Want to Space Your Poetry?
You're Gonna Love This
Before I begin, this is not my tip. I credit Andrei Z. with telling me about it over two years ago in a comment somewhere. Thank you, my friend. You’ve saved many a poem. ;D (Psst, go read his stuff. He's got some beautiful poetry to lose yourself in.)
Hi, fellow poets!
I have a brilliant tip to share with you all, and, because I refuse to bury the lede….BLANK CHARACTERS!
If you’ve spent any time on Vocal, you know how frustrating it is to not be able to keep your formatting, whether you wrote your story by hand, on Google Docs, Notes, or anywhere else. For some reason, even if you click the “paste with formatting” option, Vocal deletes literally all Tab indentations, blank lines, repeated spaces, and even lists. It happens inside Vocal's own word processor. Like, wtf?
Anyway, the point is that I come with a solution!
Blank characters (also known as empty, invisible, and whitespace characters) are basically spaces on steroids. I don’t know how they work precisely, but they insert some indicator that a character is present, even though our eyes see nothing but a blank space. In other words, these are characters with no visible outputs, and yes, they hold up to Vocal’s format evisceration. Technically, they’re Unicode characters and require a code or a series of other buttons to insert, depending on your computer type (PC vs Mac).
If you have a PC, the code is U+0020 or Alt+255 for a basic space.
If you have a Mac, do Option+Spacebar.
I recommend looking up the Unicodes for empty spaces, as there are different types and sizes of spaces you can choose from. I imagine this might be useful for PC users more than Mac since you have more buttons to press.
One more thing to note: If this doesn’t work for you, try playing around with a minimum number in a row. I usually have to use several blank characters in a row for Vocal to recognize them. And no, this does not apply to regular spaces or Tab-presses. And also no, I don’t know why…lol.
And there you have it!
Please enjoy your new found formatting freedom! And.... happy writing!
Leave any questions in the comments and I'll try to answer them.
Cheers! :D
About the Creator
Mackenzie Davis
“When you are describing a shape, or sound, or tint, don’t state the matter plainly, but put it in a hint. And learn to look at all things with a sort of mental squint.” Lewis Carroll
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Copyright Mackenzie Davis.
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More stories from Mackenzie Davis and writers in Writers and other communities.
The Night It Was Read
She was excited. Her hair up in rolos as she slid on the boots her mother had only let her borrow for this special occasion. At fifteen, she had just begun to branch out–making friends, building a life that was all her own. Her best friend, Ruth, had just moved to Oregon, and her absence was a new kind of desperation–one that longed for intimacy and made her reach for new people, new experiences. The phone rang. “Ma! Pick up–pick up! I’m taking off the pinchos! These stupid rolos won’t come off!” She stomped around her room, arms twisted overhead, tugging at her hair in every direction. From the kitchen, her mother shouted, “He’s coming up now. Apúrate and put on your coat. It’s cold and rainy. Llévate la sombrilla–and don’t lose this one. You always lose the nice umbrellas and then-” “Yessss, Ma! Ya–ya! I got it. Can you open the door, please?!” At that moment, a knock traveled through the apartment. Her mother opened the door. From the bedroom, Allie heard the high, bright voice her mother saved for people from church. Finally, her hair came free. She slid on the brown leather jacket her cousin Farrah had given her before moving into her own apartment. She loved it when Farrah gave her things and used them only for special occasions. “Alexandra! ¿Ya?” her mother called from the door. Allie stepped out and walked toward the door. “Ya. I’m ready.” She smiled shyly. “Hola, Rafael. Sorry, I took so long.”
By K.R. Reyna7 days ago in Writers
Comments (15)
Hey Mackenzie, congrats on top story! I just got tipped... twice. I hope nobody hacked your account :D
That kind of inside knowledge about formatting workarounds can be a real lifesaver for poets. Congratulations on your Top Story!
Congratulations.
This is the most helpful Vocal hack I’ve seen in a while. bookmarking forever.
Congratulations on Top Story, Mackenzie! I might add, for PC users, Character Map is really handy for Unicode characters and keystroke combinations.
Back to say congratulations on your Top Story! 🎉💖🎊🎉💖🎊
Omg!! Mackenzie, I’ve been meaning to ask you about this because I’ve noticed you’ve found a way to put spaces in your poems 😭 I have one question… do these invisible spaces count as words to the Vocal counter?
Congrats on Top Story for this invaluable piece of advice.
At last, Donna Fox's monopoly on extra whitespace is no more 😤 And just in time, because she was about to take her secret to the "grave" (https://todaysurvey.shop/writers/spreading-my-wings%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/a%3E%29%3C/p%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv class="css-w4qknv-Replies">
Than you for this, lass! I've never been able to make it work for me but will endeavour to figure it out! Wll help with about 75percent of my poems lol
Oh wow, this is so cool! Thank youuuu for sharing it with us!
Honestly, Vocal's formatting restrictions are so restrictive that I compose most of my pieces on Vocal. From there, I can paste it into my Google Docs, format it, and my other platforms publish it with very little hassle. I HAVE found some fonts work if they are pasted directly from a font generator. I use https://lingojam.com/FancyTextGenerator
Thankyouthankyouthankyou!
I gotta try this!! Thank you for sharing!!
This is rad. I’ve seen so many people complain about vocal’s formatting restrictions, I hope your formatting hack gets good visibility, I think lots of poets especially would find it helpful.