As a compulsive hitter of M-q when I’m too lazy to start
auto-fill-mode (and even then a li’l manual triggering is
sometimes needed to reflow an overly edited para), that
compulsion has an unfortunate habit of crossing over even when I’m on
visual-line-mode. I know, I know, set-fill-column to a high number
FTW, but…
(eval-after-load "visual-line-mode"
'(progn
(define-key visual-line-mode-map
(kbd "M-q")
#'(lambda () (interactive) (message "%s" "Softwrap!")))))
One drawback of visual-line-mode is that only way to set a
comfortable fill-column is through cockamamie margin-boosting
shenanigans. Not into that. I usually just split the window, or
use writeroom-mode if I’m messing with the margins anyway.