Transcription
Hello everyone, and welcome to learning how to write paragraphs. So, my name is Dedra, and I am a fiction author. I am teaching you how to write. So, today we're going to talk about paragraphs. We'll be looking at the structure of a paragraph, and when to start paragraphs, and common mistakes while writing paragraphs.
So, the first thing we're going to look at is, what is the purpose of a paragraph? So, paragraphs organize events, dialogue, ideas into an easy-to-follow format. They signal a new shot or a new camera shift while you're writing, and they give your reader a mental and visual break, preventing reader exhaustion. So, paragraphs are basically the bricks that you lay to build your story. And so, paragraphs are very important. That white space is going to be important for your reader. If there's not enough white space between the paragraphs, your reader will be very exhausted. If there's too much space, your reader is just going to get confused. It'll just be page chaos. So, paragraphs are kind of a first impression. I remember when I was in high school, I had teachers that wouldn't even read your actual paper. They just wanted to make sure all the structures were correct, the margins were correct, you had proper paragraphs, proper paragraph breaks, but they actually wouldn't even read your material. They were just more obsessed with your white space. And I am a fan of white space. I think it's a very important part of what you are reading. And so, we're going to look at paragraphs and how they affect your white space and how they affect your reader experience.
So, let's look first at a paragraph structure. Yes, paragraphs have a specific structure. And maybe you remember this from grade school, or maybe you're listening to this for the first time, and that's fine too. This is a beginner's course, so I'm helping everyone of all levels. If you are an absolute, absolute beginner, then this course is great for you. And it's just on YouTube for free. You don't have to sign up for anything. So, first, when you structure a paragraph, it's a topic sentence. So, this sentence introduces the new thought or idea that the reader will focus on. And then your next sentence or sentences are going to be your supporting sentences. And these sentences, um, typo there, but that's, that's fine. Uh, these sentences expand on the topic sentence. And then you actually have a concluding sentence, believe it or not. And this sentence finishes off the idea, and it also sets up for the next topic sentence.
So, let's look at a couple of examples. The first one, uh, yesterday I went to the zoo with my roommate. Here's the topic sentence. Supporting sentences: My roommate was the most excited about seeing the giraffes and elephants. I loved the aquarium. And concluding sentence: After 4 hours of walking around the zoo, we decided to go to one of our favorite hot chicken restaurants. So, this is the full paragraph. You can make this just a simple paragraph. It's a really simple story, kind of a journal entry.
I have another example here for you. Uh, topic sentence: My favorite city in the world is San Diego. And the supporting sentences: The weather is gorgeous all year round, even in the winter. It never feels crowded, even though there are so many people in California. And the food is phenomenal everywhere you go. So, these sentences support why I think, uh, San Diego is the best city in the world, or it's my favorite. But no, it's really the best. Um, it's just a fact. And if you go anywhere in the United States, it needs to be San Diego. So, that's my concluding sentence.
So, when you have paragraphs, you can't run them all together. So, the paragraphs we looked at, they, they're fine on their own, but when you have a series of paragraphs, you need to know when to break them up so the reader can follow easily. So, repeat after me: White space is an art that should be taken seriously. I, I think white space is incredibly important. It is an art form. It is part of the writing process, spaces, punctuation, everything.
The perfect time for paragraph breaks are: setting change or an observation. So, if your, your character is making a new observation, or the, the narrator is making a new observation, you're going to want a new paragraph. Also, a new idea or topic change. So, you have a new topic sentence, you need to change that paragraph. Also, dialogue. If someone is speaking, please put a dialogue break. I have seen some people not put in dialogue breaks, even recently, and it's, it's mighty confusing, even to me. So, I, I highly, strongly, strongly recommend dialogue breaks. And just drama. It's always good just to have a, a single paragraph break on its own, one sentence alone, just creating drama on the page and just slapping your reader in the face. It's a great feeling. And new action. So, if there's a new action, your character is doing something new that is unconnected to previous actions. So, if you have a series of actions that are happening at once, just leave them all together. You don't need to put a new paragraph break for each new action, but you need to have paragraph breaks for unconnected actions. And yes, so my note is, a new paragraph is the written equivalent of a camera change in TV or film. So, whenever you have a new paragraph, it is, it is mentally like a camera change when you are watching Netflix or anything like that.
So, this is a short story that I've written. You can read the entire thing on my website, Dedra.com. Uh, it's also my blog where I post a bunch of short stories and poetry and writing tips. So, if you want to go over to there and subscribe, it's totally free. You don't have to do anything. So, we're going to look at my paragraph changes in this story called "The Potted Plant." Um, so I won't read the whole thing. If you want to pause the screen and read it, that's totally fine, or you can read it on my website. We're going to look at where I put the paragraph breaks.
So, first thing is the setting. So, this is setting observations. So, "The flowers were the first thing she saw." And so, I put this as its own paragraph because it's kind of a dramatic intro. I could make this one paragraph: "The flowers were the first thing she saw. They were sitting on the cobblestone street." But it doesn't really have the impact that I want. So, I made it two different paragraphs.
So, this next one is actually an idea change. Uh, so the paragraph before the highlighted one is, "She nodded and took a seat in one of the wire chairs under the awning adorned with yellow, orange, dangling lights. The sun was half-set, creating a bright glow as far as the eye could see." And so, the dangling lights gave off a redundant glow. The lights were there, they were glowing, but they weren't really necessary. So, the first paragraph that I've read is basically she is observing these lights. And then the second paragraph, the reason I split it is because this is a new idea. This is more of a metaphor. So, I decided just to break it up to make it a little more dramatic, to make it stand out just a little bit more. But it's an idea change. So, she's not observing things anymore. She is kind of processing it.
And then we have dialogue. New breaks for dialogue. So, "Regular milk or soy?" "Regular." Things. So, so every time a new person speaks, we want to break it up that way. The reader knows that these are different people speaking and not the same person. I actually just did a video recently about dialogue, so go check that out if you want to improve your dialogue skills, including how to do some of the punctuation portions of dialogue.
Moving on, we have new actions. So, "Jarred from her thoughts, Vanda turned her head away and she pressed her lips together." So, these are new actions that are not connected to anything before them. Although, to be fair, in this story, there is dialogue before each of these paragraphs, so we need to break up the paragraphs anyways. But if there was a series of actions, we would want to break these up into their own actions.
And then this is kind of a drama, another drama paragraph. So, "Vanda felt like that in this country." So, the lights were there, they were glowing, but they weren't really necessary. I could make this one paragraph, but making it an extra paragraph just makes it extra dramatic, and I just love extra drama.
So, let's look at some common mistakes that people make when they are breaking up paragraphs or writing paragraphs. First is repetitive beginnings. I am actually someone who does this. I'm guilty of this as well. And so, it is very important for me during the editing process to avoid this. So, we don't want to use the same words at the beginning of each paragraph. I could write these two paragraphs: "Flowers were the first thing she saw. The flowers were sitting on the cobblestone street." Um, it's very bland. We don't want to do that. It's, it's too repetitive, and so it's very dull. We want to switch it up. And even my, my biggest problem is using "he" and "she" at the beginning of sentences. I have to really watch this. I have to really go through my edits when I, when I write.
Another problem I see is repetitive lengths. Uh, believe it or not, this is actually a problem. So, avoid having the same length paragraphs because it makes the text look robotic. So, if you look at this, this looks really robotic. If I have long paragraphs, uh, I, I mean, these aren't very long, but I don't have enough space to show you really long paragraphs. I've seen paragraphs that take up a whole page. But too many long paragraphs is just exhausting. And then if we have any, too many short paragraphs like this, then it's just really chaotic. My, my brain has to shift with each new paragraph break, and so it's really uncomfortable for my mind. So, if I have a combination like this, automatically your mind kind of relaxes. So, just the lengths alone, I feel more comfortable reading because there's lots of breaks and they're varied. So, I don't feel mentally stagnant, and I don't feel like I'm in a whirlwind of paragraphs.
Another problem I've seen, I mentioned it before, not breaking for dialogue. This is very important. Please, please do this. Make sure you break properly, not just break, but break properly because your readers will get confused. So, "Regular milk or soy?" So, like this, this is just in paragraph form. And I've seen similar things to this in printed, published things. And that doesn't mean that the writer is bad or that the, the editor is bad. It just, it just happens sometimes. But just be very careful with it because it's very confusing. So, this is the proper way to break. Each person has their own line. And there, there are some nuances. I won't get into them right now, but there are some nuances. If your character is going into a monologue, you still break up the paragraphs. Even if it's one person speaking, you start a new line. In American publications, you don't put the end quotation mark. You just put a new beginning quotation mark. You don't finish off the paragraph, and then you just put a break. It's a very interesting nuance. I'll have to make a video about it sometime. But if you would like to learn more about dialogue writing, I have created a video for that. It is actually number six, I believe, in this series. Is this number seven or eight? I didn't even look. I don't even remember. But it's the video before this one, and I go over all the mistakes that people usually make while writing dialogue and how to make your dialogue better.
Another problem is just breaking too much or too little. So, like I said before, I love a little bit of drama, so I like to break it up a little too much. I need to watch that as well. But if you break a paragraph, the reader is preparing for a new thought. So, you, you're mentally shifting. So, if you do it too much, then it gives your reader whiplash. Like here, here I've just made a paragraph with each sentence, and it's actually exhausting to read. I don't want to read a new sentence because my mind is mentally shifting. So, you know, if you're driving and you have a stick shift, and you kind of brace yourself before you shift the gear, that's how it is when you have a new paragraph. Maybe, maybe I'm just old, maybe nobody uses a stick shift anymore, but that's how I kind of feel, feel when you start a new paragraph, is just kind of the bracing that you do before you shift into a new idea or thought. And then if you don't break enough, it makes it dull and dragging, and it's also confusing. Remember, our main goal is to communicate as clearly as possible. We don't even have to write extremely beautiful words or anything like that, but we want to communicate our story as clearly as we possibly can. That's the most important thing. We don't have body language to tell our story like we would if we are talking face to face. So, we have to do it in different methods, and that includes paragraph breaks and punctuation, white space, and just little oddities like that.
So, let's do a quick recap. So, first, we talked about the structure of paragraphs. So, there's the topic sentence, the supporting sentence, and then the concluding sentence. After that, we have when to start a new paragraph. So, setting change, your observation, idea or topic change, dialogue, drama, new actions. And the last thing we talked about are mistakes. So, repetitive beginnings, using the same words at the beginning of paragraphs, repetitive lengths. We want to have different, varied lengths of paragraphs when we write, not breaking for dialogue, and breaking too much or too little.
So, if you want more practice in making good paragraphs, I've actually created a free workbook. You can download it absolutely for free. Uh, just click on the link in the description. It has over 25 pages of paragraph tips that we went over today, and exercises, and some writing prompts. It also has a 14-day writing challenge as a writing journal, so you can keep improving your creative writing. If you have any questions about paragraphs, please leave it in the comments below. I will answer any of your questions that you have about starting to write, or about the elements of writing, starting to write, fictional writing, anything like that. Go ahead and leave those comments below. If this was helpful, go ahead and give it a like and subscribe, and I will see you in the next lesson. Keep being beautiful beasts. I'll see you all later. Peace.