In this video, I’m tackling a question we’ve all faced: when should we start a new paragraph? In dialogue, the rule is clear—each new speaker gets a new paragraph. But what about the exposition?
If the prospect of reading a block of text feels daunting, readers might just shy away—so should you break a long chunk into manageable pieces simply based on its appearance? Should you trust your gut? In this video, I discuss important considerations that help in the decision-making process.
Hello, Jane Cleland here. How can I decide when to start a new paragraph? It’s an interesting question, right? There are some clear indicators that in dialogue, each time a new person speaks, you start a new paragraph. If you have a change of place or time and the same narrator, you would start a new paragraph. Presumably. You know I always play devil’s advocate with myself? And I suppose I could come up with a scenario where I don’t want to, but by and large I think that’s a pretty good rule, pretty good guidance.
The bigger issue is in regular, uh, writing, in regular exposition, how do I decide? Well, one consideration is the graphic design element. If you create a block of paragraph that just is so dense, it’s intimidating. Readers are thinking, perhaps subconsciously, “I want to write, I want to read one more paragraph, but ugh, look at that, it’s so long, it’ll take me forever.” And so they may just bow out. So I do think that’s a consideration, but at the same time, we don’t want our writing to be guided by graphic design.
So, what’s another way of thinking about how to break paragraphs? And for that, I want to read you an excerpt from Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mystery, “Plot It Yourself.” Mr. Wolfe, the detective, has just discovered that three manuscripts they thought were plagiarized by different people—somebody, and then two copycats—were actually all the same person. And he used, uh, writing indicators, uh, there’s diction, syntax, and some other things. But what I want to read to you is his conclusion about the paragraph, and he’s talking to Archie, Archie Goodwin, his assistant detective. So here’s what Mr. Wolfe says:
“A clever man might successfully disguise every element of his style but one. The paragraphing, diction, and syntax may be determined and controlled by rational processes in full consciousness. But paragraphing, the decision whether to take short hops or long ones, whether to hop in the middle of a thought or action or finish it first, that comes from instinct, from the depths of personality. I will concede the possibility that the verbal similarities and even the punctuation could be coincidence, though it is highly improbable. But not the paragraphing. These three stories were paragraphed by the same person.”
Interesting, right? It’s a style issue. So now the question becomes, and I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section, how do you decide when to start a new paragraph and when to just keep on writing? If this tip had value for you, would you like it? Would you share it? Would you subscribe to the channel? That opens up features for us that lets us make these videos even more valuable for you. Thank you.
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