I’ve come to praise the paragraph, not to bury it. Such appreciation was not always my thing. The early instruction I received made construction of a paragraph seem so mechanical, so formulaic, so detached from my writerly instincts that I rebelled.
The paragraphs in my favorite books did not always have a topic sentence, three supporting examples and a sharp, logical conclusion. Some just seemed to start and then, after a while, stop. The length of paragraphs was not arbitrary nor the content incoherent. But what I saw — more often than not — were chunks of information. Thin newspaper columns contained small chunks; magazines bigger chunks; and books the biggest chunks of all.
Paragraphs come in all shapes and sizes, some as long as a sacred scroll, others short as a single word, their variety offering the reader many benefits. If a sentence expresses a complete thought, then a paragraph can:
- Move the reader through the elements of an argument.
- Advance the movement of a narrative.
- Create the white space that relaxes the eyes and settles the mind.
- Enhance the signature style or authentic voice of a writer.
Consider the opening of “Finding George Orwell in Burma” by Emma Larkin:
The author gives us three paragraphs (three chunks) of different lengths, each with its own purpose. She opens with one side of a dialogue and creates an instantaneous narrative complication: She is trying to solve a problem and has hit a wall. The second paragraph creates a setting in which the action will take place, and offers elements of character for the old Burmese scholar. Paragraph three resolves the complication and opens the door to an astonishing bit of understanding, not only that Orwell is recognized in Burma, but that he is revered. Which introduces another puzzle: Why?
The book will answer that question at length, telling the story of Orwell’s life as a young British officer in Burma, and how, he came to despise British imperialism as a champion of freedom and justice. Orwell continues to speak to the Burmese people, oppressed as they are by one of the world’s most tyrannical governments. The author uses a different kind of paragraph to explain that reality:
School teachers, students, writers and scholars everywhere, take note: You have just read a classic five-sentence paragraph. It actually has a topic sentence (sentence two) with a point: that the effects of tyranny in Burma are almost invisible. The first, third, and fourth sentences are packed with evidence that proves this point. A final sentence not only offers a brief summary of what has come before, but answers the question “how?” and leads us to the most dramatic phrase in the paragraph: “threat of torture and imprisonment.”
Suddenly, I began seeing great paragraphs everywhere, not just chunks of language, but big, bold, building blocks of meaning. This one comes from memoirist Vivian Gornick:
I appreciate the sparkling logic of that paragraph, which begins with a striking distinction between situation and story, and then illustrates that distinction with three different kinds of literary examples, a novel, a memoir and a poem. William Strunk could have used Gornick’s paragraph to demonstrate his advice that the paragraph is the “unit of composition,” which means that writers can use the paragraph as the standard building block of a report, essay, explanation or story.
My favorite book authors, such as Roald Dahl, not only write narrative books and narrative chapters, they write narrative paragraphs. Book paragraphs, with their wide columns, make this possible. But even for newspaper and magazine writers, the narrative paragraph can be an effective writing tool.
Here, for example, is a paragraph from Dahl’s second autobiography, titled Going Solo, which covers his time as a daring British air force pilot during World War II. It’s long, but please stick with it:
And here is his next paragraph:
I confess my delight at a 350-word paragraph followed by one of only five words. But it is the long paragraph that takes my breath away — almost to the point of reader blackout. In a single stretch, Dahl gives us everything we might hope for in a story: a compelling narrator, a gorgeous setting, a shocking complication right in the middle, a split second description of character, an action-packed climax and dazzling resolution. Even if it was necessary in the end to break up such a paragraph into smaller, digestible chunks, I might be tempted to write it first as a single paragraph so as to test and tighten its narrative unity.
- Study the paragraphs in your most recent work. Find your best one and consider why this one stands above the rest.
- Analyze the lengths of your paragraphs. Is there enough variety there to create a generous amount of white space on the page?
- When you notice a strong paragraph in your reading, copy it and save it in a file. Share your collection of model paragraphs with others and discuss the strategies that make them work.