Paragraphing
Applying Paragraphing Techniques in Your Fiction We’ve been looking at paragraphing techniques piecemeal out of necessity. But once you’re actually writing, you tend to think holistically: What preceded this moment, and what must happen next. To use a musical metaphor, how will you orchestrate your story, using all the paragraphing techniques I’ve just described? Instead of deploying all five types at once, you’ll likely be using one or two at a time, giving them double duty (for instance, using dialogue that reveals character attitudes while deepening the story’s milieu). In George Gissing’s New Grub Street —an underappreciated (in my opinion) novel about commercial writers struggling to make a living in late-19th-century London—pay attention to the way the author orchestrates these opening paragraphs to pull the reader in. As the Milvains sat down to breakfast the clock of Wattleborough parish church struck eight; it was 2 miles away, but the strokes were borne ve...