A place to discuss the craft of writing: tricks, philosophies, styles

[anthrodisiac]

So hey, been out of the loop for a long time. wrote a bunch of mostly true story's here over 20 years ago, just checking in to see what's new.

Welcome back!

It's mostly rampant insanity punctuated by the occassional bit of useful help. So probably hasn't changed that much.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

You're not wrong, it's a fair critique. But it is a little outdated.

This is the crux of it. It's the modern way to do things. Why? Because of three reasons. 1) amateur writers typing a single sentience on their computer and hitting a line break because they don't understand how to construct a paragraph. You see these writers on lit all the time. They have a story that's 6k words and don't have a single paragraph more than two sentences. 2) Bloggers who write amateurish all the same who have influenced journalism (many of them get hired into mainstream journalism simply because their blog is popular) and these bloggers have zero training on how to write. they love their short little paragraphs and tons of dramatic sounding fragments. 3) Readers using tablets and phones who say, "I just don't like walls of text," but of course any paragraph more than 50 words will be a wall of text on a phone, come on. What do they expect?

If longer paragraphs are outdated then the quality of modern writing has just gotten worse.

White space is not decoration. It’s silence.

And silence is craft.

Sure, and these writers and their purposely short paragraphs abuse that silence.

A paragraph is a paragraph and whatever length that it comes to is the length that it should be. Now, full disclosure, I do pay attention to paragraph length, trying to vary it as I do with sentence length, but I do this very sparingly. Varying sentence length is far far more important for flow than paragraph length.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Paragraph and sentence structure can be as impactful as the words

Sentence structure is different. I'm very fussy about it. The structure of all of the sentences in the paragraph influence the structure of all the others. I burn through hours of editing just rearranging sentence orders and mixing longs with shorts for flow. Paragraph length, not nearly so much.

I agree with you, generally, but I do think there is a place for aesthetic considerations in paragraph length. I think that the flow, the rhythm, of your prose is very important.

Absolutely, but if you do this with your sentences, you shouldn't have to do much at all of it with your paragraphs.

I liken it to the loud/soft dynamic used by bands like Nirvana or Pixies, where the quiet break serves to highlight the louder verse.

Dynamic shift. You're talking to a song writer here. ; )

 

[anthrodisiac]

Sentence structure is different. I'm very fussy about it. The structure of all of the sentences in the paragraph influence the structure of all the others. I burn through hours of editing just rearranging sentence orders and mixing longs with shorts for flow. Paragraph length, not nearly so much.

I agree, sentence structure is more impactful than paragraph structure, but paragraph structure shouldn't be discounted, as it has its own psychologies and considerations. It's still part of the aesthetic, which is why ungodly numbers of super short paragraphs in sequence are unseemly. Starts coming off more like a list than actual prose.

If there's a good reason to do it, great, I appreciate the thoughtfulness and considerations the writer put into the decision. But if someone is doing it because, "People just do it," or, "Readers don't like paragraphs more than five words long" (which, while I think reader attention is shorter than I used to be, I don't think it's as abysmal as some writers think), that's not thoughtful construction — that's being a sheep.

And I only truck with sheep when they're anthro... or when I blow them up. (Sorry, *Bleat*).

 

[IsenRae]

This is the crux of it. It's the modern way to do things. Why? Because of three reasons. 1) amateur writers typing a single sentience on their computer and hitting a line break because they don't understand how to construct a paragraph. You see these writers on lit all the time. They have a story that's 6k words and don't have a single paragraph more than two sentences. 2) Bloggers who write amateurish all the same who have influenced journalism (many of them get hired into mainstream journalism simply because their blog is popular) and these bloggers have zero training on how to write. they love their short little paragraphs and tons of dramatic sounding fragments. 3) Readers using tablets and phones who say, "I just don't like walls of text," but of course any paragraph more than 50 words will be a wall of text on a phone, come on. What do they expect?

If longer paragraphs are outdated then the quality of modern writing has just gotten worse.



Sure, and these writers and their purposely short paragraphs abuse that silence.

A paragraph is a paragraph and whatever length that it comes to is the length that it should be. Now, full disclosure, I do pay attention to paragraph length, trying to vary it as I do with sentence length, but I do this very sparingly. Varying sentence length is far far more important for flow than paragraph length.

Paragraphs aren’t just containers of thought. They’re units of pacing.
Sentence rhythm shapes breath. Paragraph rhythm shapes silence.
When both are intentional, neither is amateur.

 

[TheLobster]

I've brought this to a couple people's attention recently, so let's make it everyone!

Please do your best to avoid having too many segments of dialogues and tags in your paragraph.

Professor Stuffly stroked his chin. "But, you see the problem is," he said, waving vaguely, "that these paragraphs quickly become nigh-unreadable." He paced for a few moments, smoking his pipe as his assistant stared at her watch and prayed for death. "And really you shouldn't mix someone else's POV in-" The professor snapped at the girl. "Are you paying attention?" He sighed, tapped his cane. "Good. Now, also make sure you don't mix POV into a paragraph with someone's dialogue, especially like this." With a maniacal grin, he whirled on her, tapping his nose with his cane. "That was an extra lesson for you, dear! You'll thank me one day." He paused for a moment, muttered to himself, then brightened. "Ah, I remember where we were! Now, you see the problem with too many tags and sections of dialogue, don't you, my dear?" He waited for some sign that she was paying any attention, but sadly, being a madman with no respect for paragraphical integrity, even though he saw none he continued anyway. "It just becomes a God-awful mess, and do you really want a reader to have to try to read through all that giant block of action, dialogue, action, dialogue, tag, dialogue, action, ad nauseum, etcetera, etcetera, and all that, when you can make a perfect good few paragraphs or just avoid this altogether by structuring it differently," he continued, clearly ready to launch into another full monologue, "and then we can all nod and say to ourselves-"

And she murdered him, and it was righteous.

You're joking, right? This scene is delightful.

I'd love to be able to drop an evocative passage like this more than once in a story, but I know there are sadly quite a lot of ignoramuses with stunted imagination and poor reading ability who cannot follow mixed dialogue/narration paragraphs without losing track of what's happening.

 

[TheAlphabetGirl]

You're joking, right? This scene is delightful.

I'd love to be able to drop an evocative passage like this more than once in a story, but I know there are sadly quite a lot of ignoramuses with stunted imagination and poor reading ability who cannot follow mixed dialogue/narration paragraphs without losing track of what's happening.

For us it’s very funny!! Made me laugh and totally thought, ‘she’ would have a lot more to say in the end paragraph, everyone likes to have the last word right?! But even then, in his dying breath, he sat up and exclaimed - as if given energy the final moment in his cycle of life - “I am with my people, fuck all the ignoramuses.” The end. Or was it…

 

[anthrodisiac]

You're joking, right? This scene is delightful.

I'd love to be able to drop an evocative passage like this more than once in a story, but I know there are sadly quite a lot of ignoramuses with stunted imagination and poor reading ability who cannot follow mixed dialogue/narration paragraphs without losing track of what's happening.

Tell no one, but it's kinda grown on me since I wrote it...

Admittedly, it actually kinda works due to the deliberate nature of the piece, so I may have ruined my own example by having the mix of tags and dialogue actually work structurally with the speech itself

Amended: Generally speaking, unless you're doing it for a reason, try to avoid too much interspersing of tags and dialogue.