Important thing: I’m now putting all of my Substack-specific witterings inside a section called Everything Substack. This means that you can pop into your account and joyfully turn off that section, if it’s not of interest. You’ll still get all my other articles and my fiction.
It’s been a running joke for years that Substack’s editor lacked any kind of justification options.
That changed a couple of weeks ago.
In today’s video I poke at a bunch of recent features, but justification is potentially a big one for fiction writers. Most text on the web is left-justified, which is more a result of technology and tradition than anything else. Early browsers and HTML defaulted to left-justification, and that’s stuck through the decades.
The result of this, I suspect, is that many of us subconsciously code ‘left justified’ with news, online opinion pieces, reviews and so on. Meanwhile, most of our literature, whether in print or digital, has continued to be fully justified. I wonder whether this has been a subtle barrier for those of us attempting to present our fiction via newsletter.
Choice now exists, which means we can alternate depending on preference and context. I suspect I will fully justify my fiction in future, while keeping my non-fiction left-justified. While this can seem like obsessing over irrelevant details, these subtle cues can help or hinder readers when they’re attempting to settle into a new story.
Some other bits:
The trio of Scoot, Tell Me a Mystery and Eric Falden got together to talk about serial fiction and it’s a good time:
Whenever I see familiar faces from around the online fiction community showing up together in live streams or other collaborations it always reminds me of this scene:
Also, interesting piece here about the potential for ‘the Substack book’:
Given I’m in the middle of planning out a bunch of books, I’m going to have to think long and hard about that one.
Also enjoying:
Finished catching up on season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. It was all excellent, although the final episode got a little overtly mystical at times. One of the best ensemble casts I can remember.
Started playing Blue Prince and The Sexy Brutale, both quite fiendish puzzle games. Early days, but both are fascinating. Increasingly I find myself drawn to story-puzzle games over action. I’m not sure if that’s because action games are too samey, or that I’m simply getting old.
Started watching Shogun, which has been on the list for a while. Three episodes in, it’s very good. Hiroyuki Sanada is phenomenal. We’d been meaning to watch it for a while, and visiting the samurai exhibition at the British Museum finally tipped us over the edge.
Finished playing Old Skies, a puzzle adventure meditation on death, life and what it all means. I will be writing about it over on Infinite Backlog at some point.
Finally, I stumbled upon a small and excellent bookshop on Sunday:
