Auto-Indents Please

Indented paragraphs
found everywhere in fiction

So much about writing is about your relationship with the interface. A good interface is invisible and functions at several layers. The first layer is of course between the tips of your fingers and the keys. My choice is the scrabble style of the Mac. So then we get to the software layer of the interface.

I have two writing modes if you don't count procrastination, which are fiction and non-fiction. Scrivener is the fiction interface of choice, while the non-fiction is IA Writer. Both these require licences and installs. If I'm writing on any machine other than my own, which happens frequently, my non-fiction is poured into Writer via Google Chrome.

The strength of Scrivener is the total writing environment. Of IA and Writer it is the small footprint and quick accessibility, the no clutter interfaces.

There are numerous reasons why Scrivener might not be available to me, mostly around portability. I'll fire up IA Writer or Writer with the intention of fiction writing. Except both these applications don't support auto-indents. What are auto-indents? You might ask.

Take a look at any page of any fiction novel, printed either onto paper or digitally and you will find every paragraph after the first is indented.

When I'm in non-fiction mode my mind is perfectly calibrated to the fact the paragraphs are not indented. The interface is invisible.

Trying to write fiction without the auto-indents is distracting. The double tapping of the return after each paragraph. The lack of indents while parsing the flow of paragraphs, especially dialogue, makes the whole process cumbersome. The interface stops being invisible.

Such a simple thing, as auto-indents, you might wonder, would be universally available with the proliferation of fiction writers these last years. Sadly not.