It’s Okay To Dwell in the Negative Space

Wendy MacNaughton on her Substack Draw Together talked about negative space this week and she wrote, “Negative Space performs many functions: it focuses our eyes on the subject, it moves our eyes around a drawing or it keeps them still, it allows for visual space/room to breathe, and sometimes it gives the subject an extra layer of meaning. “For example, ever seen this logo before? “Sure, you’ve probably seen it a million times. “But have you noticed the hidden symbol in the logo?! Focus your attention on the negative space of the logo - the space between the letters. Do you see it? Look between the E and the X. Now do you see the arrow?? YES. It’s subtle. It took me YEARS to see it. But once you see the arrow formed by the negative space you can’t unsee it. In this case, designer Lindon Leader used the negative space to create an image that informs the meaning of the subject. An arrow takes your package from here to there. Very clever, Lindon.” This obviously has societal implications, which she writes about as well. She talks about sociologist W.E.B Du Bois’ work Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America, which shows in data and visualization what was and wasn’t going on. In writing, we call this negative space white space, right? How writers use it impacts readers’ experiences. It focuses attention on shorter words and paragraphs. It gives a visual break—especially when it’s at the end of the scene or chapter, right? A new chapter almost always begins on a new page. There’s a reason for that. It’s to let that last bit resonate. It’s to signal, “Hey! Rock star! You just read a chapter!” So… how do you create white space? Make your sentences shorter. Vary these babies. Make your paragraphs shorter. Vary these babies, too. In articles, make lists. Make sure in dialogue that each person speaking gets their own paragraph. Don’t embed the dialogue. WHY NEGATIVE SPACE IS GOOD IN OUR LIVES, TOO Last week, on our blog, I talked about how boredom is actually a pretty awesome thing. But basically, being bored allows us to have creativity, to replenish, to incubate ideas a and thoughts. RANDOM THOUGHT LINK Our random thought came from here. DOG TIP FOR LIFE POGIE AND MR MURPHY DOG: This is 100% positive truth. We live about 65% of our lives in this white space where you think we’re sleeping but we’re really just chilling and trying to figure out how to get snacks in new ways. PLACES TO SUBMIT The Masters Review Short Story Award for New WritersEligibility: Emerging writers only Prize: $3,000 + publication + agency review Entry Fee: $20 Deadline: February 2, 2025 Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award Eligibility: Early-career nonfiction writers Prize: $12,500 Deadline: February 19, 2025 SHOUT OUT! The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License.  Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free. WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It's pretty awesome. We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here. Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That's a lot! Subscribe