a link to a story with a doug menation

[Bob Schroeck]

Like Dartz said, big paragraphs are hard on the eyes, and not just on a screen.

Hm. I just wrote a section in my ever-under-construction fanfic writers' guide on paragraphs. Let me paste it here:

xx. Paragraphs

Some writers never seem to grasp the need for paragraphs. I have seen stories of *all* sizes that were written as single massive blocks of text. It should come as no surprise that such stories are immediately subject to the "too long; didn't read" effect; walls of text are hard to read and tend to discourage readers from even making the effort. So, the first rule of paragraphs is, you need more than one.

Paragraph breaks should happen pretty much organically. In conversations, every time the speaker changes, you should have a new paragraph. If someone does something nonverbal, and a second person begins talking, start a new paragraph for the second person. If you are writing straight prose (such as exposition or descriptions), every time your focus or topic shifts, start a new paragraph.

Remember those elementary-school composition classes: each paragraph should be about its own topic, and ideally should have a subject sentence which the rest of the sentences in the paragraph support. Now this rule was for writing papers and reports, but even if the rules are more lax for fiction, they still apply. Just understand that a "topic" here is a very broad concept, and the subject of the narrative doesn't have to change very much at all to merit the start of a new paragraph.

Now admittedly, there is a lot of room for personal judgment and style here, but a good rule of thumb is, it's far better to have too *many* paragraphs than too *few*.

The second rule of paragraphs is, variety in size is good. Twenty five-sentence paragraphs in a row is boring. A hundred is inviting eyestrain and "tl;dr" again. For both visual appeal and to keep your reader interested, vary the number (and length!) of the sentences in each paragraph.

Now, this should happen more or less naturally as a result of making paragraph breaks to begin with -- some things you'll want to say more about than others, and if you've got a good ear for it dialogue should work itself out -- but it's still something to be aware of as you're writing. If you find your paragraphs are all coming out about the same size, you may want to step back and take a look at what you're doing -- and see if there's something you should be doing differently.

In regards specifically to dialogue, unless a character is literally giving a speech, it will be rare for them to ever speak in long paragraphs. Most "realistic" dialogue tends to be made up of exchanges of short, brisk sentences; few people say more than a couple sentences at a time unless they are answering questions (like at a press conference) or explaining something.

It's also very easy to write sentences too long or convoluted for anyone to ever actually *say* -- it's always good to read your dialogue out loud to see if it actually sounds like a real person said it -- or *could* say it. This will frequently help with the paragraph size issue as well.

To be honest, this is an easy lesson; once you've gotten a feel for how and when to start new paragraphs, it will become second nature with very little time and practice. And if you got through high school English with a decent grade, you probably know this already. But some writers definitely need to learn the lesson.

Hopefully that helps.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.