Get used to it. If it bothers you, just don't buy it". My wife was (as she usually is) right. No biggie! John A

Hi, shinyford. "Hoi" means "the" in Greek, so if you write "the hoi polloi", you're really writing "the the many." The problem isn't with "hoi polloi", it's with putting the redundant "the" in front. It's a bit like downscale restaurants with upscale aspiration that put "with au jus" on the menu. I have an erudite polyglot friend who drilled this into me and now I notice it everywhere. No one studies classics anymore (as much as I wanted to, I never had the opportunity), so "the hoi polloi" has crept into usage because no one knows better. You can certainly get away with using "the" with "hoi polloi", but once you know the difference, it grates. And it's a bit of a shibboleth with really rarified linguistic peevers! (I'm not one really, by the way; this is just a conditioned response with me, courtesy of the insistent friend.) Not unlike the scene in Gosford Park where a poser is asked if he wants milk or lemon with his tea and he answers "yes". I suspect not many of use have occasion to use "hoi polloi" in screenwriting. But if you ever want to write a language peever, there's one more bee for your character's bonnet!

Facts: * Two spaces after the end of a sentence was taught because of typewriters. The logic went that having two spaces between sentences made text easier to read. * The technical reason for the legibility issue was the fact that text from typewriters was monospaced, that is, each character took up the same width as any other character. Modern TrueType and OpenType fonts are proportional, that is, the letters I and J take up less width than an M or W, etc which solves the legibility issue. So there is no modern need to type two spaces after each sentence. * Additionally, all webpages are written in HTML. Unless you are using an editor that specifically converts multiple subsequent spaces into non-breaking spaces (which is unfortunately fairly common), then multiple adjacent spaces will always display as a single space. Writing in pure HTML will always display multiple spaces, tabs, line breaks, and other forms of "whitespace" as a single space.

Wow. I have never heard of typing two spaces after a period in my entire life. I guess I missed the age of the typewriter. Let me try it. There we go. I can't believe anyone would actually do this on a computer. It looks odd.