10 How Do I Write Paragraphs?

Carole had gradually developed a happy writing routine. Initially, when Carole got her first significant writing job, writing had been somewhat of a chore for Carole. She enjoyed writing and was good at it, but the concentration and digital labor that writing took wearied her when she continued writing for long stretches, as her job required. Yet after a while, Carole had learned to take frequent mental and physical breaks, not necessarily big breaks where she got up and walked around, but instead small breaks where she looked away from the computer screen, shifted in her seat, took a deep breath, and maybe closed her eyes for a moment. Finally, Carole developed a practice of rewarding herself with one of those small breaks after every paragraph that she wrote. Each paragraph was like climbing a small mountain, from the top of which Carole would briefly enjoy the view before heading up the next mountain. 

Paragraphs

Paragraphs play a huge role in writing. Paragraphs are the fundamental blocks of meaning out of which a writer builds a blog, web content, article, chapter, book, or other writing. The analogy may be a little awkward, but think of the paragraph as a family, with each sentence a family member. The paragraph, like a family, coheres into a special unit with a specific identity. Several paragraphs, like several families, form a subheading section, sort of like a neighborhood. Then, many paragraphs gathered into several sections, like many families in several neighborhoods, form an article or chapter, like a village or city. Then, several chapters, like several cities, form a book, like a whole state or region. As a writer, you naturally perceive the paragraph as a fundamental unit. Writers don’t take a deep breath and relax after every sentence they write. They instead press on from sentence to sentence. It’s instead after writing a full paragraph that the writer breathes a satisfied sigh, shifts in the seat, and gathers to launch into the crafting of the next paragraph.

Breaks

Readers need paragraph breaks, too. Reading takes a fair degree of attention, concentration, focusing of the eyes, and holding a steady posture. Paragraphs become the chunks around which readers hold steady their mental attention and physical posture. As you write, you should be thinking not only about your reader’s interest but also your reader’s comfort and concentration. Your paragraph breaks should thus be consistent with the type of writing your project involves. Topical, informational writing, and writing intended to entertain, should generally have shorter paragraphs because the reader’s concentration is shallower and commitment is weaker. Your paragraphs can entertain or inform in short, pleasant bursts. By contrast, analytical, argumentative, and inspirational writing may warrant longer paragraphs because the reader’s concentration is deeper and commitment is stronger. Your paragraphs can analyze, argue, and inspire in long, immersive stretches. You may also vary your paragraph lengths within a writing, as the depth, weight, and complexity of your text varies. Introductory and concluding paragraphs may be shorter than paragraphs in the middle of the writing that set forth its authority and constitute its argument and analysis. Know your best paragraph lengths based on your reader’s needs and the writing’s intentions. 

Sentences

The length, depth, and complexity of your paragraphs may also depend on the number and length of your sentences. In simpler writing, an average paragraph might have an opening topic sentence followed by an assertive sentence followed by a concluding sentence. Paragraphs may thus average only three or four relative short sentences. In more-complex writing, an average paragraph might have a topic sentence, followed by a clarifying or qualifying sentence, followed by two or three sentences comprising the analysis and justification, followed by a concluding sentence or two. Thus, paragraphs might average five to seven or eight sentences. If the sentences are also compound or heavily adorned with prepositional phrases, the paragraphs in more-complex writing might be as long as a half page. Beyond that number and length, readers might appreciate a paragraph break to catch their breath. 

Topic

Paragraphs should generally begin with a topic sentence. A topic sentence tells the reader what’s to come in that paragraph, just as the prior sentence in this paragraph did so. When you begin a new paragraph, you should generally have an idea of the paragraph’s subject, that is, where your writing is headed. If so, then tell your reader so, using a topic sentence. Indeed, a good way to increase the flow of your writing, without obsessing over paragraph length and breaks, is to develop each thought on the screen until you realize that your writing has subtly shifted to the next thought. That shift is where you’d naturally go back to insert a paragraph break. The sentence that introduces the next thought thus becomes the topic sentence for your next paragraph. You may then need to craft a concluding sentence at the end of the prior paragraph and perhaps fill that paragraph out in some similar sense. But you already have on the screen your next paragraph break and the next paragraph’s topic sentence. Writing two steps forward and one step back in this way, writing an overlong paragraph but then promptly cutting it shorter with a paragraph break that leaves the truncated part as the beginning of your next paragraph, can keep your train of thought moving down the tracks and assure your writing flow. 

Connection

As just suggested, paragraphs generally need connections between them to help the reader along. Reading your writing shouldn’t involve jumping from one topic in one paragraph to a completely disconnected topic in the next paragraph. See, for instance, how the prior paragraph just above and this paragraph have a clear enough connection to help the reader along? In the ideal case, your paragraphs should make the reader feel like they’re following the proverbial trail of bread crumbs deep into the enchanted forest. No new paragraph should make the reader entirely break their chain of thought, lest they look up from the page or screen and decide to wander off. Your paragraph connections may be organic, within the deeper development of your writing’s subject. Or your paragraph connections may be somewhat more artificial, simply giving the reader a little hook to start the next paragraph. Watch, for instance, how the next paragraph starts with such a little hook, as a clause at the beginning of its first sentence. 

Development

Beyond connecting your paragraphs one to another, you should also develop each paragraph in an orderly fashion. If, for instance, the paragraph’s topic sentence introduced a certain phenomenon, then your next sentence might be the classic example of that phenomenon. The next sentence after that classic example might be a not-so-classic example, followed in the next sentence by a contrasting non-example, and then by a sentence explaining why the non-example doesn’t illustrate the phenomenon. Your paragraph might then conclude with a sentence confirming and perhaps qualifying or limiting the phenomenon. If, in your writing, you are efficient at capturing and recording your thoughts, and you write reciprocally between thinking and writing, and then writing and thinking, each paragraph should have a natural and logical flow to it. Your paragraphs should help the reader follow a consistent, rather than haphazard or broken, train of thought. Develop each paragraph thoughtfully, orderly, and logically, like a train of thought, even if your scripting requires moving back and forth through the paragraph, connecting and embellishing thoughts. 

Argument

Treating each paragraph as a sort of mini-argument is one way to ensure that your paragraphs progress logically from sentence to sentence. Many writings, not just analytic and argumentative non-fiction writing but even descriptive writing and narrative fiction writing, include substantial explanation and justification. You may, for instance, find yourself subtly justifying to the reader the actions of a fictional character in your latest novel. Or in a travel log, you may find yourself justifying to the reader your recommendation of a certain route, restaurant, or resort over alternative but less-attractive options. There you go: you are logically justifying, and so your paragraphs should have that logical, subtly argumentative or rationalizing flow to them. Know, in other words, the purpose of each of your paragraphs, what you wish it to accomplish for the reader. And shape your paragraph content and structure accordingly.

Reasoning

A paragraph just above used examples and non-examples as a way to reason your way through a paragraph. Examples, though, are just one way among several other ways to reason. In your writing, consider varying your reasoning forms from paragraph to paragraph. Many readers appreciate reasoning analogically, by examples. Give readers liberal examples, and you’ll help them along greatly. Indeed, analogical reasoning is a natural form for both lay and expert individuals. We all reason naturally from our own experience, as in I’ve seen this before! Yet you can also reason predictively, projecting for readers the happy result from following the course you recommend or unhappy result from following the opposite course. You can also reason morally or deontologically, from how fitting it would be for society if everyone did as you recommend. You can also reason inductively from details, deductively from principles, or abductively from inference or intuition. This guide is not a tutorial in logic. But consider varying your reasoning from paragraph to paragraph to make your writing richer, deeper, broader, and more satisfying. 

Alternatives

Of course, not every writing needs to be quite so analytical. Your paragraphs may each have a different purpose or structure than mini-arguments. For descriptive writings, moving from describing one event, condition, figure, or item to another can make for a natural paragraph break. For a more-detailed description covering several paragraphs, you might break between descriptions of various aspects or features of the thing described. Breaking between the description of positive attributes and negative attributes can help the reader organize and contrast the information. For narrative writings, paragraph breaks come naturally between shifts in scenes and events along the narrative timeline. The appearance or departure of a figure in the scene, for instance, would make a good place for a paragraph break. So, too, would a shift in moods within the scene or shifts in the narrator’s own attention and thoughts. Find the most natural, logical, and orderly way to structure and break paragraphs in the particular type of writing you are executing. Paragraphs are your key organizational structure. 

Conclusion

Paragraphs should generally end with some form of conclusion or at least a wrap up of the paragraph’s topic or thought.  The easy way to ensure that you conclude a paragraph appropriately is to paraphrase, meaning to basically repeat, the paragraph’s opening topic sentence, especially if the paragraph was an exposition of or argument on that opening topic’s point. A better concluding sentence might not just confirm the topic sentence but also incorporate qualifiers in that topic sentence that the paragraph’s body introduced. An even better concluding sentence might also foreshadow the next paragraph’s topic. Give your paragraphs natural wrap ups. Don’t end  your paragraphs abruptly, cutting the reader’s thought process off somewhere in the middle, leaving the reader unsure of what the reader should have drawn from the paragraph. Put a bow on each paragraph. 

Dialogue

Paragraph breaks follow different rules for dialogue. Generally, each change in speaker warrants a new paragraph, even if the prior speaker spoke only a sentence or even a single word. The convention of using a new paragraph each time the dialogue shifts back and forth is a sound one. Doing so enables the writer to occasionally relieve the reader of he said, she said identifiers for every statement a figure makes. Paragraph breaks signifying a shift between speakers smooths the reading flow, into something more nearly like that of actual dialogue, where speakers sort of interpret and sometimes finish and overlap one another’s thoughts. Don’t jumble two or more speakers’ words into a single paragraph. If you do, you’ll badly confuse your reader, who will grow annoyed at you, the writer, while trying to sort it all out. Follow the paragraph break convention for dialogue between speakers. 

Reflection

Do you tend to write long paragraphs or short ones? What length of paragraph does your most-common writing generally demand? How deep is your average reader’s attention and concentration, for the type of writing you generally do? Would longer paragraphs immerse your readers more or instead tire and frustrate them? Would shorter paragraphs with more-frequent breaks make your writing more accessible for your average reader, or would it instead make your writing choppy and your thoughts incomplete? Do you consistently begin paragraphs with a topic sentence? Do your topic sentences generally echo or reflect the train of thought with which you finished the prior paragraph? Do your paragraphs flow logically from sentence to sentence? Do you have the sense of making a point or proving an argument with each paragraph? Do you know your habitual form of reasoning within paragraphs, such as by example, inductively, deductively, morally, or predictively? Do you vary your forms of reasoning from paragraph to paragraph? Does your descriptive writing form natural paragraph breaks from feature to feature? Do you conclude your paragraphs with a summary sentence? 

Key Points

• Paragraphs are the building blocks for writings of all kinds.

• Make longer or shorter paragraphs, depending on the type of writing.

• Use three to five sentences for a simple paragraph, more for complex.

• Start a paragraph with a topic sentence foreshadowing its thought.

• A good topic sentence connects a new paragraph with the prior one.

• Develop each paragraph logically from sentence to sentence.

• Treat paragraphs like mini-arguments, drawing out your topic point.

• Vary the forms of reasoning you use in paragraphs, to make the point.

• You can also break up paragraphs by scene shifts or descriptions.

• Conclude each paragraph with a summary sentence to finish thoughts.

• Dialogue should have a paragraph break each time the speaker shifts.

Read Chapter 11.