A guide on how to make your stories more enjoyable to read. Everything from language, common mistakes and the story itself, ranging from plot to characters. Remember that writing is a skill and only practice makes perfect, this is only meant to help...
Onto something less language focused and more writing oriented: paragraphs. A paragraph (according to Wikipedia) is a self-contained unit of discourse in writing dealing with a particular point or idea. A paragraph consists of one or more sentences. If you've ever read a book or any form of written media, you've definitely seen a paragraph before. It's very easy to make one too, you simply press the [Enter] button on your keyboard. However, there are some unwritten rules you should follow when making paragraphs and that's what I'll be discussing in this chapter. I'll also tell you when it's fitting to make a new paragraph. Let's get started!
First thing we need to clear up is that there are two types of paragraphs. The most common and clear one is with a blank space between all paragraphs. This takes up a bit more space, but who cares if we're just writing digitally anyway? Wattpad automatically uses this first version.
The second type is where the paragraphs don't have a clear space between them but rather have a little indentation to show where the new paragraph starts. This version is more commonly seen in printed novels and newspapers. I'll show you examples of both types here:
Version 1:
"Hyung, don't give up!" Jungkook shouts at me, but I've already done just that. I can't win this. A particularly hard kick makes me cough up blood and thankfully Seokjin finally deems the damage to be enough. He backs off and when I dare to raise my head to look at him I'm met with his victorious face staring back at me. He's so pleased with himself for making me weak like this.
"How many times do we have to do this with the same outcome?" he asks with a wide grin. "You can't beat me, Taehyung. I don't understand why you keep trying. You should just stop this nonsense and go back to school already like a good boy. Let me and my crew do our thing."
The taste of iron burns on my tongue and I spit out the blood in my mouth while glaring at him.
"Never. We can't just sit back and watch while you're ruining our part of town. Go back where you came from and maybe we'll stop messing with you."
Version 2 (a picture because I genuinely don't know how to write like this on Wattpad) :
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Both versions are correct in their own way and it's fine to use either one of them. HOWEVER (and I'm sure your teacher has told you this) it's not okay to use both of them in the same text. What I mean by that is that you can't mix and match as you see fit. Frankly speaking, it makes it look ugly an unprofessional. There's kind of an exception to this rule though and it's specifically for fictional writing. I'm sure you've seen things like this:
His eyes dart off in another direction and he scratches himself behind the ear while continuing to unpack his things.
"Yeah, morning," he quietly responds, almost as if he doesn't want to talk to me. I want to say something else, but I can't come up with anything on the spot. Despite my best efforts it's always been difficult to keep a conversation going with him. Maybe he doesn't like me?
⋋⋯⋌
I excuse myself from the cafeteria to take a patrol around the school. My friends all whine in disappointment when I leave, but it's at times like these that troublemakers take their chance to do stupid stuff. I don't know how many times I've caught students smoking or kissing behind the school when they think no one's looking. I have to do this in order to keep the peace. It's part of my duty as class president.
The little mark (⋋⋯⋌) indicates a larger passage of time than normal paragraphs and it can be used with both version 1 and 2. This is perfectly okay to do and, in a lot of cases in fictional writing, it's actually a preferred method. It makes the text easier to read and that's always a good thing.
Alright, with that out of the way, let's talk about when to make a new paragraph. It's a lot easier than you might think. If the story changes direction in any way it's reasonable to make a new paragraph. Here's a list of times when it's beneficial to make a new paragraph:
Someone starts talking (actual dialogue)
Someone else starts talking (also actual dialogue)
A description of something
The description moves on to something else that's important
Time has passed (could be 5 minutes or several hours)
Something unexpected happens
There are of course more examples to be had but these are the most basic ones. In academic writing there's a rule of thumb to never make a paragraph shorter than 4-5 rows of text. Of course, that's harder to do in fictional writing, but it's something to bear in mind either way. Do you really need to make a new paragraph after one sentence or can it be connected with another one? It goes the other way too. Does this paragraph really have to be this long? Maybe you can split it up into smaller sections? It's something to always consider.
When it comes to dialogue you should (in my opinion) ALWAYS make a new paragraph when someone starts talking. It gets highly confusing otherwise and clarity is always the top priority when writing, because what's the point of writing if no one understands what you're trying to say? I've seen lots of stories on Wattpad that don't do new paragraphs when people talk and it makes me lose interest really fast because I don't know what's going on. Example time:
"Have you calmed down now? What the hell were you thinking going at your friend with a sharp object like that?" "I wasn't going to hurt him, just scare him off." "You still can't do that! Taehyung is a good person! It was an honest mistake-"
Jungkook grabs me and pulls me down on the floor. Seething with anger he climbs on top of me and puts his bloody hand on my face. "Mistake? How is kissing someone three times a mistake?" "H-how do you know that?"
This is a relatively clear example but it's still confusing and it messes with the flow of the dialogue. Instead, I recommend to make it look like this:
"Have you calmed down now? What the hell were you thinking going at your friend with a sharp object like that?"
"I wasn't going to hurt him, just scare him off."
"You still can't do that! Taehyung is a good person! It was an honest mistake-"
Jungkook grabs me and pulls me down on the floor. Seething with anger he climbs on top of me and puts his bloody hand on my face.
"Mistake? How is kissing someone three times a mistake?"
"H-how do you know that?"
Much easier to read, right? There's no confusion about who is talking. I prefer keeping the dialogue completely separate from descriptions and actions, but that's a personal thing. I'll go into more detail about dialogue in another chapter. Anyways, hopefully you learned something new here and I'll see you again in the next chapter!
