My seven-year-old likes to write books. Sure, they are only a few pages long, but he puts a lot of work into them–stapling the pages, illustrating, and double-checking the spelling with his mom and dad. It’s so awesome to watch him develop and learn some of the absolute basics of putting together a little story.
It’s also awesome to see him starting a good 25 years earlier than I did, but that’s story for another day.
So one day, while helping him work on one of his stories, I pointed at a spot on the page and say he should start a new paragraph here.
He made a little face at me, and then asked “What’s a paragraph?”
My response: “It’s uh..it’s uh… Well, you know. It’s a new line.” I then fumbled through description of why and when to use paragraphs, but he decided his time would (rightfully so) be better spent working on his aliens and werewolves and their plot to destroy humanity.
But, really, what is a paragraph? It’s certainly something we take for granted when reading and writing, proven by the fact that I could barely describe it to my other, other than the part about a “new line.”
So let’s head over to wikipedia and steal their definition:
A paragraph is a self-contained unit of a discourse in writing dealing with a particular point or idea. A paragraph consists of one or more sentences. Though not required by the syntax of any language, paragraphs are usually an expected part of formal writing, used to organize longer prose.
Ah yes, remind me to read that to my son. That actually is a pretty good definition, but what’s really interesting is that part about it not being “required by the syntax of any language.” I’ve never really thought about that. Do we speak in paragraphs? I have no idea if that’s how are brains are wired to think, but I’ll bet 100% of us would break down a speech or conversation into paragraphs if we were transcribing it.
So while I seem to do this almost automatically, I thought I’d list a few of the reasons I’m aware of for starting a new paragraph, in hopes that that will help all new writers, whether they be seven or seventy.
Here is my list of Five Common Reasons to Start a New Paragraph
Shift of focus to another character or thing
This one is probably the most common, especially if you’re writing a story with multiple POV characters. But even if you’re writing with a single POV character, first or third-person, you’re still bound to shift the focus to another character whenever that character speaks, or performs any type of action.
Shift of narration to another character
Similar to the previous point, but this is specifically related to your narrator. If you are writing in the third-person, you start a new paragraph to inform the read that they are now seeing inside of someone else’s head. (Although I personally would advocate for sticking to one narrator for an entire scene, if you’re writing omniscient you may switch to a different character POV with every paragraph.)
Something happens
A door flies open, a window slams shut, a driver honks the horn…you know. Anything that happens to interrupt whatever your characters are doing at the moment.
The setting changes
It might be a little tricky because major setting changes should probably require a page-break or new chapter. But smaller “local” setting changes could be done with a new paragraph. Say stepping outside, getting into your car, or minor changes in the temperature.
Time passes
If your story suddenly moves six years into the future, you will probably be better off starting a new chapter. But if some action takes just a little bit of time, that could be displayed with a new paragraph. “Three hours later….” for example.
And that’s about it. I’m sure there are another dozen reasons to start a new chapter, even arbitrary ones to help control the pacing of the story. The best thing to do is just write and practice. Start a paragraph whenever it feels natural, and if you notice your paragraphs are going on for pages, then take a look at some of the reasons I listed here and see if you can apply any of them to break up your prose a bit and make it a little more appealing on the eyes.
So thanks for reading and if you’ve got any “new paragraph” rules you’d like to add, go ahead and leave them in the comments section!
