Breaking up paragraphs in your story might seem simple, but there’s actually a LOT of depth to it.
Let’s go over the three levels of paragraph breaks, then write our own story together!
During the last stream, a subscriber requested that we go over how to break up paragraphs.
You can watch the video here to or scroll down for notes/highlights.
How to Break Up Paragraphs
- Knowing when and how to break up paragraphs is important to writing a good story
- If you have too many paragraph breaks, then the story will feel choppy; if you have too few, then it will feel like a wall of text
- The best way to learn how to break up paragraphs is to read a lot and get a feel for how other authors use them, but there are some general guidelines as well
- So let’s go over the three levels of paragraph breaks: basic, intermediate, and advanced!
Level 1: BASIC LEVEL BREAKS
- In dialogue, a new speaker means start a new paragraph
- Avoid walls of text: if a paragraph is five sentences or more, consider starting a new one
Bad Example:
“Holy crap!” Tom shouted, looking to the sky. “More crab-people are coming!” “Are you sure?” “Yes I’m sure! Just look at the metal spaceships, you can see the claws.” Samantha gazed upward, and the looming red-and-orange ships caught her eye. How could the crab-people have recovered from their last defeat so quickly? She crossed her arms in thought. “We need to get out of here.” “Yes, we have to report to the captain.” Tom clenched his fists, his scars from their previous battle still raw and fresh. “But wait a minute.” Samantha looked up again, squinting her eyes. This time, she noticed a detail she hadn’t before: a long tail coming off the spaceship’s behind. Tom covered his mouth in shock. “Wait. Those aren’t crab-people ships… they’re lobster-people ships!”
- In this example, it’s hard to tell who is saying what, and it’s hard to look at too, too much text is crammed into one giant box
- But if we add some paragraph breaks…
Better Example:
“Holy crap!” Tom shouted, looking to the sky. “More crab-people are coming!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes I’m sure! Just look at the metal spaceships, you can see the claws.”
Samantha gazed upward, and the looming red-and-orange ships caught her eye. How could the crab-people have recovered from their last defeat so quickly?
She crossed her arms in thought. “We need to get out of here.”
“Yes, we have to report to the captain.” Tom clenched his fists, his scars from their previous battle still raw and fresh.
“But wait a minute.” Samantha looked up again, squinting her eyes. This time, she noticed a detail she hadn’t before: a long tail coming off the spaceship’s behind.
Tom covered his mouth in shock. “Wait. Those aren’t crab-people ships… they’re lobster-people ships!”
- Adding the paragraph breaks makes it clear who is saying what, and it is much easier on the eyes
- Note how the paragraphs don’t have to start with dialogue. They can start with body language or introspection and lead into the dialogue
Level 2: INTERMEDIATE LEVEL BREAKS
- In general, you want to start a new paragraph whenever the focus/point changes, for example one paragraph can describe what a spooky key looks like, the next can describe the character using it to unlock a door, the next can describe what happens when the doors opens, etc.
- Paragraph breaks can be used for emphasis to make something stick out, particularly one-sentence paragraphs
Bad Example:
The rusted key felt like a crusted disease in her hand, heavy and sweaty and cold. Yet it pulled her toward the dark door like a magnet. She gripped its metal body with the tips of her fingers, as if it were a hot coal, unable to bear its prickly pain against any more skin than necessary. It slid into the doorknob easily, a beaten lover welcoming back its abusive partner. All it took was a slide and a click, a slide and a click was all, and the door opened with a groan. Behind it was blackness. The key forgotten, she peered inside. There was nothing except the neverending darkness of a bottomless well, with the faint odor of something salty and familiar. And that scratching sound. The same scratching sound that had driven her mad enough to finally look what was on the other side. As her eyes adjusted and she stepped further in, the blackness engulfed her all around, something came into view. A fuzzy movement on the horizon, getting louder, louder as it grew and grew, until its stench was overpowering and it stood before her, no longer hidden in the dark but statuesque and grand, a red-and-orange incarnation of terror that loomed over her head, clacking its claws and spitting salt water hisses of hunger and excitement of its thousand-year confinement finally at an end. It was a lobster-person.
- Not only is this a wall of text, but the focus changes several times, making it even harder to follow in one paragraph
Better Example:
The rusted key felt like a crusted disease in her hand, heavy and sweaty and cold. Yet it pulled her toward the dark door like a magnet. She gripped its metal body with the tips of her fingers, as if it were a hot coal, unable to bear its prickly pain against any more skin than necessary.
It slid into the doorknob easily, a beaten lover welcoming back its abusive partner. All it took was a slide and a click, a slide and a click was all, and the door opened with a groan. Behind it was blackness.
The key forgotten, she peered inside. There was nothing except the neverending darkness of a bottomless well, with the faint odor of something salty and familiar. And that scratching sound. The same scratching sound that had driven her mad enough to finally look what was on the other side.
As her eyes adjusted and she stepped further in, the blackness engulfed her all around, something came into view. A fuzzy movement on the horizon, getting louder, louder as it grew and grew, until its stench was overpowering and it stood before her, no longer hidden in the dark but statuesque and grand, a red-and-orange incarnation of terror that loomed over her head, clacking its claws and spitting salt water hisses of hunger and excitement of its thousand-year confinement finally at an end.
It was a lobster-person.
- Note how a lot of the first sentences of some paragraphs could work as the final sentences of the previous paragraphs, it all depends on what you want to group together and emphasize
- Whatever comes at the beginning of a paragraph will be the most emphasized
Level 3: ADVANCED LEVEL BREAKS
- Paragraph breaks can be used for pacing: in general short paragraphs give a sense of faster pacing, and longer paragraphs give a sense of slower pacing
- Paragraph breaks can be used to vary the rhythm of your writing: if all of your paragraphs are around the same length, the reader will feel subconsciously bored, so vary them up
Bad Example:
It was just me and the lobster-person left on the battlefield. I lunged at it, sword in my hand, ready to crack open its spindly legs.
The creature blocked my attack with its thick, hardened claw. It smacked me to the ground and I fell against the dead body of one of my fallen comrades.
One of my hundred fallen comrades. All around me was an unending field of bodies, flesh and shell alike.
And I was about to become one of them. The lobster-person scuttled toward me, its bloodied claw ready to lop off one final human’s head.
That was when I knew I had to do. I lowered my sword and reached into my back pocket, pulling out the special weapon I had prepared for just this moment.
It was the lobster-people’s one weakness. A tub of garlic butter sauce.
- Every paragraph here is two sentences long and feels very similar, making it hard to read
Better Example:
It was just me and the lobster-person left on the battlefield. I lunged at it, sword in my hand, ready to crack open its spindly legs.
The creature blocked my attack with its thick, hardened claw. It smacked me to the ground and I fell against the dead body of one of my fallen comrades. One of my hundred fallen comrades. All around me was an unending field of bodies, flesh and shell alike. And I was about to become one of them.
The lobster-person scuttled toward me, its bloodied claw ready to lop off one final human’s head. That was when I knew I had to do. I lowered my sword and reached into my back pocket, pulling out the special weapon I had prepared for just this moment. It was the lobster-people’s one weakness.
A tub of garlic butter sauce.
- The faster scenes now have shorter paragraphs, and the more introspective scenes now have longer paragraphs
- Varying up the length of the paragraphs makes it much more satisfying to read
IN SUMMARY!
- The best way to think of paragraph breaks is to visualize them as a single camera shot in a movie
- Just like how you don’t want to spend to long on a single shot in a film or else you’ll bore the audience, you don’t want to spend too long on a single paragraph either
- Any time a film would change shots to a different angle, consider making a new paragraph break, such as: when a new character is talking, when the focus changes, to change up the pacing/rhythm, etc.
After that, chat voted on this image from DeviantArt to write a story about, focusing on paragraph breaks. The prompt we went with from it was: “Power Rangers based on fruits.”
Here’s what we came up with:
The Fruit Rangers confronted the Vile Vegetables at Papa Dong’s pizzeria. All of the citizens had run away as soon as the Viles had shown up, and now the two food groups stared down each other from across the parlor.
All five Fruit Rangers — Apple, Orange, Banana, Pineapple, and Watermelon — were in their fighting poses, and their colors brightly shining off their cyborg bodies. It was time to end the feud between them once and for all with this final match between good and evil.
The five Vile Vegetables — Broccoli, Eggplant, Tomato, Pepper, Olive — hissed and snickered, ready to rub their fibrous bodies all over the tasty pizzas.
The leader of the Fruit Rangers, red apple, pointed an accusing finger at the Viles. “We’ll never let you defile these delicious treats!”
Green Broccoli, the leader of the Viles, cackled. “You misguided fools. The humans crave our crunchy veggie goodness on top of their cheesy and sauce pies. No one has ever ordered an apple pizza before!”
Yellow Banana chuckled to herself. “At least I show up on dessert pizzas. Broccoli, eggplant… no one’s ever excited to see your ugly mugs on the menu.”
Purple Eggplant sneered and waved his gourd-nunchuks, ready to fight. “You’re one to talk. Have you seen what the Internet thinks of pineapple on pizza?”
Yellow pineapple burned red in the cheeks. She was very sensitive about her reputation. Her twin sister Banana placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t worry, sis. We’re gonna beat them to a pulp!”
Broccoli howled in laughter. “Ha! Pineapple is just a second rate fruit that could never cut is as the primary ‘apple.’”
That was enough to set off Pineapple. She unsheathed her pine-needler blade and dashed toward Broccoli.
“You’re just a sorry excuse for a tree. I’m gonna cut you down!”
Broccoli summoned its thick, bushy boxing gloves, tangled with leaves and fibrous strings, able to punch a hole through tongues, stomachs, and cyborgs alike. He was like Bruce Lee’s older, meaner cousin: Brocc Lee.
Just as Pineapple was about to slice through Broccoli’s massive, deadly pom-poms, Green Pepper blasted out a dark cloud of peppers, filling up her nose with itchy powder. Mid strike, she sneezed and fell to the floor, her pine-needle clanging on the parlor tile.
“Pineapple!” Pink Watermelon cried out. “I’ll save you!”
Watermelon heaved in a heavy breath, then spat out a hundred seeds a second like a machine gun, straight for Broccoli. Green Olive dashed into the path of the deadly seeds, thrusting his pit chest right in front of them. All the seeds deflected harmlessly off his invincible pit armor, clanging against the parlor walls and ceiling.
Not wasting any time, Orange Orange spat out a stream of acid from her mouth, straight at Broccoli, ready to blind him with citrus sunshine. Eggplant moved so quickly that Orange could barely even seed him, and he planted the gourd-nunchuk right in her stomach, knocking the stream to the ground along with Orange herself.
Only Apple and Banana remained for the Fruit Rangers.
“Do something!” Banana cried. “You’re our leader!”
“Yes, that’s why I can’t do anything,” Apple said, standing still and silent with his arms crossed. “My job is to just stand here and look cool.”
Banana stared hopelessly at the encroaching Vile Vegetable army. All of them were unscathed, slowly marching toward them.
“You fight berry well,” Broccoli said, his pom-poms quivering with delight. “However, now it’s time to cut off your plan at the stem, Fruit Rangers.”
Broccoli reeled back one of his fibrous pom-poms, ready to defeat Apple and Banana with one bitter, earthy punch.
But just when he was about to bring it forward, Eggplant grabbed onto his elbow, stopping his punch.
“Eggplant! What are you doing?”
Eggplant shook his head. “I’m sorry, Broccoli. But I haven’t been honest with you this entire time. You see… I’m not really a vegetable. Technically, I’m a… fruit too!”
Broccoli lowered his deadly pom-pom, moisture piling up in his eyes. “It’s not true, is it?” he asked.
“Yes it is,” said someone else. This time, it was Tomato, holding his head low. “I’m a fruit too. I’m sorry, I thought if I tried real hard I could fit in with the vegetables, but it’s just not who I’m meant to be!”
Broccoli gazed back and forth between Eggplant and Tomato, his face turning so white with disbelief he was in danger of becoming cauliflower.
“Is there anyone here who isn’t secretly a fruit?” he asked. Pepper and Olive slowly averted their gazes, twiddling their thumbs.
“Are you serious?!” Broccoli yelled. He threw Eggplant and Tomato off him, breathing heavy, surrounded by traitors. Slowly, Eggplant, Tomato, Pepper and Olive each walked over to the other side with the Fruit Rangers, helping Pineapple, Watermelon and Orange back on their feet.
All of the true Fruit Rangers stood together.
“As it turns out,” Apple said, standing with his arms crossed and a smug look on his face. “Any of us are delicious on pizza. It’s just you that no one wants, Broccoli. Fruit Rangers, assemble!”
It was a beautiful rainbow sparkling through the pizza parlor, like an explosion of confetti and a thousand strobe lights. All of the Fruit Rangers flashed white, then melded together into their mecha form. With a metallic sheen that glittered in the light of the pizzeria lamps, the Fruit Rangers’ final form came into view.
It was The Fruit Lobster, a beautiful amalgamation of fruits like no other. Banana body, orange peels scales, tomato tail, pepper slice legs, watermelon claws, pineapple arms, eggplant eyes, olive antennae, and an apple slice for the face, bringing it all together.
The Fruit Lobster howled a roar that shook the building, and slammed its fruit claws together. All of the Fruit Rangers’ voices came together as one.
“Fruit Punch, activate!”
Explosions of fruit rainbows spilled out from the claws as they reeled back, then rushed forward with the force of an entire cornucopia, and exploded right in Broccoli’s face like a Gusher burst between pliers.
With a bitter scream, Broccoli went crashing through the pizzeria wall, flying over Citrus City with a stream of juices following in his wake, until he exploded into bits of green… and cheese. Of course, he secretly filled with cheese. How else can people stomach swallowing those Vile Vegetables?
The villain defeated, the Fruit Lobster disassembled with a shimmering glow, separating back into the Fruit Rangers. Satisfied with saving the pizzeria, they all looked at each other and grinned.
Apple laughed out loud, his feet never having moved an inch from where he’d started, then stared directly at the camera.
“And that’s why friends are important! Stay in school, kids.”
Be sure to check out the video to see why we put the paragraph breaks where we did, as well as some other ways the story could’ve gone!
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Featured image: Pakutaso