Writing Foundations: Creating Paragraphs
You can have the best story in the world, but if it’s all in one chunk on the page, you may struggle to find people willing to read it. To break it up, you need to know where and when to create new paragraphs.
Every new paragraph starts with an indent. So, to create a new paragraph, hit the enter key, and then the tab key, which is typically on the left side of the Q and either says TAB or looks like two stacked arrows pointing in separate directions.
So when do you start a new paragraph?
1. Anytime a new character speaks
The most obvious place to break up your paragraph is when a new character is speaking. Take this example.
“Hi John,” said Mary as she walked into the room. John was reading a book, and tucked a bookmark between the pages as she sat next to him. “how was work?” “It was good,” she replied, “but my boss really didn’t like the draft I sent her.” “That’s too bad, I thought it was some of your better work.”
Vs.
“Hi John,” said Mary as she walked into the room. John was reading a book, and tucked a bookmark between the pages as she sat next to him. “How was work?” He asked. “It was good,” she replied, “but my boss really didn’t like the draft I sent her.” “That’s too bad, I thought it was some of your better work.”
See the difference? So you make a new line whenever a new character is speaking. In the case of Mary speaking twice, “It was good…” “but my boss…” we keep that in the same paragraph. Whereas when John speaks after Mary, it becomes its own paragraph.
The only time you may split the same character speaking is if they have a large chunk of dialogue. In that case, you can split their dialogue according to the next rule.
2. Any new idea
This isn’t necessarily a hard rule like the last one is. We have a lot of room to make interesting creative decisions when breaking up description or action. For the most part, though, you’ll want to break up your paragraph whenever there’s a new thought or idea. So:
A thin plastic film coated the room, making the furniture gleam in the sunlight streaming through the windows. On her right sat a couch upholstered in ivy coloured fabric, untouched by time. Anna swept her fingers through her hair, chewing on her lip. She watched Rick out of the corner of her eye, “What are you thinking?” The detective’s expression was completely neutral, though he clutched his pen tightly in one fist. In his other hand was a notebook, three questions written across it in blocky text, 1. Why are all the clocks stopped at 5:32? 2. Where’s the murder weapon? 3. Why did my wife leave me? “Same as the others,” he said, tapping his pen against the last question, “the plastic wrap killer.”
So in this example we go from describing the room, to describing an action Anna is doing, to describing the detective, and then his notes. These are all separate ideas, so we can split them into their own paragraphs.
As well, as long as it’s about the same character or within the same ‘idea’, description can be paired with dialogue. You can see Anna’s dialogue comes after the description of her. You can totally do this, or you can split it into its own paragraph if you’d like. It looks natural where it is because Anna is the subject of the paragraph, and she’s also the one speaking.
In the case of the detective speaking, his action comes between dialogue. Also allowed, since the detective is the subject of that paragraph.
3. Any new location or skip in time
Similar to the last, if the scene starts outside, when they move inside it’s a new paragraph. If they go into a new room, get into a car, etc. Any time they change location, it starts a new paragraph. Same for a skip in time. If you need to go from day to night, new paragraph.
Kayde looked anxiously up at the looming oak doors. The windows were dark, layered in years of dust and grime. It’s now or never, they thought. They pushed through the doors and into the foyer. Kayde seemed to wait there for hours, and by the time someone came to greet them, it was already dark outside.
4. For style/effect
This is one of my favourite parts of writing. Once you nail when you should be splitting your paragraphs, you can start to play with splitting them for effect. I do this quite a lot. Take this example:
She fixed an ugly stare at herself in the mirror, long locks of brown hair hanging in front of her eyes. A pair of sharp scissors gleamed at the edge of the glass, pinched between her fingers. Dania raised the scissors to her hair. Snip. A lock fell towards the sink, the edges rough and imperfect. Snip. Another. She chopped and hacked away at her hair until it was clumped in an unsightly pile over the drain of the sink, her head round and covered in patches where she didn’t quite get close enough to her skin. She was finally free.
While the cutting of her hair could be in the same paragraph, it gives it more drama and effect when it’s split. Any time a character is going through something shocking or emotional, maybe try playing around with the paragraph to see if you can add some additional drama to it.
Paragraphs can be as long or short as you’d like them to be, as long as you have intention behind it!
