Point Counterpoint offers differing literary views on various topics.  This one discusses justification. 

 

“To Justify or Not to Justify: That is the Question”

By S. L. Kotar

I will dispense with your Counterpoint forthwith. I am not speaking (technically, typing) of what you are required to send to your publisher. I am referring to the screen you look at when you are creating. Prior to its being edited, proofed and taken out of your control. In other words, the real deal before cretins muck it up: complain about word count, have fits over grammar (those who are adept at grammar grow up to be editors; those freethinking souls who can’t remember whether it’s “she and I,” or, “she and me,” blossom into creators. Those who can do neither, of course, become actors.).

It is my considered opinion that people who justify their work (that is, who like the crisp, clean feel of a page where both sides line up smoothly) have neat desks. A neat desk is the sign of an empty mind. Real writers need stuff to look at. A lamp, certainly and a clock or two with somewhat similar times and a coffee/tea mug warmer are givens.

But, I refer to the other essentials. A glass jar (never a proper, purchased from Office Depot holder) for pens and pencils, viable ink and lead optional; note pads, preferably from the hotel you stayed in several years ago and can’t remember why; a tape dispenser, stapler and paper clip holder with a magnetic band around the top, leftovers from the time when you wrote with pen and paper; spare change removed from the pocket before the jeans got washed; a calculator because true genius can neither multiply nor divide and you may need to know how many nutritional tablets will last a crew of 30 for seven years; a piece of paper torn from a pocket notebooks containing all your computer passwords, past and present without which you will never be able to open your computer when the Internet provider or the cat disconnects your service; and sundries.

    These are personal good luck charms, including, but not limited to, cartoons taped to the side of your computer to remind you life is a joke; charms representing old-fashioned typewriter keys; a fob from a Rolls Royce you bought on Amazon to remind yourself one day you’ll be driving one; a AA battery expired in the 20^th Century you keep around in case the keyboard fails to respond to cursing; and the obligatory dust bunnies that one day you will blow away when you are forced to replace your computer after Microsoft has rendered it obsolete with its latest “upgrade.”

Justification is stilted, stiff, mathematical. Music may be associated with mathematics (an idea I find distasteful), but writing surely isn’t. People who like straight lines find themselves unconsciously trying to structure a sentence so that it fits into the template. Just so they can secretly congratulate themselves on having a logical mind. Logic works fine most of the time for Vulcans, but no one ever claimed Mr. Spock could write a novel. Captain Kirk could write a novel (preferably not a romance) because he can play three-dimensional chess. Plots twist and turn: they aren’t martinets lining up in proper order.

Inspiration is not justified. It leaps from the voices in your head, through your fingers, to the page. Inspiration represents the ever-changing clouds in the sky. Kindly keep in mind there is no such thing as a straight line in nature. Thus, justification is against nature. The only thing worse than that is a bad review.

The earliest forms of artistic expression, from palm prints on cave walls, to handwritten scrolls, all the way through loose leaf paper, weren’t justified. Ergo, the very notion of justification is new onto the scene. It started with the printing press and in the scheme of things that was just yesterday. Writers harden back to the days of yore. We’re the throwbacks, the dreamers. We wish upon stars, we don’t line them up in columns.

For those of you enamored with justification, I adjure you to abandon your newfangled ways and revert to the days of yore. Let the creative process flow freely. And if you find yourself yearning to decorate your office with palm prints or to purchase a fountain pen, go for it. Ironically, that will make the world better balanced.

Counterpoint

To Justify or Not to Justify: That is the question.

By Betsy J. Bennett

Well, all that was certainly a mouthful. Resorting to clichés (I love clichés) it’s like you added everything but the kitchen sink.  We got not only a clear view of your desk, but of your writing process, and to a large degree your life. All that and a testament against right justification. Imagine.

But I think, on closer inspection was what you were trying to justify was not the right margins on writing your opus, but your career as a creator.

First, you don’t have to justify that to anyone. Ever. Maybe you should add another note to your crowded desk or your wall with things randomly thumb-tacked, along that lines of “I write, therefore I am,” and seek no further justification from anyone or anything.

Trolling Facebook (a great time waster when the novel isn’t going where I want), I came across the following:

If you give a person a book, they’ll read for a day.

If you teach a person to write a book, they’ll spend the rest of their lives in painful self-examination and crippling doubt.

 

Perhaps it can be argued that writers need painful self-examination, but please, never crippling doubt. You have the universe’s permission to be a writer, to create, to take random thoughts and form something that was never expressed exactly that way before. Each of us look at the world differently. Writers are the people with the insight and talent to put thoughts to paper in a manner that others can understand and more importantly, relate to.

Next, let me state for the record that NOBODY LIKES RIGHT JUSTIFICATION. Editors don’t want it. They expect to see a ragged right margin.

I have to posit that a great many people are wearing their shorts too tight if they think the way something looks (all neat and all lined up) equates to its quality. The power of writing  is rarely how it looks on a page. I’ll get to that in a second. That’s worse, far worse than judging a book by it’s cover. See, I told you I like clichés.

What really gets me is single spacing. With single spacing, there are too many thoughts crowded together. There’s not enough room on the page for me to try to shove a simple thought like “I like that,” or “I’m make a notation on whatever.”

Too crowded.

Too busy.

Double spacing lets a reader feel there’s room somehow for more, even if it is just a mental comment. Double spacing makes it look professional, and if it needed a line-edit, there would be room.

So yes, don’t justify your margins, but if you get the chance, please double space. And if I might add, I hope one day you’re able to buy your Rolls Royce in order to put that key fob to good use.