To Indent or Not to Indent? That Is the Question!

And honestly – does anyone even care anymore?

Well, I do! As a writer, I’ve obsessed over formatting for years. My books follow the classic rule: every new paragraph gets an indent (except at the start of a chapter), and dialogue lines are neatly tucked in. It’s a convention that’s been around forever, subtly underpinning the structure of storytelling.

But online? That’s a whole different universe. Indents are practically extinct. Instead, paragraphs are spaced out, floating in the digital ether. And while that works for breaking up chunks of text, dialogue is another beast entirely. If I swap indents for extra line breaks, conversations suddenly look way too spread out, as if there’s a prolonged silence between what each character says. So what’s the solution? Do I stubbornly cling to tradition and hunt down some custom code to force indents onto my website, Bush Telegraph XPress? Or do I surrender to modern formatting techniques?

It’s moments like this that make me feel like a literary dinosaur. With a Master of Arts in English, I spent years worshipping the so-called golden rules—like never using contractions in writing. (Yes, really!) And not beginning a sentence with a conjunction. (😉) But language evolves, and so have I. Maybe it’s time to take another leap, embrace the shift, and finally let go of my beloved indents.

So, should I fight for the indent’s survival and reformat my short stories accordingly, or should I help it to fade into digital history? What do you reckon?