I was writing this cheat sheet out for a friend recently, and figured - hey if it’s useful to them, it may be useful other people too. Basically, this goes into places where you probably should add a paragraph break in order to help keep readers grounded in what’s actually happening, creating emphasis where you needed, and help break up larger/harder to read walls of text.
Note that this list is more about base readability/understanding. There are always going to be exceptions, especially when taking into account writing style - like any advice, these are more of guidelines than actual rules. (cue pirates of the carribean)
Always add a paragraph break for:
State of motion is changing
Ex: character is switching from observing surroundings to running for their lives
Basically, if you’re switching from being still to moving, or moving to still, break paragraphs
Why: mostly, it helps keep the reader grounded. A paragraph break is almost like a signal of “okay we’re doing something different here” which can be useful when your protagonist is doing an array of smaller actions in a scene.
Thought shifts
Ex: character is thinking about their dead mother, to thinking about what caused the explosion that killed her
Each topic gets its own paragraph. When in doubt, add a new paragraph
Why: if a character is lost in their own thoughts for a while and you don’t break, it will result in an impenetrable wall that most readers will skip because…. no. Transitions between ideas are just natural places to break, and again, they help with grounding readers.
(several more list items below the cut, and when to do a double paragraph break)
How long a sentence or a paragraph goes on is something I measure with my heart, not with a rule book, and if that means a wall of text that’s a single unreadable sentence, that’s just the cost of passion.
“Stop making your writing unreadable!”
No, stop trying to read my thoughts, move along, if I wanted it legible, I’d write it that way. This one thousand word sentence is about my sense of accomplishment, not communication.
Sometimes you just color in the whole page black with a crayon not to say something but to prove you can.
It’s possible to be driven by accomplishment without purpose.
Whole-heartedly BEGGING writers to unlearn everything schools taught you about how long a paragraph is. If theres a new subject, INCLUDING ACTIONS, theres a new paragraph. A paragraph can be a single word too btw stop making things unreadable
Ok So I’m getting more notes than I thought quicker than I expected! So I’m gonna elaborate bc I want to.
I get it, when you’re someone who writes a lot and talks a lot, it’s hard to keep things readable, but it’s not as much about cutting out the fat(that can be a problem) so much as a formatting issue.
You are also actively NERFING yourself by not formatting it correctly, it can make impactful scenes feel so, so much better. Compare this,
To THIS.
Easier to read, and hits harder.
No more over-saturated paragraphs. Space things out.
Just adding my two cents in here! I totally agree with spacing things out more. Especiallyin the sort of example like above. Dialogue is always better as its own line and clusters of actions deserve their own paragraph.
Here are three reasons why I like the extra paragraphs in the example made by OP.
1) Following a character’s internal dialogue. If you’re having a character move from one thought to another, or one emotion to another, new paragraph! It shows the reader that there’s a shift happening and can really add power to the scene.
“He vaguely remembers what his friend told him about letting go. It…was so horrifying to him- he melted the freezer aisle in fear.
But…he’s tired. He needs to let go.”
The paragraph break between the first thought (it used to scared him) to the second (he needs to let go regardless) has super great flow. It lets me, as a reader, feel the significance of this change through the structure alone.
2) Connecting internal world to external. this one’s a little harder to explain, but bear with me!
“…Yeah.”
He looks in the mirror.
…He’s tired of carrying…
In this scene we have Dialogue to Action to Internal Thought. The sequencing is super clear because of the paragraphs and we get a lot more information from these three lines than we would have otherwise. He verbally comes to a decision. What is that decision? It seems like he hasn’t even fully come to terms with what it is. So he looks in the mirror. Only when he sees himself there does he finally allow his internal monologue to surface.
The writer uses the space in the scene - the mirror - to anchor the narrative. It’s really well done and only succeeds because the new paragraph allows the story to shift from external to internal and then back again.
3) Carrying the journey. In the first example, where there are no paragraphs, the scene is not a journey. It’s a single moment in time where the MC sees himself in the mirror and cuts his hair.
By adding paragraphs, we get a journey. Linearly, the scene only lasts a few moments. But by shifting between internal and external, by showing the MC’s thoughts, etc, these moments take up a lot more narrative space. They become a story on their own and, because of it, there’s so much more tension in the scene.
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There are a lot of reasons why the above scene is so successful. I could go on and on about them! But I particularly liked the point OP made about how much of a difference paragraphs make.
this has only gotten more important as more ppl are reading on mobile. paragraphs babeeeeyy
