"Writing Underwear"

      I’ve been reading a lot lately about fonts and the proper formatting for novels, so I decided to write this brief blog post. Fonts and formatting are truly like underwear for us writers. We all have one that we find comfortable, and will stick to it like our favorite kind of underwear. If we try something new, it feels odd like switch from boxers to briefs. Once we go back to our usual, we don’t feel so restrictive. Fonts and formatting boil down to personal preference, but in the end, there are some that you shouldn’t parade around in public. Also, consider this blog the same as shopping for underwear: find and do what makes you comfortable, but if unsure, nothing wrong with taking some advise.

     First of all, I’m going to get the one font that no one uses at all in the writing world. Comic Sans in the writing world is like edible thongs. No one will look at you without laughing if you publish anything in this font. You can write the greatest novel ever, but once they see it’s in Comic Sans, it will most likely end up in the trash. That, or you’ll get a very quick response to change the font like you wore a pair of edible thongs to a business meeting. My advice is to never use it at all, not even for a school paper.

     With that out of the way, let’s move on to the “tighty whities” of the writing world: Times New Roman. This font is the old, reliable font we all know, and most of us used at first, just like briefs. Some of us never moved on to more exotic things, enjoying the feeling of comfort we grew up with. In fact, every writing guide I have ever read said this is the safest choice for a font. I’m not ashamed to admit this is the only font I use for writing. Even my book on Kindle is formatted for Times New Roman. Again, it’s what I’m comfortable with using.

      Now, there are other safe fonts out there. If I had to choose another font to use besides Times, Arial would be my second choice. I love Garamond, but some people, like my editor, find it hard to read. A few other safe fonts I think are Book Antiqua, Bookman Old Style, Century, and Verdana. Helvatica was another safe one, but that’s no longer included in all modern word processing programs. It is still available online if you really need it. In fact, can be found here.

      Then there’s the new font out there introduced with Office 2007: Calibri. Calibri, to me, is like speedos. You think it might look good, but there’s a major flaw with using it for heavy writing. When using Calibri, capital i’s and lower-care l’s look exactly alike. This would drove my editor nuts since one of my characters is named William. I’m not sure the purpose of introducing this font, but that glaring flaw has made me steer clear of it.

      Of course, there’s those exotic fonts, which like some kinds of underwear, will either make you or your readers very uncomfortable. Fonts such as Wingdings, Webdings Papyrus, etc have no place in writing. They’re the skid marks of the publishing world. I’m not sure why they are even installed at all, but I guess someone might have a use for them. I might have 1,000 fonts on my system, but I stick to about five, and the big two are Garamond and Times.

      Far as switching fonts, my advise is to stick to one overall throughout the manuscript. I might use Courier to simulate a computer screen, and I also have a font installed that actually looks like an old school typewriter. After that, everything is in Times, even my chapter titles. There’s nothing worse than seeing a chapter where each character is a different font. It would be like changing underwear every hour. Again, only use a different font if it makes sense, and not to be creative.

      The last thing I want to discuss is formatting. I don’t think there’s any wrong or right way to format in this day and age since everything is electronic. Anyone can adjust it if need be, but a reader should be able to tell where one paragraph ends, and another one begins at least. When in doubt, this is the defacto standard, briefs of formatting which is the one I use as well:

1) 1” margins all around

2) Double spaced paragraphs

3) Easy to read, 12 pt font.

      Overall, like underwear, to each their own. However, even one Google search will tell you that there are some widely accepted guidelines when it comes to font and formatting. Does it stifle your ability to write? I never thought so. Besides, what’s the point of writing a story when no one can read it clearly enough to make it past the first page? So, until the industry changes, I will use the tighty whity font and formatting with pride.