KillerMuffin
Seraphically Disinclined
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2000
- Posts
- 25,603
It's so important to paragraph correctly. Otherwise you get a very confusing piece of writing. White space is a valuable and necessary cue to your reader.
I would ordinarily say this, but I just read 25 stories over the weekend and only two were properly paragraphed.
1. New speaker, new paragraph.
"Hi, John," Marhsa said happily. John smiled, "Hi, Marsha, what's up?" "Oh, nothing much. We had dinner at McDonald's the other night," she replied. "McD's? Talk about your cheap dates," he said. "In Tokyo," she said. <--- TOTALLY WRONG
"Hi, John," Marsha said happily.
John smiled. "Hi, Marsha, what's up?"
"Oh, nothing much. We had dinner at McDonald's the other night."
"McD's? Talk about your cheap dates," he said.
"In Tokyo."
RIGHT! Which was easier to read? Cool beans.
2. Paragraph frequently! I can't stress this enough. It's hard to read on a screen and some of us have small monitors. Paragraph frequently to break things up and make it easier. New subject, new paragraph. If you can't do that, read it out loud. You'll get a spot in the middle where you seem to pause. Paragraph there.
3. Don't paragraph too often! You don't have to do it after every sentence. The only place where you'll have sentence long paragraphs is either in dialogue or where you want to make a particular sentence impactful. A good rule of thumb on the screen that I've noticed is between 3 and 7 sentences, depending on the length. This is not a written in stone figure or a rule, it's just an arbitrary guideline based on ease of readability. Some paragraphs must be longer and some must be shorter.
4. Remember that the people you're writing to are reading this on a screen. Some print it out, but most will read it right on the monitor. Everyone uses different browsers and different monitors. A person using a 21 inch monitor and a minimal browser is going to have tons of vertical space. Someone using a browser like MSN 8 and a 13 inch monitor is going to have your words tightly packed in. It's tons easier for the guy with the 21 inch to read smaller paragraphs than it is for the guy with the 13 inch to read larger ones.
5. Look at the stories on Lit. They are all formatted exactly the same way. Flush with the left margin, double spaces between paragraphs. Mostly. Some authors have complained about their formatting getting all screwed up between here and there. Paragraphing seemed to disappear in the middle. Format your stories Lit's way from the beginning. No indents with a double space in between and you won't have formatting accidents that drop your scores and make readers send you hatemail.
6. Last but not least, line separators. Some people like to put in a row of **** or ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ or ---------- or whatever to separate text. Another cultprit is the orgasm thing, strings of capital letters signifying someone's shrieking orgasm. AAAAAAAAAAA. Don't make these very long! They look better on your word processor strung across the full length of the page and then you notice that they've been cut down when you see your story posted. Or worse, your text bleeds into the blue field on the right side of the screen.
Lit has a formatted line length and word wrap. If your line has no spaces and is longer than the line length, then your text is going to bleed into the blue field on the right side of the screen. The editor doesn't always catch these and usually the problem isn't a separator, but a NEOM (never-ending orgasmic moment) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
See? Resist temptation.
I would ordinarily say this, but I just read 25 stories over the weekend and only two were properly paragraphed.
1. New speaker, new paragraph.
"Hi, John," Marhsa said happily. John smiled, "Hi, Marsha, what's up?" "Oh, nothing much. We had dinner at McDonald's the other night," she replied. "McD's? Talk about your cheap dates," he said. "In Tokyo," she said. <--- TOTALLY WRONG
"Hi, John," Marsha said happily.
John smiled. "Hi, Marsha, what's up?"
"Oh, nothing much. We had dinner at McDonald's the other night."
"McD's? Talk about your cheap dates," he said.
"In Tokyo."
RIGHT! Which was easier to read? Cool beans.
2. Paragraph frequently! I can't stress this enough. It's hard to read on a screen and some of us have small monitors. Paragraph frequently to break things up and make it easier. New subject, new paragraph. If you can't do that, read it out loud. You'll get a spot in the middle where you seem to pause. Paragraph there.
3. Don't paragraph too often! You don't have to do it after every sentence. The only place where you'll have sentence long paragraphs is either in dialogue or where you want to make a particular sentence impactful. A good rule of thumb on the screen that I've noticed is between 3 and 7 sentences, depending on the length. This is not a written in stone figure or a rule, it's just an arbitrary guideline based on ease of readability. Some paragraphs must be longer and some must be shorter.
4. Remember that the people you're writing to are reading this on a screen. Some print it out, but most will read it right on the monitor. Everyone uses different browsers and different monitors. A person using a 21 inch monitor and a minimal browser is going to have tons of vertical space. Someone using a browser like MSN 8 and a 13 inch monitor is going to have your words tightly packed in. It's tons easier for the guy with the 21 inch to read smaller paragraphs than it is for the guy with the 13 inch to read larger ones.
5. Look at the stories on Lit. They are all formatted exactly the same way. Flush with the left margin, double spaces between paragraphs. Mostly. Some authors have complained about their formatting getting all screwed up between here and there. Paragraphing seemed to disappear in the middle. Format your stories Lit's way from the beginning. No indents with a double space in between and you won't have formatting accidents that drop your scores and make readers send you hatemail.
6. Last but not least, line separators. Some people like to put in a row of **** or ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ or ---------- or whatever to separate text. Another cultprit is the orgasm thing, strings of capital letters signifying someone's shrieking orgasm. AAAAAAAAAAA. Don't make these very long! They look better on your word processor strung across the full length of the page and then you notice that they've been cut down when you see your story posted. Or worse, your text bleeds into the blue field on the right side of the screen.
Lit has a formatted line length and word wrap. If your line has no spaces and is longer than the line length, then your text is going to bleed into the blue field on the right side of the screen. The editor doesn't always catch these and usually the problem isn't a separator, but a NEOM (never-ending orgasmic moment) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
See? Resist temptation.
