Welcome to another post in the Content Creator Basics series. Here, we’ll share our go-to tips for flexing your freelance writer muscles—whether you’re writing content for someone else or for your own blog. Check in each month for more tips to sharpen your online content writing skills.
Once upon a time, I wrote a post here on the WritersDomain blog about paragraphs. In the intervening five and a half years, I have found myself haunted by the Ghost of Blog Posts Past.
I wrote, “In online writing, each new bit of supporting evidence and each new point about an idea can be a new paragraph,” but the example I used only showed how to split a large paragraph into small paragraphs. I never explained how to divide paragraphs logically.
So, five years later, I’m back with another post about how to create paragraphs that are not only pleasant to look at but also logical.
Why Paragraphs Matter
People read using so many different devices these days, which means that writers need to create content that looks good on screens of all sizes from desktop to mobile. Add to that the fact that readers are more likely to read something if it’s easy to look at, and you can easily understand why logical, short paragraphs are crucial.
The Yahoo! Style Guide said it best:
“Paragraphs, like sentences, should be concise, especially since you have only a few seconds to capture a reader’s attention. Short paragraphs are easy to scan and understand.”
It’s important to note that concise doesn’t just mean “short.” Concise also means free from unnecessary details, which leads us to the point of this article: paragraphs should focus on one point. Unfortunately, it’s easy to get preoccupied with how long paragraphs should be and forget about this other, equally important guideline.
(Of course, sometimes you’ll have detailed information that takes more than one paragraph to address, and that’s fine. If you want to know more, my original post about paragraphs covers that topic.)
How to Divide Paragraphs
Explaining theoretical best practices for writing is the fastest way to get confused, so I’m returning to my old standby: examples.
Take a look at the following passage for an example of what not to do. Pay close attention to the points addressed in each paragraph:
On Christmas Eve night, Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by four ghosts: Jacob Marley, the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Marley comes to tell Scrooge that three more spirits will visit him. Then Marley tells Scrooge he needs to change his ways. The Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge that he used to enjoy Christmas.
The ghost also shows Scrooge how his love of money is what led him down this path of loneliness. The Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge that people celebrate the holiday with their loved ones and that Scrooge is missing out. Christmas Present shows Scrooge that even the Cratchit family is having a happy holiday but that Tiny Tim is seriously ill.
This ghost tells Scrooge that Tiny Tim will die and shows him how people are suffering in London. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge that a man has died and nobody mourns him; they rejoice because they no longer owe the man money.
Christmas Yet to Come also shows Scrooge that Tiny Tim has died. Finally, the ghost shows Scrooge his own gravestone. Scrooge promises to change his ways and become a benevolent man.
This example has good-sized paragraphs, not too long, but each point overlaps from one paragraph to the next, so the organization doesn’t make sense. Most of the paragraphs talk about two ghosts, which isn’t a logical way to split up the points addressed in this passage.
Instead of talking about two points in one paragraph, we should use one paragraph for each point. So let’s try again:
On Christmas Eve night, Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by four ghosts: Jacob Marley, the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
Marley comes to tell Scrooge that three more spirits will visit him. Then Marley tells Scrooge he needs to change his ways.
The Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge that he used to enjoy Christmas. The ghost also shows Scrooge how his love of money is what led him down this path of loneliness.
The Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge that people celebrate the holiday with their loved ones and that Scrooge is missing out. Christmas Present shows Scrooge that even the Cratchit family is having a happy holiday but that Tiny Tim is seriously ill. This ghost tells Scrooge that Tiny Tim will die and shows him how people are suffering in London.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge that a man has died and nobody mourns him; they rejoice because they no longer owe the man money. Christmas Yet to Come also shows Scrooge that Tiny Tim has died. Finally, the ghost shows Scrooge his own gravestone. Scrooge promises to change his ways and become a benevolent man.
The text in both these examples is 100% identical. Some paragraphs are shorter and some are longer, but the important thing is that each paragraph is clearly focused on one main point.
When you’re following a style guide that restricts paragraph length, you may find it helpful to list each idea and then base your paragraph structure on that list. For our examples, such a list might look like:
Scrooge is visited by four ghosts:
- Jacob Marley
- Christmas Past
- Christmas Present
- Christmas Yet to Come
When you’re able to see your ideas and points listed one by one, you can use that structure to create your paragraphs. And as we mentioned above, it’s okay to divide a too-long paragraph into two smaller ones that address the same point.
How to Avoid Overcorrecting
When you don’t quite know how your ideas relate to one another, it’s hard to split them into logical paragraphs — so you may be tempted to make paragraphs smaller and smaller in order to prevent mismatched ideas from getting stuck in a paragraph together. However, paragraphs that are too short can feel choppy and confusing to readers.
If you find yourself frequently creating one-sentence paragraphs, take a step back and look at the main points you want to make. Do you have multiple sentences about a point or an idea? Combine the sentences to create paragraphs that support the points you are making. A list like the one we made earlier can help here too.
What to Remember
Focus each paragraph on one idea in order to keep your organization coherent. A paragraph break signals to readers that one idea has finished and a new idea is about to start, so take advantage of this assumption to strengthen the logical progression of ideas throughout your writing.
Paragraphs that are organized logically are much easier to read — therefore, readers are more likely to stay on the page and benefit from what you’ve written, whether it’s a story, a how-to guide, or an informational article.
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