A Note On Paragraphs

A Note on Paragraphs

Writing fan fiction online and writing essays for school really messed up how I view paragraphs.

For fan fiction, I didn’t write for mobile, I wrote for web browsers, which are really really wide (unless you read on mobile but I always read on my desktop). In order for paragraphs to look like decent sized paragraphs (and I wanted them to, to look more like a “real” writer’s work) the paragraphs had to have a ton of lines and lots of prose and description which I struggle with A LOT. 

(For example, these look like pretty short paragraphs but do you see how long they are?)

For school essays, I was often required to write thousands of words— in five paragraphs. This, as you may have already guessed, resulted in absolutely atrociously huge paragraphs that my brain still recognizes as the proper size paragraph. 

WHICH IT MOST DEFINITELY IS NOT. 

These are four random books I chose (In order, left to right, top to bottom: Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter, Lunar Chronicles, Star Wars). The longest paragraph is in the Harry Potter one and it is 100% just the first paragraph that introduces the setting. 

I tried changing my google doc from it’s original, default, printer page size (8.5 x 11 inches) to one of the standard-ish sizes of paperbacks I found online (5.5 x 8.5 inches). It made a very noticeable difference. 

If anybody wants to try this, go to file → page setup to change any settings you want.

Filling up an entire printer page sometimes feels like pulling teeth and I think for those of us who struggle with this, something as simple as changing the way we see our writing and the way we write could really make a difference. Hell, even for editing. I’ve heard people say sometimes that changing the font makes a huge difference and makes it easier to spot mistakes so I’m sure this could work in much the same way.