Consider the Paragraph

The first Paragraph Party happens tonight. It’s sold out, which is encouraging, and there’s already talk of running it again. (More information TK.)

As part of my preparation I’ve redefined the paragraph. Here are my thoughts:

1. At least three sentences

A handful of words that start out indented is not a paragraph in my world. There’s not enough time/space to fully develop an idea, communicate a piece of information, or evoke an emotion.

(Sidebar: Next time you see a one-sentence paragraph, try testing it out as the last sentence of the preceding paragraph or the first sentence of the next. You with me on that?)

2. A pleasing shape

Enter, develop, exit: you can’t go wrong with the basics. Check out this graf from Bobbie Ann Mason’s “Love Life”:

On the table beside Opal is a Kleenex box, her glasses case, a glass of Coke with ice in it, and a cut-glass decanter of clear liquid that could just be water for the plants. Opal pours some of the liquid into the Coke and sips slowly. It tastes like peppermint candy, and it feels soothing. Her fingers tingle. She feels happy. Now that she is retired, she doesn’t have to sneak into the teachers’ lounge for a little swig from the jar in her pocketbook. She still dreams algebra problems, complicated quadratic equations with shifting values and no solutions. Now kids are using algebra to program computers. The kids in the TV stories remind her of the students at Hopewell High. Old age could have a grandeur about it, she thinks now that the music surges through her, if only it weren’t so scary.

We enter with the “could just be water” mystery. We exit on a primal emotion. In between there’s a nice, building portrait of a retired, alcoholic math teacher that the world’s left behind.

There’s nothing fancy about this paragraph, which was first published in The New Yorker, by the way. It just works.

3. A primary objective

A great paragraph can be a three-ring circus of awesome, but it still has a Primary Objective. The P.O. could be anything (plot, character, voice, etc.) but the paragraph must meet this objective. Otherwise it’s a failure.

Take a look at this graf from Ernest Hemingway’s THE SUN ALSO RISES:

We came into the town on the other side of the plateau, the road slanting up steeply and dustily with shade-trees on both sides, and then leveling out through the new part of town they are building up outside the old walls. We passed the bull-ring, high and white and concrete-looking in the sun, and then came into the big square by a side street and stopped in front of the Hotel Montoya.

Hemingway busts some signature moves in this graf. Say “high and white and concrete-looking” out loud and feel your voice rise and drift and then crash down, just as your eyes would when driving past a large, imposing structure.

But he’s also doing very basic work. He’s getting you to the hotel. Take this paragraph slowly (phrase by phrase) and marvel at the clarity: over plateau, up road (trees on side), level through new construction (old walls in background), past bull ring, into square, stop at hotel.

Paragraphs like these are like potato chips: you just keep eating and eating and eating until suddenly you realize you’ve plowed through half the bag.

4. Music and energy

This graf is from Susanna Clarke’s showstopping fantasy novel JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL:

It has been remarked (by a lady infinitely clever than the present author) how kindly disposed the world in general feels to young people who either die or marry. Imagine then the interest that surrounded Miss Wintertowne! No young lady ever had such advantages before: for she died upon the Tuesday, was raised to life in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and was married up on the Thursday; which some people thought too much excitement for one week.

That voice! Saying “the Tuesday.” Writing “how kindly disposed the world in general feels” instead of “how the world in general feels kindly disposed.” Dryly portraying death and resurrection as “advantages.”

Voice is more readily identifiable in a satire like JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL, but even more serious writers can learn from the tempo, timing and pacing of comedic writing. One of our goals in the glass will be to become more aware of the music in our own work.