Paragraphs
In the chapter on Sentence Structure I told you to strap in and prepare for a long chapter, as it was the backbone of prose. Well, if there could be a second backbone, it would be paragraphs. This chapter will also be quite dense, but will contain my other batch of tips and advice that might revolutionize your prose.
Prevent the Wall of Text
I mentioned before how each paragraph should be one idea. Whenever the prose changes to a different topic, start a new paragraph. Group sentences related to the same topic, split sentences that are not related.
This is, however, a bit subjective. What is “one idea”? When are sentences related enough to be grouped?
There is no hard rule for this. It comes down to personal preference and writing style, as well as intuition you’ll build as you write more and more.
The general rule, however, is that you never want a wall of text. You never want a paragraph to become so long that it covers most of a page and just feels exhausting or daunting to the reader. In general, this means keeping paragraphs under 150–200 words.
You especially don’t want a wall of text on your first few pages. The reader is giving you the benefit of the doubt. They’re giving your book the slightest of chances and now try to jump into your world. Present them with lots of whitespace, short sentences and short paragraphs. Leave the rest for later, when the reader is already invested.
An easy way to add more whitespace is through dialogue. Be liberal with adding dialogue to your first few pages, to make the prose look more inviting.
I’m also a graphic designer. This taught me that presentation is equally important as content. It’s not a “waste of time” to put effort into shaping the whitespace around your prose. I sometimes even change the meaning of paragraphs just so they look less daunting.
Similarly, when I am programming, I’m often equally concerned with writing code that looks pretty and clean ;)
Also prevent single-sentence paragraphs
The whole idea of paragraphs is to add hierarchy and structure. To group sentences together into related thoughts and events, which helps readers understand the story. Without them, it becomes much harder to understand any text.
And of course, the hierarchy continues. We have “scenes” to group related paragraphs, then “chapters” to group related scenes, and so forth. All to guide the reader through this wealth of written information.
As such, mostly writing paragraphs with just a single line also isn’t the solution. Try to consistently write at least two sentences in each paragraph.
This way, you also reserve the single-sentence paragraph for when it truly matters: when something really important happens and you want to draw attention to it.
Instead of thinking “as short as possible”, use paragraph length consciously for the desired effect.
- Long paragraphs feel slower, calmer, more thoughtful and introspective
- Short paragraphs feel faster, urgent, more intense and action oriented
Focus through rearranging
Okay, so a paragraph should be focused one one thing. New thought? New paragraph. New event? New paragraph.
In reality, this is not so clear-cut. I might have a sequence of actions which all belong to the same general action.
My main character is chasing somebody else through a crowd. Even though all their action is related (“chasing”), they will be different actions (pushing people aside, looking around, running, …).
Do I create one huge paragraph with all the actions? Do I start a new paragraph for each one? No, that would mean single-sentence paragraphs for a whole page.
It’s up to your personal judgment whether sentences are “related enough” to have the same focus. The best method, however, is to try and avoid this issue altogether.
How?
- Mix your prose types, as I advised before. (After giving an action, give a thought or a description related to it. Then you’re free to write the next action beat on a new paragraph.)
- Rearrange sentences to clump things together based on what is “most related to each other”.
A large part of rewriting is just rearranging. It’s usually easy to tell if sentence A is more closely related to sentence B or sentence C. Put things together based on the “best match” and you will already get focused paragraphs of acceptable length.
Be mindful of errors that appear when rearranging. You might forget to add the right punctuation, or a pronoun suddenly refers to the wrong thing. Always carefully double-check the new paragraph.
Almost all my grammar mistakes—sometimes quite egregious ones—come from my second draft, after rearranging paragraphs or sentence parts.
Mistake: awkward word repetition
In the chapter on Sentence Structure, I recommended to vary your word usage. To prevent awkward repetition within a sentence or chain of sentences.
Well, the same is true for paragraphs. The most annoying one is when two subsequent paragraphs start with the same word.
Readers notice this. It takes them out of the story. It’s a pattern they can’t help but see—but it’s a meaningless pattern!
Look out for this. Always try to start the next paragraph with a different set of words. (The same thing is true for ending a paragraph, but accidentally ending in an identical way is very rare.)
But I will recommend the same thing as before: it’s better to avoid the issue entirely!
Always keep POV in mind
When writing, keep in mind the POV ( = the point of view character) at all times. Write everything through their eyes.
This naturally leads to more varied and unique word choices. Because there are words this character would use that another would not. Because there are details this character would notice and another would not.
Somebody with an art background might describe a painting as “a wonderful portrait in the style of impressionism”. Another might just call it “a painting”. Somebody with an absolute disregard for art might call it “a waste of money and effort staring him in the face at all times”.
I like to take this even further.
Go for descriptions/action/thoughts unique to the thing currently happening. Use the setting, the characters present, objects present. This is the best way to avoid clichés or repetitive prose.
Fill paragraphs (and chapters) with prose that could ONLY appear there and nowhere else.
Say you want to show that a character is nervous. Common, cliché prose would be something like “their eye twitches” or “their posture is tense”. But … you could write that anywhere! For anyone! You might accidentally write it fifty times in the same story.
Instead, show the nervousness in a way unique to this scene. It’s in a forest? Have them break twigs all the time. This character wears unique clothing? Have them pulk at it, play with it, whenever they get nervous.
Not only does it avoid the awkward repetition, it multitasks by reinforcing all other elements of the story.
Finally, you can show character as well through paragraph length. If a character cares about something, they’ll go on about it for longer. If something is relevant to the scene, but the character doesn’t particularly care, they’ll give an efficient and short paragraph and that’s that.
Mistake: tell, then show
I still regularly fail to catch this mistake, because I only discovered it recently. It was an eye-opener, though.
In school (or non-fiction in general), you are often taught the following.
- Start a paragraph with a summary or succinct point.
- Use the rest of the paragraph to expand on that.
For example, you’d say “Prices have risen to new heights this year” (a general, abstract statement) and then use the rest of the paragraph to give examples, arguments, supporting evidence, and other text that expands this general statement.
This is great for maximum clarity! That’s why we do it in non-fiction!
In stories, however, you are not only allowed to leave things up to the reader, it’s even preferred to “engage” the reader and have them work for their meal. That’s where the old writer’s adage “show, don’t tell” comes from: instead of literally telling the reader what happened and how to feel, show interesting things and make them piece it together themselves.
In other words, if you find yourself writing paragraphs like this, you can shorten them.
- Either pick the summary sentence that tells (if that’s enough for your purposes or you don’t want to make it any longer)
- Or pick the explanation that shows your point (but leave the summary behind)
LONG: Many homes were destroyed. The home of the Greens family burned down, while the villa of the Dumont family came shattered in an earthquake.
You’re saying the same thing twice. First abstract, then concrete. The opposite order of what I taught you with the Pyramid of Abstraction! You can just leave out one of the pieces.
SHORT: The home of the Greens family burned down, while the villa of the Dumont family came shattered in an earthquake.
SHORT: Many homes were destroyed.
LONG: He was afraid of the dark. Before entering, he grabbed his smartphone and searched for the flashlight. His fingers moved in such a frenzy that he dropped the thing twice before finally finding the right button.
You get the idea. Either be quick and literal about it (“he was afraid of the dark”), or use concrete details to show this, but don’t waste time doing both.
As I said, if you do both, it does lead to maximum clarity. So feel free to keep this structure for more complicated paragraphs that you really want the reader to understand.
Mistake: exhaustive listing
This is another leftover from non-fiction or academic writing. (I studied Applied Mathematics, which is why I struggled with this big time.)
When writing a report or research, you want to be as complete as possible. You want to mention every option, every possibility, and be 100% correct about it. This often leads to clunky, long sentences in which you list all the options.
In prose, this isn’t needed. Whenever I encounter a long list of options in a book, my eyes glaze over and I usually skip it.
In a sci-fi book I read recently, there was a sentence near the start that listed every organization involved in some scheme or branch within the world. It was just 10+ names in a row—most of them long and unfamiliar—which you really don’t want. No reader can even process that, let alone remember it and have fun doing so.
But it also happens at a smaller scale. Giving two or three possible options within a sentence, where giving one option would be perfectly fine.
Recently, I edited a short story with a sentence like this: “Just like the First Conflict left a black hole at all the places where trees, flowers or grass used to grow.”
Why trees, flowers or grass? Why name three possible things that might grow somewhere? It just complicates the sentence without adding much meaning.
I can replace that with just “nature”. I can even replace it with just one of the options—the reader understands the general idea, and that’s all that matters.
The solution is simply to pick one thing and stick with that. Find the best word to represent this list of words you had before, and only use that one word. (I even like to make things plural to remove “a” or “the” from a sentence.)
You might feel like you’re leaving out crucial information or not being “complete”. But listing all the options just means the reader will remember none of them, and the prose becomes twice as long for no reason.
LONG: The box looked strange and unusual, the material rough like rusted metal or even frayed cloth.
This might seem good. You’re giving the reader a lot of imagery and details to work with. But they are competing details. Listing multiple options makes it look like you, the writer, don’t even know what you really want. It adds lots of words and uncertainty that doesn’t need to be there.
Pick one thing, stick to it.
SHORT: The material of the strange box felt rough, like rusted metal.
Mistake: Melodramatic
Many writers tend to go for big, emotional words when they want to be really emotional. This often comes off as melodramatic and has the opposite effect: it feels funny, like a parody.
Instead, the opposite is true.
- Back off when talking about serious topics. Be honest and true, don’t use fancy words or phrases, understate.
- Show off when talking about topics that are not serious at all. Go wild with your language and imagination, exaggerate.
Exaggeration and extreme prose lead to a funny, adventurous, humorous paragraph. Understatement and sincerity effectively create emotional or sad paragraphs.
Want to support me?
Buy one of my projects. You get something nice, I get something nice.
Donate through a popular platform using the link below.
Simply giving feedback or spreading the word is also worth a lot.