Paragraphs

[BcRedneck]

Ok so I started by making giant paragraphs. That was not the way. So I tried breaking up the conversations so each character had a new line. It easyto read but books are not done that way.

So now I'm making one paragraph per subject or situation. To me it looks right. So is this the way?

 

[Mon0Zer0]

The rough rule is one paragraph per subject - but you may need more than one per subject, too. Paragraphs provide a structure that makes information easier to digest.

It might be a good idea for you to try and read other books critically to see how they do it.

This is an excerpt from Stephen King's "The Institute"

The voucher turned out to be for a cheesedog hotel located near the end of Tampa International's most heavily used runway. Tim fell asleep to the sound of airplanes, awoke to more of the same, and went down to ingest a hardboiled egg and two rubber pancakes from the complimentary breakfast buffet. Although far from a gourmet treat, Tim ate heartily, then went back to his room to wait for nine o'clock, when the banks opened. [1]

He cashed his windfall with no trouble, because the bank knew he was coming and the check had been approved in advance; he had no intention of waiting around in the cheesedog hotel for it to clear. He took his two thousand in fifties and twenties, folded it into his left front pocket, reclaimed his duffle bag from the bank's security guard, and called an Uber to take him to Ellenton. There he paid the driver, strolled to the nearest 301-N sign, and stuck out his thumb. Fifteen minutes later he was picked up by an old guy in a Case gimme cap. There were no melons in the back of his pickup, and no stake sides, but otherwise it pretty much conformed to his vision of the previous night. [2]

"Where you headed, friend?" the old guy asked.

"Well," Tim said, "New York, eventually. I guess."

The old guy spat a ribbon of tobacco juice out the window. "Now why would any man in his right mind want to go there?" He pronounced it raht mahnd.

"I don't know," Tim said, although he did; an old service buddy had told him there was plenty of private security work in the Big Apple, including some for companies that would give more weight to his experience than to the Rube Goldberg fuckup that had ended his career in Florida policing. "I'm just hoping to get to Georgia tonight. Maybe I'll like that better."

"Now you're talking," the old guy said. "Georgia ain't bad, specially if you like peaches. They gi' me the backdoor trots. You don't mind some music, do you?"

"Not at all."

"Got to warn you, I play it loud. I'm a little on the deef side."

"I'm just happy to be riding."

It was Waylon Jennings instead of REO Speedwagon, but that was okay with Tim. Waylon was followed by Shooter Jennings and Marty Stuart. The two men in the mud-streaked Dodge Ram listened and watched the highway roll. Seventy miles up the line, the old guy pulled over, gave Tim a tip of his Case cap, and wished him a real fahn day. [3]

Tim didn't make Georgia that night—he spent it in another cheesedog motel next to a roadside stand selling orange juice—but he got there the following day. In the town of Brunswick (where a certain kind of tasty stew had been invented), he took two weeks' work in a recycling plant, doing it with no more forethought than he had put into deciding to give up his seat on the Delta flight out of Tampa. He didn't need the money, but it seemed to Tim that he needed the time. He was in transition, and that didn't happen overnight. Also, there was a bowling alley with a Denny's right next door. Hard to beat a combo like that. [4]

In paragraph [1] King is telescoping Tim's stay in the hotel. It gives you an impression of the kind of place where this section of the story takes place, the class of its inhabitants, and Tim's financial circumstances and some small insight into his character.

The next paragraph [2] he's talking about Tim collecting his money and bumming a lift. It tells us only the most relevant information to get us from the hotel to the inside of a truck where we have our first section of dialogue.

The dialogue gives us more information about where this is taking place, the kinds of people who live there (Good ole boys) and on where Tim may be heading, and what he is looking for (work), and a little of his history (he is an ex-policeman). Dialogue is grouped with each new line of dialogue starting a new line, and filling in further information to the dialogue - either character actions (spitting out tobacco) or what the dialogue makes them think about.

In [3] King uses the songs on the radio to show the passage of time, informing us that he gets out 70 miles away from where he started.

[4] telescopes time to show he's still on the move and where he stays, as well as giving us some info about his character (he's the type of guy who likes bowling).

The more you read critically, the more you can pick up on certain tricks that your favourite authors use.

Hope that helps!

 

[Susan Boulton]

When writing dialogue; as each character speaks, you should start a new paragraph. Also a new paragraph can be used to emphasise the action. This is taken from the manuscript draft of one of my published novels.

Example:
“You alright, sir?” Adams stood, handing his mug of tea to Archie as he made to move to Hardy’s side.

“Going round in circles,” Hardy replied.

“Aye, sir,” Adams said and sat again, reclaiming his mug of tea. His eyes sought out one of the orderlies.

The man came towards Adams, answering the unspoken summons. “You alright?”

“Aye, just the captain – he’s a bit off.”

The orderly moved past Adams and peered into Hardy’s face. “It’s the morphine. He’ll drop off soon, hopefully.”

Drop off. The words rattled in Hardy’s head, becoming a machine gun, spitting out a haze of linked words and ideas.

Snooze.

Sleep like a top.

Drive the pigs to market.

Have a kip.

Doss down.

Sleep, perchance not to dream.

 

[JS Wiig]

While there are technical “rules” for formatting paragraphs, the way you organize your words is also one of the art aspects of the craft.

I would say to get a book or two on grammer (or take some correspondence classes if possible) and keep experimenting with your style and soliciting feedback.

 

[Biskit]

Read it aloud. Properly. No mumbling, but just as if you've got an audience listening. When you feel the need to pause for clarity or convenience or because your imaginary audience clearly need a second or two to digest what you said, then if it's not a paragraph end it probably should be.

A lot of my stuff is easy to read aloud because it's first person and really directed from me to the audience, but this "trick" works regardless of POV. It's your story, that you're telling, and presenting it like that really changes the way you perceive it. At it's simplest level, reading aloud forces you to read what is actually there without your head quietly correcting as you go. Not only does it help you understand the natural (or missing) pauses in your writing, it helps with finding typos, poor flow, convoluted structures and anything else that makes reading more difficult.

Before I self-pub a book, the whole novel gets at least two full read-alouds, and preferably more, and certainly a read-aloud is the final thing to happen after all editing is done.

 

[DLCroix]

Take into account the rhythm of reading, here something more or less musical intervenes that has to do with the condensation and energetic expansion, the management of dramatic tension, which the literature picks up from music especially in regard to the emotion. Take for example a symphony: they usually start slowly, right? And from there they pick up speed. This is what is called virtuous flight. The same applies to paragraphs, they start and end where they should naturally. And yes, it is often said that the ideal is one paragraph per idea or situation, but be careful with applying the standard narration rule, let's say, idea followed by two or three sentences to complete it because all this is designed in a basic type of narration, ask him Borges or García Marquez or especially to Bolaño (The Savage Detectives it's a masterpiece, I was inspired by the best action sequences I've ever written) if they stick to that rule. Obviously mastering this technique requires a lot of reading and practice, because there are a lot of resources or tricks. For example, those who write general literature use the page flipper a lot, I have seen novels where a paragraph lasts easy five pages and in them a lot of characters and situations intervene.

 

[Flaviosky]

I started the same way, with huge paragraphs and even dialoge embedded into them thinking that it was the way in fast-paced scenes.

Quickly I was taught that it was not the proper way and some said that I "was trying too hard to appear 'literary' in the text" and I had to relax and play with structure and rythm.

At first it felt weird, but reading after editing really made it all that make sense. The flow, the tension, the pauses. You can really play with white space to deliver the pace. It somehow ends being just a text and starts becoming a scene.

Take this as an example. At first, I'd never thought of writing it this way, but now I feel it delivers what I want in a more effective manner.

----------------------------------------------------------------​

Her eyes roll back, her lips turn purple, her bones start to crack. Her sight gets blurry, staring at those eyes, having shared such a warm gaze with, but now full of cruelty, seeing her die.

I…
Beg…
You...

----------------------------------------------------------------
​

The example from @Susan Boulton aims in the same direction. You'll thank them later

 

[harrythrone]

The rough rule is one paragraph per subject - but you may need more than one per subject, too. Paragraphs provide a structure that makes information easier to digest.

It might be a good idea for you to try and read other books critically to see how they do it.

This is an excerpt from Stephen King's "The Institute"

I don't like following rules when it comes to writing I think every one have a style

 

[Flaviosky]

I think every one have a style

Yeah, we all have, but lousy writing is not a style.

A mistake I often see in artists in general is to think that their style can be detached from their audience, but the truth is if they want their art to deliver the message they want, they MUST incorporate the audience into their artistic expression.

Therefore, we as writers (yeeeeah we are writers!) must make it easier for the reader to follow our ideas and to like what we do. That means use a minimal set of rules that are known to work and to make written expression something enyjoyable.

I thought I had a style, but got a lot of feedback and learnt that my style needed tons of work and dedication to truly deliver what I want.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

I don't like following rules when it comes to writing I think every one have a style

bhju uoib frt if crts oijopfdd yyuyfuf se.

Did you understand the above sentence? I knew what I was trying to say, did you?

Language has rules that allow us to communicate ideas. Whether you like it or not we all need to follow basic sentence rules for anyone to understand what you're communicating.

Prose has conventions that make it easier to do this when telling stories. Paragraphs, speech marks, punctuation, grammar, dialogue tags, are all there to help make prose intelligible, so readers don't have to pause and work out who is saying and doing what.

It's a romantic idea to be the kind of person to write another "house of leaves" but that kind of writing is just a gimmick - a metacommentary about writing itself.

Style is not the same as the basic rules of writing. Style comes from the way you put words together, the rhythms, images and subjects you choose when telling stories. If you can master the basic rules of formatting then you'll find they will help your writing, not make you conform to a style.

 

[sknox]

First learn the rules. Then break them, if you wish. But, you must break them in a way that the readers understand you mean to do that and are not merely making a mistake. Only the intended breaking of rules can be accounted art; the rest is merely botching the job.

 

[BcRedneck]

Well I got alot of work ahead. The more I worry about all these problems the slower i go. I just did some stuff today I really liked. No formatting but i did things in my story that i haven't seen before and im looking forward to how it all plays out

 

[The Judge]

The more I worry about all these problems the slower i go.

Then leave worrying about these things until you've written the first draft of the story and you're making the necessary edits.

Personally, I prefer to move slowly and get things as right as possible the first time around, so that my initial draft is relatively polished and fit to be read by my writing group. Other people are happy to write a jumble of stuff to get the whole story down in a white-hot frenzy of writing and then they sort it all out on a second or third draft and only send the revised version on to their writing buddies.

It really doesn't matter which order you do things in, such as correcting grammar/punctuation/paragraphs, as long as they all get done at some point and preferably long before the story is given to others for feedback.

 

[harrythrone]

Yeah, we all have, but lousy writing is not a style.

A mistake I often see in artists in general is to think that their style can be detached from their audience, but the truth is if they want 192.168.100.1 192.168.1.1 their art to deliver the message they want, they MUST incorporate the audience into their artistic expression.

Therefore, we as writers (yeeeeah we are writers!) must make it easier for the reader to follow our ideas and to like what we do. That means use a minimal set of rules that are known to work and to make written expression something enyjoyable.

I thought I had a style, but got a lot of feedback and learnt that my style needed tons of work and dedication to truly deliver what I want.

what I am trying to say is , sticking to normal and usual is not the only way , if you want to try something new never done before why not ?

 

[BcRedneck]

I do never done in the story. not the format I want people to be able to enjoy reading it, so id like to make it easy to read but not written like it is for children. Because I definitely did not write a kid's story.

Oh almost forgot. I have done something I've never seen before. The main character hears a voice in his head. To eliminate dialog tags it's written in bold italic's. So when he hears the voice it is clear and seamless

 

[DLCroix]

Do not be afraid to go slow, the first thing you should achieve is the closest possible lock, as if the two were one, between your narrator or muse and your receiving self or who transfers that to paper or computer. For this you must learn to believe in your muse as if she were the captain who guides your ship, not to interrupt yourself with the doubts of your receiving self regarding your level as a writer or try not to get up so much from the desk, let's say to consult a dictionary, some synonym. If you can feel comfortable, your stories will flow naturally, as you have yet you must to find your narrative voice. All this requires a lot of patience but above all to enjoy what you do. Keep in mind that if you have fun writing, someone else will do it reading.

 

[JS Wiig]

I have done something I've never seen before.

Not to be a DebbyDowner or anything, but the chances of any of us doing something that has never been done before are slim-to-none. In fact it’s probably already been done-and in a much more compelling fashion-by someone else who is way better at writing.

Again not trying to be the rain on your parade, I just think it is important to set realistic expectations for ourselves to avoid colossus disappointments and to continue to enjoy writing for what it is: a personal emotional outlet that occasionally resonates with one or more other humans.

 

[Wayne Mack]

Write the story you want to tell as best you can, right now, with the style you feel most comfortable with, right now. Your style and preferences will likely change just from the activity of writing, but what those changes might be cannot be predicted and the only way to undergo those changes is to proceed now. Continue telling your tale in the manner that feels most enjoyable. Listen to comments and apply what feels useful, but do not let commentary become a roadblock to writing. Best of luck.

 

[JS Wiig]

…colossus disappointments…

Sorry to side track here, but in the interest of grammar and editing, this should be “colossal disappointments”. While both words mean the same thing, colossus is a noun while colossal is the adjective.

Apologies and carry on…

 

[BcRedneck]

Not to be a DebbyDowner or anything, but the chances of any of us doing something that has never been done before are slim-to-none. In fact it’s probably already been done-and in a much more compelling fashion-by someone else who is way better at writing.

I said I never seen it before. Considering how many books exist there's probably not anything hasn't been done.