According to Strunk's The Elements of Style:
"As long as it holds together, a paragraph may be of any length-a single sentence or a passage of great duration."
Excluding dialogue, He goes on to say that a topic should be dealt with in a paragraph and then start a new one.
This is hard to explain because it is almost an unconscious act for me. When an idea has been expressed and I move on to another thought I start a new paragraph. I don't like to read long paragraphs that combine many ideas and topics. My mind will wander, so I write like I read.
Not much help, is it?
Business writing typically involves single spacing, with block paragraphs that are flush left and have two carriage returns between them.
Folks, feel free to disagree, but I am fairly certain that these are the norms. Hope this helps, Chronicle!
Makes things easier to read.
I'm going to assume that you're referring to where/when to end a graph and start a new one. I don't think there are any set rules. But, this is the internal set of rules that I use for my own graphing:
1) I try to ONLY use 1 sentence graphs to add emphasis to whatever point I was trying to make. I think it's the natural tendency of readers to add that emphasis, so I use it sparingly.
2) I try to not have a really chunky graph. I will write until the graph feels over (sorry, that's not much help to you) and then look at it. If it looks too long (and I try to imagine it as it would look on the printed paperback page), I will find the natural point in that graph to break it up.
3) I also consider varying graph lengths. I was told that you have to very structure or else, on some level, it becomes monotonous for the reader.
In short, each graph for me is a self contained "thought" sotospeak-- perhaps it's scene description, or a chunk of related action, and I break it where it FEELS right.
Hope that helps,
[This message has been edited by Straws (edited January 17, 2003).]
It's hard to read and confusing.
You the reader may want to "try" something new because you are bored with such and such----but like dialog tags, there are some things that the reader just reads through and they are simply "tags" the brain reads them but it is only a flag to let the brain know who was speaking.
The same with the grouped dialog, the brain reads John said, and then because of the way English is the brain assumes that the whole area before the next indent or white line is all John's. When the brain reads Sue said in the same paragraph, at first it assumes that John is telling us what Sue said, but then the punctuation says otherwise, then the brain goes back and rereads the whole thing and ---you get the idea. Confusion, and you will lose the reader.
You indent a new paragraph in a manuscript, double space between for Internet or e-mail. Each person’s dialog gets its own paragraph. Where you put the dialog tag is somewhat optional depending on where you want the emphasis, on the words or on the action. To quicken the pace, say in a fight scene, use short one-sentence paragraphs. Try to vary the length because the reader will get bored with same length ones.
Think about the last time you read a whole page paragraph---ugh; it’s like listening to a droning professor that never varies his tone; sleep time. Because of the way we have been taught to read, we take a pause at the paragraph break---therefore if it is a page long you feel like you have to read the entire thing before you can take a breath—all in one chunk. The paragraph gets long and boring, no matter how exciting the words. Break it up, and you can keep the reader interested, thus the one paragraph, short words, to create a feeling of breathless hurry.
In a one-sentence paragraph don’t use a bunch of commas and semi-colons to make it a hundred-word sentence. Same reason for the long paragraph; what a mouth full.
As always, read out loud and see where you naturally take a break in the reading. Put your new paragraph in there.
I’m not going to post examples, if you want some, I can e-mail them to you. Every time I do, I tend to make them short to demonstrate and then someone says, “oh, right” and doesn’t get that it is only an example—not an example of my writing to be critiqued.
Shawn.
[This message has been edited by srhowen (edited January 18, 2003).]
quote:
Every time I [post examples] I tend to make them short...and then someone...doesn’t get that it is only an example—not an example of my writing to be critiqued.
Sorry, Shawn, but examples have to be true, no matter how short. To compare things, we can't rig the comparison by short-changing one side. (No pun intended.)
Your two versions in "v.short passage-feedback required" in Fragments & Feedback just don't say the same thing, and seem to weight the second toward a biased "show" rather than "tell" just because it has more info. But it isn't the amount of info that determines show v. tell, but the nature of the info.
Once rewritten with equal amounts of outward action, the differences between the versions are not as obvious, but a person is not inclined to mistake amount of info for the real "show" indicators -- the quote (maybe) and the word "so," which indicates motivation.
I say "maybe" because even a quote isn't a clear indication of showing since speaking is an action, after all, especially depending on the definition of showing and telling. Think of London's White Fang. Most of the book is narrative because White Fang doesn't talk. Yet consider this passage:
quote:
Nothing happened. He continued to gaze, and in his interest he forgot to snarl. Also, he forgot to be afraid. For the time, fear had been routed by growth, while growth had assumed the guise of curiosity. He began to notice near objects [description of what he noticed].
Now the gray cub had lived all his days on a level floor. He had never experienced the hurt of a fall. He did not know what a fall was. So he stepped boldly out upon the air.
No quotes there, but it seems to be showing because we're in the cub's head. The telling version of the same passage might be:
"Nothing happened. He continued to gaze. He stepped out upon the air."
To be fair, I suppose we should clean it up:
"Nothing happened and he continued to gaze. Finally, he stepped out upon the air."
Still, it's all action visible to the reader's eyes and only that. Unlike in our Eddy account, the versions here are lopsided but not unfair for comparison because we've removed only the inner stuff going on and left all the same outer stuff. With Eddy, there was no inner stuff except for the noted "so" and maybe the quote. The rest of the Eddy account could be considered showing or telling.
In fact, Survivor's statement,
quote:
narrative summary only constitutes "telling" when it is summarized by the author rather than the POV character.
is a good point, and brings me back to my original conclusion: Showing and telling aren't always easily determined and depend on the interpretation of showing and telling. But we do have to compare apples with apples.
Did the conversation take a sudden turn here?
I mean, is it possible to both show AND tell. They are obviously two different writing techniques, but each has a certain advantage (though showing is generally better). Perhaps there is a way to create a style that combines the power of both.