Transcription
Brandon Cornett, author and creator of Story Theory, a weekly newsletter for fiction writers who want to improve their fiction. So today, I want to talk about paragraphs and how we use them in fiction. What are they for? How do you, as an author, employ paragraphs in your writing to guide the reader through your story and just basically create a better reading experience? Let's jump over onto the page.
And this is kind of a follow-up to a video I did not long ago with formatting dialogue, and I mentioned paragraphs in that video because it goes right along with formatting. And it got a slew of comments from people. I had no idea it was such an interesting, uh, popular topic. So this is kind of a spin-off from that. And today, we're going to look at paragraphs, how you use them in fiction to basically facilitate the reader's experience and and to help them, you know, make sense of your story, help structure your story, create a better flow, create a rhythm. Paragraphs can do all of these things.
And as you can see here, we're going to be using an excerpt from The Sign Is Fixing, science fiction classic novel Dune by Frank Herbert. So let's start with what is a paragraph? A paragraph is a container. Think of it as a container for similar items. Now, those similar items might be a description that contain that's contained within a paragraph. It might be dialogue. It might be exposition or action. Basically, if something goes together, it should be contained within the same paragraph. This will make more sense as we proceed through this video.
So this looks like a giant paragraph, but it's not. Okay, I've actually jumbled this all together. I've smashed it all together. This is like within the first chapter of the novel Dune, and what we're going to do here is we're going to unpack this. All right, we're going to detangle it. It's all compressed. I smushed all the paragraphs together so it doesn't make any sense. And by unpacking this step by step, I think you'll get a better feel for how paragraphs work in fiction, how you can use them as a writer. And so let's just jump in.
So what do we have here? All right, we've got by the half light of a suspenser lamp dimmed and hanging near the floor. So this is setting. All right, I'm seeing some setting and some description taking place here. Um, there's basically, uh, if you don't know the story, Paul is like a kind of the chosen one sort of a thing. So, um, he's the son of a Duke, and he is being visited by someone. He's in his bed, he's sleeping, and then he gets a visitor. So this is the first place where we need to put a paragraph break.
By the half light of the lamp dimmed and hanging near the floor, the awakened boy, that's Paul, so there's your character, could see a bulky female shape at his door, standing one step ahead of his mother. The old woman was a witch, shadow hair like matted spider webs, hooded, round darkness of features, eyes like glittering jewels.
So why is this all together? Because it introduces briefly the setting and in the situation. We have a boy sleeping in the bed, kind of pretending that he's sleeping, and he sees the shape of a woman. And then it briefly describes the old woman. So all of this just goes together because it's logic. It's logically connected.
So then we transition from this straight into dialogue. "Is he not small for his age, Jessica?" the old woman asked. Her voice tweet, her voice wheezed and twanged like an untuned ballast set. And a ballast set is a musical instrument used in this story. Okay, so we have a choice here, or the author has a choice here. Um, this is Frank Herbert's story, so he made his choices already. But let's say you were writing this for yourself, you could do this part here in one of two ways. You could leave it like this: "Is he not small for his age, Jessica?" the old woman asked. And then you kind of have a description of her voice. Her voice wheezed and twangs like an untuned ballast set. That makes sense to put these all together because she speaks, and then there's a brief description of her voice. So that could be on one line, or if you prefer to break it up and get a little more white space, you could do it like that. I think it makes more sense connected as one paragraph because this brief description directly describes the woman speaking. So let's just continue on.
Okay, now we're having some paragraphs take place here and and show up, and we're spacing the story out, and we're giving it more structure. And so it's going to make more sense to the reader. It's going to be more eye-friendly. Let's continue on.
So Paul's mother answered in her soft, controlled tone. "The treaties are known to start late getting their growth. Getting their growth, your reverence." All right, and then boom, look at that. Another dialogue right there. You can see another the other quotation marks and the other attribute for the old woman talking.
So paragraph. All right, so we've got the description, kind of the introduction, setting up the scene. We know there's a boy in a bed and he sees a woman, an old woman, and a brief description. Then the old woman speaks. That Paul's mother replies to her. Okay, and then we go, "Uh, so I've heard." "So I've heard," wheezed the old woman.
So [Music] now that, okay, that's a mistake right there because I'm unpacking this just one step at a time here live. This is live, folks. This is unscripted. Okay, so the old woman replies after, you know, Paul's mother says the treaties are known for, you know, getting their growth late in life. The old woman says, "So I've heard. So I've heard," weezed the old woman. "Yeah, he's already 15." "Yes, your reverence."
Okay, speaker changes. So another paragraph. This is the old woman. This is Paul's mother speaking. This is the old woman again. This is Paul's mother. Now, there's only two speakers here, so you don't, we don't have to say, you know, "said Paul's mother," "said the old woman." You don't need a speaker tag or an attribute every single time. It's pretty easy to keep track of who's talking here because it's two people going back and forth. Plus, you've got, you know, Paul's mother here is identified. The old woman is identified. So right here, we know this is Paul's mother talking again because she responds to her. And you don't necessarily have to say identify her every single time. That can get tiresome. So it's pretty clear here who's talking. We don't always need to tag.
So we switch up again, and now the old woman's talking. "He's awake and listening to us," said the old woman. "Sly little rascal," she chuckled. Okay, so this, we could say, uh, this is again an area where as a writer, you would have a choice. So this is pretty much all the same person talking. "He's awake and listening to us," said the old woman. "Sly little rascal," she chuckled. But royalty has need of slightness, and if he's really the quit sack cataract, well... So that should all go together, probably. I mean, you could do it like that, but that would create confusion for the reader because we tend to see, we associate new paragraphs with a change in speaker. One person talking, we get another paragraph, we skip a line, another person's talking. So we're, as readers, we're programmed to read it that way and expect that to be a different speaker because it's a paragraph break. So this one, let's back it up here, and I think it makes more sense like that. I believe that's how it's actually written in the novel.
"He's awake and listening to us," said the woman. She chuckled. So there's a little bit of action inserted here in this dialogue, perfectly okay. You know, that kind of brings the reader into the scene, makes the scene more real, as opposed to just dialogue by itself in a vacuum.
So now we've got within the shadows of his bed, Paul held his eyes open to mere slits. Okay, so now it shifts. The old one was talking, now it shifts to Paul. Two bird-bright ovals, the eyes of the old woman seemed to expand and glow as they stared into his. So that was Paul's perception right here. That was him and his bed, cracking his eyes. He's still pretending that he's sleeping, and he sees the old woman staring right back at him. So.
And then we have another speaker. New paragraph. "Sleep well, you sly little rascal," said the old woman. "Tomorrow, you'll need all your faculties to meet my gam Jabar."
And paragraph. Okay, so this is kind of like the end of the scene, and she was gone, pushing his mother out, closing the door with a solid thump. So now we have a whole scene here, and you can see how the paragraphs are broken up. Now it looks more like a novel, right? It looks like more like a page out of a book, as opposed to one giant mass of text. We have a paragraph for kind of setting the scene and letting us know there's a boy in a bed and an old woman entering the room. And then someone starts talking, so that gets a paragraph of its own. Uh, there's a brief, there's a description of kind of what her voice is, so we kind of have a better sense of who this person is and what she's like. And, uh, as opposed to just a dialogue by itself, we have switching, switching speech to another character, and then the dialogue switches again to another character, etc., etc. And then we go to Paul's perception of him being in the bed. That gets a paragraph of its own because it's a different person. If this went on to describe this woman some more, it would all be contained within the same paragraph because it's all connected logically. And then we have the old woman basically saying goodbye, I'ma see you tomorrow. Uh, you've got a big test tomorrow. If you've never read this story, it won't make any sense, but that's okay.
And then we have the end of the scene, which is action. This is just pure action. There's no dialogue here. It's just, "She was gone, pushing his mother out, closing the door with a solid thump." This also, kind of pushing his mother out, we get we get a sense of who's in charge here, right? Like pushing his mother out. "You know, your reverence." "Yes, your reverence." So we kind of know that this lady is a boss. She's, uh, she is, um, kind of, um, high up in the ranks, so to speak, of this society of like witch women. Anyway, but this simple line, in addition to being on a paragraph by itself, kind of gives the reader a sense of who these, who the relationship between these two characters. And when you put something on a line by itself like that, as a paragraph, like a one-sentence paragraph, it has a certain emphasis. You know, it kind of like it's like, um, a punch, so to speak, a literary punch. You use it sparingly when you write, but when you have regular paragraph formatting and then you put one thing on its on a paragraph by itself, one sentence or even a few words, it really has a strong impact in your writing. And you can use that to draw attention to an important thought or an important event or very key piece of action that takes place.
So anyway, that's how you do it. That's how you format paragraphs, including description and action and back-and-forth dialogue. And I'm going to be doing a lot more videos like this on formatting topics because apparently people find this really helpful. So I want to make this channel as helpful as possible. And if you really want to improve your fiction writing, sign up for the Story Theory newsletter. It's a weekly newsletter, but I put new content on the site on a daily basis. The newsletter goes out once a week. You can find a subscription, or excuse me, a link to the newsletter in the description of this video. And until next time, keep writing.