The IKEA paragraph

[StillStunned]

Recently I tried my hand at a 750-word story. Fortunately I decided to run my attempt by a few very obliging friends here in the Hangout first, and their feedback was, "Must try harder."

More concretely, @Devinter criticised my opening lines. This was what I wrote:

The inn fell silent when the demon hunter stepped inside. Every eye was drawn to the tall frame. The shadow trailing behind him seemed to reach back into Hell. When he removed his wide-brimmed hat, the face told of invisible scars.

And this is what he said:

I didn't love the very first paragraph [...] I just felt that the sentences didn't flow in the way that you taught me that they should. Seemed like four short lines stacked on top of each other with little variation [...].

This is very fair criticism, and entirely correct. I cut corners and tried to fit the information into the word count and it didn't work.

I've recently read several books about writing and editing, and they all seem to give the same advice. On the sentence level: lose all your adverbs, only use active sentences, drop all your "thats" and "thens", never begin a sentence with "but". (I don't agree with any of these, but that's not the point here). On the story level, it's all about plot points, character arcs, Freytag pyramids, scenes and sequences.

This is all very useful, of course. But there seems to be something missing at the intermediate level. No-one talks about paragraphs.

A paragraph is a series of sentences. Often, you'll see them as blocks of text in between two sequences of dialogue, or just some information that's put in order, and broken off so the reader's eyes don't glaze over. I'm not going to quote any examples, but there have been snippets of AI-generated stories that read like my own opening paragraph above: one separate piece of information after another.

Lately I've started seeing paragraphs as pieces of furniture. Sure, you can nail some planks together and call it a bookcase. You can pile some blocks of wood on top of each other and call it a table.

A properly crafted paragraph is a coherent unit that fits together like something designed by IKEA. Each word serves a purpose, not only by itself but also in relation to the words around it, and it has its place within that unit. In a properly crafted paragraph, you can't remove a single element without the whole thing coming to pieces.

I'll use my own paragraph from above to illustrate this. Here it is again:

The inn fell silent when the demon hunter stepped inside. Every eye was drawn to the tall frame. The shadow trailing behind him seemed to reach back into Hell. When he removed his wide-brimmed hat, the face told of invisible scars.

Here we have four sentences. You could leave any one of them out and it wouldn't make the paragraph less readable. They're not connected in any way that draws a picture for the mind's eye to follow. We have the skeleton of a paragraph, with nothing to hold the bones together.

Let's see what happens if we add more detail, for example like this:

The inn went quiet when the demon hunter stepped inside. Where conversation had hung thick as smoke only a moment before, now silence fell as very eye was drawn to the figure standing in the door.

Now we start at the door as a stranger enters. The eye turns into the room, with its people and its smells. They fall silent, and the reader's eye turns back to the newcomer.

This is where we need a break. We can't simply tack on the mysterious aura that this stranger projects. We need to give the inn's patrons a moment to take him in and let the creepiness crawl up their spines. So we start a new paragraph.

The inn went quiet when the demon hunter stepped inside. Where conversation had hung thick as smoke only a moment before, now silence fell as very eye was drawn to the figure standing in the door.

The shadow trailing behind him seemed to reach back into Hell. When he removed his wide-brimmed hat, the face told of invisible scars.

The problem here is that I cut corners and mention the shadow and hat before their existence is established. So we need some kind of description before we can add the eery details.

The lamp over the bar painted a shadow behind him that seemed to reach back into Hell. Darkness covered his face too, until he removed his wide-brimmed hat and revealed traces of invisible scars.

Leaving aside the question of whether this imagery works, we now have two short paragraphs that are coherent units instead of loose statements of information

The inn went quiet when the demon hunter stepped inside. Where conversation had hung thick as smoke only a moment before, now silence fell as very eye was drawn to the figure standing in the door.

The lamp over the bar painted a shadow behind him that seemed to reach back into Hell. Darkness covered his face too, until he removed his wide-brimmed hat and revealed traces of invisible scars.

Clearly this doesn't work within the limitations of a 750-word challenge, but the difference is clear. The separate sentences are tied together by information and theme. The first paragraph now deals with sounds and silence, the second with light and darkness, and the first leads into the second. There are still some rough spots that could use some smoothing over, and the rhythm is slightly off, but I think the general structure works like this.

I also realise that the original lines weren't the best, and normally I'd scrap them entirely and started from fresh. I've improved them here to show how the description can be brought together like a Billie bookcase.

The following sequence is taken from War and Thieves, the second instalment in my sword & sorcery series The Rivals. (It helps to know that the "younger man" whose eyes the POV character meets is someone she knows and that she didn't expect to see him. That's why the jump to the next paragraph is awkward: Avilia is distracted, there's a moment when she has to consciously turn her focus back to her surroundings.)

Inside the stone keep, Avilia followed the robed man along narrow corridors and up winding stairs. The place had clearly been built for defence more than comfort. Narrow windows that were closer to arrowslits let in little light, and every few steps revealed a murder-hole or other defensive position.

Only when the chamberlain led her to the highest level and opened a wide door did pragmatism give way to opulence. A wide leaded window dominated the far wall, giving a view out across the rolling moorland. Heavy carpets decorated the walls and covered most of the floor to keep away the chill ingrained in the stone. The cold was kept further at bay by the fire that blazed in the broad stone fireplace, its flames dancing playfully across the tall silver candleholders placed around the chamber.

At the table, with his back to the window, stood a large, imposing man, head down over several large parchments. By his side stood a younger man, slimmer, in the gown of a clerk. He looked up as Avilia entered behind the chamberlain, and their eyes met.

She was aware that the chamberlain was speaking, and dragged her eyes to the large man, who had raised his head to look at her. His broad frame, she now saw, seemed to be pressed down by a great weight, and his face looked haggard. Not surprising, she supposed, after three years of bitter war.

I think this excerpt illustrates how I've grouped together relevant information in paragraphs, and linked the sentences within the paragraphs to each other, and how every piece of information almost naturally leads to the next. I think only the sentence about the window and the view could be removed without requiring further changes.

We follow Avilia as she's walking through the castle. We see what she sees, our mind takes in what her eyes take in. We can picture her stepping into the chamber and looking around at the window, the carpets, the fire, then turning to the occupants. We follow her gaze as she looks at the older man, then to the younger man, then back to the older.

So what's the point of all this? It's not just to show off, and I'm sure there are plenty of you who'll disagree with what I've done here.

No, what I'm actually trying to show is how to distinguish your writing from AI. Don't present your readers with pieces of information: instead, take their eyes on a journey. If you're describing a woman, copy the trick of the Renaissance poets and begin with her head and progress down via her eyes, her nose and her mouth to her throat, chest and boobies. If you're describing a man, start with his feet, follow his legs up to take in the bulge in his trousers and his swimmer's body before reaching his face and being captivated by the knowing look in his eyes.

Decide how to group your information, and make sure that one snippet flows naturally into the next. Tie your words, sentences and paragraphs together and hopefully your reader won't have an excuse to stop.

 

[KeithD]

I'm not going to read a post that long, but I'll have to say that a story that devotes that many words to a character's entry into the building/story is not likely to get much plot in in the remaining permitted wordage.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I’ve found that 750 word stories pretty much mandate one central idea pushed to the exclusion of everything else. They can capture a short story, with a spare plot. Or they can try to capture the essence of an emotion or a moment. Hard to do both.

Emily

 

[StillStunned]

This isn't a thread about 750-word challenges, it's a discussion about writing paragraphs.

 

[Devinter]

I'm not going to read a post that long, but I'll have to say that a story that devotes that many words to a character's entry into the building/story is not likely to get much plot in in the remaining permitted wordage.

I’ve found that 750 word stories pretty much mandate one central idea pushed to the exclusion of everything else. They can capture a short story, with a spare plot. Or they can try to capture the essence of an emotion or a moment. Hard to do both.

Emily

I agree with this. Working within the strict limit of 750 words is far more difficult than it sounds, and you have to make a lot of careful choices because you don't have the space for everything you'd perhaps like to stuff in there.

Winston Churchill famously said: "If you want me to speak for two minutes, it will take me three weeks of preparation. If you want me to speak for thirty minutes, it will take me a week to prepare. If you want me to speak for an hour, I am ready now."

As someone whom holds speeches publicly on a weekly basis, I feel like this is entirely true. If you have a limited time-frame to work with, you have to make every second count. A 750-word-story operates under much of the same paradigm. Every word needs to count. Ultimately, what StillStunned put together was a lovely and interesting opening for a story but it felt like it ended far too soon. Like it was incomplete. And he agreed with that as well, saying he'd write a full length story to go along with the 750-word-opening. Which is fair, and not against the rules of the challenge, but it does take away a little bit from what he was trying to accomplish.

In any case, I don't think that what he was trying to say in this thread had much to do with a 750-word-challenge. It is more about making a paragraph flow correctly, in a way that a reader finds pleasing, and that adds life to a text. Because indeed, sometimes we do have to limit ourselves by word-count and other restrictions, but when we do not, we really ought to use every screw that comes with the IKEA set.

 

[SimonDoom]

I thought your draft was fine. In 4 short sentences you set the scene. There is a consistency in the tone that works.

 

[EmilyMiller]

A 750-word-story operates under much of the same paradigm. Every word needs to count. Ultimately, what StillStunned put together was a lovely and interesting opening for a story but it felt like it ended far too soon. Like it was incomplete.

Great minds think alike, or… the other thing.

Emily (who has written precisely two 750 stories and so counts as an expert)

 

[EmilyMiller]

This isn't a thread about 750-word challenges, it's a discussion about writing paragraphs.

I know . The problem is that Swedes are notorious for changing the subject.

Emily

 

[alohadave]

The inn fell silent when the demon hunter stepped inside. Every eye was drawn to the tall frame. The shadow trailing behind him seemed to reach back into Hell. When he removed his wide-brimmed hat, the face told of invisible scars.

If I may:

Every eye in the tavern drew to the tall frame of the demon hunter as he stepped inside. The shadow cast behind him merged with the darkness outside and seemed to reach all the way back to Hell. When he removed his wide-brimmed hat, long healed scars spoke of his history.

 

[Djmac1031]

This isn't a thread about 750-word challenges, it's a discussion about writing paragraphs.

Interesting and informative. I'll have to examine my own work with the same critical eye.

 

[djrip]

This relates to the reason that I have a hard time doing what some people suggest - jumping around in the story, writing a later part before the earlier part. Because as I write I naturally craft all my words to work together and fit together like puzzle pieces. So then it becomes difficult to jam something in afterward or make the edges of two separately written parts join up properly.

 

[Djmac1031]

This relates to the reason that I have a hard time doing what some people suggest - jumping around in the story, writing a later part before the earlier part. Because as I write I naturally craft all my words to work together and fit together like puzzle pieces. So then it becomes difficult to jam something in afterward or make the edges of two separately written parts join up properly.

I don't think it's possible to jump around a story, at least in the method you described.

Perhaps what they meant was jump around between scenes. For instance, you've just established two characters are about to have sex. But you haven't decided how you want that scene to play just yet.

So you skip that scene and continue writing the aftermath of it. And maybe that in turn inspires the tone of the sex scene you have yet to write.

 

[djrip]

I don't think it's possible to jump around a story, at least in the method you described.

Perhaps what they meant was jump around between scenes. For instance, you've just established two characters are about to have sex. But you haven't decided how you want that scene to play just yet.

So you skip that scene and continue writing the aftermath of it. And maybe that in turn inspires the tone of the sex scene you have yet to write.

Yes, but even with scenes, unless they're separated by a break, they have to join together. I have to make the earlier scene line up at the end with the later one I already wrote. Of course I can change up the beginning of the other one if necessary; still, I have a harder time with that joining if I'm not just writing straight through in order.

 

[yowser]

If you're describing a woman, copy the trick of the Renaissance poets and begin with her head and progress down via her eyes, her nose and her mouth to her throat, chest and boobies. If you're describing a man, start with his feet, follow his legs up to take in the bulge in his trousers and his swimmer's body before reaching his face and being captivated by the knowing look in his eyes.

Let's see, women from the top, men from the bottom. (Analytic gears grinding furiously, disturbing and unsatisfying conclusions result.)

Cannot we be equitable and start in the middle and then work out?

 

[Omenainen]

This was an interesting example. From here, for the purposes of the 750 challenge, you can go back and look at your finished piece to see if you really need the shadow or the scars, or if you should replace that with something like “foreboding” or “brooding” or “hard-boiled”. Or if you need the whole scene at all. Compressing is hard. I hate to kill my darlings.

I’ve found that when a story really starts to coalesce, the paragraphs can be moved around the story and still make sense. Like building from LEGO blocks, kind of. I rarely care to edit to that level, but it’s satisfying when it happens.

 

[HectorBidon]

I get what you're saying about taking the reader on a journey. But I think you could have chosen a better example than the demon hunter one. This post isn't intended to address your bigger point, but only to give my take on this specific example.

A hallmark of IKEA style is streamlined efficiency. In the example, a guy with a mysterious aura walks into a bar. If you were making a movie, this could be filmed in a single shot, focused on the guy, the aura being conveyed by the details of his appearance. The original example paragraph didn't do this.

"Every eye was drawn to the tall frame." No need to pan away to the eyes of the patrons. No need to use a whole sentence to convey what can be conveyed by a single vivid adjective.

"The shadow trailing behind him seemed to reach back into Hell." Would the typical patron even be able to see his shadow? And even if they could, how far could it reach if he has just stepped inside the door? I get it that this is intended to bring in the allusion to Hell, but this just seems a clunky way to do it.

I think that the way to improve this scene would be to sharpen it. But the revised example version does just the opposite.

"where conversation had hung . . . now silence fell" This is basically just a restatement of "the inn went quiet." To me it kind of seems like ChatGPT padding. Say something one way or say it the other, but only say it once.

"The lamp over the bar . . ." It's maybe a clue that an image isn't working as directly as it should be if you need to explain where the shadows are coming from.

"revealed traces of invisible scars." This just doesn't compute. If there are traces, the scars aren't invisible. If they are invisible, how can they be revealed? I presume the invisibility is important somehow, but it just doesn't come through here at all.

I would suggest a more cinematographic approach: a single direct shot focused on the MC, perhaps along these lines:

A hush fell over the crowded bar as the towering, black-cloaked demon hunter slouched in through the doorway. He took off his wide-brimmed hat, revealing a mop of greasy hair and a grim face pockmarked by long exposure to hail and brimstone.

 

[Britva415]

This isn't a thread about 750-word challenges

It is now.

Unintended consequences.

I can't count the number of times I've started a thread and it didn't go in the intended direction.

Now I try to make my intentions as clear as I can, and people still drive it off the rails sometimes.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

This relates to the reason that I have a hard time doing what some people suggest - jumping around in the story, writing a later part before the earlier part. Because as I write I naturally craft all my words to work together and fit together like puzzle pieces. So then it becomes difficult to jam something in afterward or make the edges of two separately written parts join up properly.

I agree, my writing process is very linear. When I've had the idea for a scene just eating at me and I've had to write it then go back to the set up it always turns into a nightmare.

 

[alohadave]

This relates to the reason that I have a hard time doing what some people suggest - jumping around in the story, writing a later part before the earlier part. Because as I write I naturally craft all my words to work together and fit together like puzzle pieces. So then it becomes difficult to jam something in afterward or make the edges of two separately written parts join up properly.

I can do it, but I need a well defined outline to be able to keep track of what is supposed to have happened before that scene, and where the scene needs to lead to.

 

[samhasstories]

I'm stunned (still!) at the level of detail here. I know I should do the same - it just makes for better writing. I've been in workshops where this sort of thing is laid out, revision as sort of a zooming in: write the draft, then revise at the story level for character and content and flow, then closer and closer in until you're putting every sentence and turn of phrase under a microscope to make sure it's as good as it can get. I believe in that process, but often I don't have the patience for it. My work would be better if I did more of it. My revisions tend to be more instinctual, less of a fine-toothed comb like the example you've shown.

I think you make a good point, too, about the importance of paragraphs. When you do get down to that sentence level (if you do), then you also have to zoom back out and make sure each paragraph makes sense and the sentences are working together.

I do think your first paragraph in its initial form is a solid opening. I would've been inclined to vary the sentence structure some for rhythm (which you've done), but content-wise I think it succeeds at setting the scene and the tone.

 

[Paul_Chance]

Guidelines for Paragraphs

Thought I would drop this here. This is a good little online guide to writing paragraphs.

 

[dmallord]

If I had to keep all these thoughts in mind as I write, I'd never get a work on screen. Whatever happened to writing, writing, and then editing later, as Samhasstories noted? At this far down in the thread, I've lost the idea of a 750-word original starting point. Hate that ... getting old and losing the primary concept introduced.

Sorry, you were saying?

 

[StillStunned]

Guidelines for Paragraphs

Thought I would drop this here. This is a good little online guide to writing paragraphs.

From a quick scan, it has a lot to say about *why* to use paragraphs, but very little about the internal structure.

 

[Paul_Chance]

From a quick scan, it has a lot to say about *why* to use paragraphs, but very little about the internal structure.

Paragraphs in fiction are different than paragraphs in non-fiction. All formatting and structure in fiction is optional. I still think it's a good idea to know the basics of paragraph structure - 3 to 5 lines, an opening, a topic sentence, expository sentences, a transition sentence. Stick to a single topic per paragraph.

 

[intim8]

"The inn went quiet when the demon hunter stepped inside. Where conversation had hung thick as smoke only a moment before, now silence fell as very eye was drawn to the figure standing in the door.

The lamp over the bar painted a shadow behind him that seemed to reach back into Hell. Darkness covered his face too, until he removed his wide-brimmed hat and revealed traces of invisible scars."

Clearly this doesn't work within the limitations of a 750-word challenge,

Lots of room for concision in there. (and removing "was" constructions)

"As the demon hunter stepped inside, conversation that had hung thick as smoke fell to an even thicker silence, every eye fixed on the figure looming in the door.

The shadow he cast in the light over the bar seemed to reach back into Hell. Darkness masked his face until he removed his wide-brimmed hat to reveal traces of invisible scars."

Nine fewer words (makes a big difference for the 750 challenge), even after adding a descriptive phrase, and more active construction.

I find that more active constructions usually take fewer words. Double bonus.