White Space - The Impact of Paragraph Indents

When I was in elementary school, I learned about paragraphs through nonfiction writing.  We learned that a paragraph had a topic sentence, supporting details and a conclusion.  I don't remember how or if I learned about using paragraphs in fiction, other than the rule that a new speaker means a new paragraph.  

When I became a teacher and started working with the Lucy Culkins writing curriculum (which I've mentioned here before), I learned some good basic rules for paragraph breaks in narrative, rules I was probably following without even realizing it.  When there is a change in time, place or speaker, or when a new character enters the scene, you generally start a new paragraph.  

Of course, since narratives are about people, and people don't follow rules very well, the rules can only get you so far.  On my last round of revisions for SPARROW'S SECRET HEART, I found myself obsessing over the impact of paragraph breaks, the way that white space at the end of one line and the beginning of the next affected the rhythm and pacing of a scene and changed the emotional focus.  I realized paragraph breaks are a way to create beats.  

Just as a book is made of chapters and chapters are made of scenes, scenes are made of beats.  "Beat" is a term I first learned in theater.  According to Wordreference.com, a "beat" is "the smallest unit of action in a scene. ... It involves a shift in the action, thought, or emotion of the actor."  (I invite my theater and acting friends to chime in here with better, more nuanced or experience-driven explanations).  

Are you on a late revision round and running into a moment that's just not working?  Maybe it's time to look at the beats and the paragraph breaks.  Within the rules, there's some wiggle room that just might make the difference.

Write Like a Third Grader

I've learned more about the craft of writing in the nine years since I became a teacher than I did at any time in college. Granted, I am thinking more like writer, and seeing myself as a writer, which helps. But in teaching my third graders the craft of writing, I have received an education myself. By teaching the process, I think about my own process. When I teach my students strategies for planning their writing, I discover my own strategies. When I talk with my students about revising by identifying whether they have a good balance of dialogue, action, internal story and sensory details, I must ask myself the same question. Have I oriented my reader to the setting? Introduced and described the characters? Am I writing in scenes, stringing together small moments, or just telling what happened? Have I chosen a story or topic that I care enough about to spend time with?

I have to give a great deal of the credit to the writing curriculum we use in our school, a curriculum developed by Lucy Culkins. Culkins' curriculum is designed to help children think and work like real writers. As a teacher when I conference with students I must hone in on what they're doing well and what they need to work on. In a conference, I ask them "What are you working on today as a writer?" "What are you trying to do with that story?" "Can you show me an example of where you did that?" I teach my students to be the boss of their own writing. When they sit down to write each day, they make a plan, asking themselves where they are in the writing process and deciding what they will work on that day. Are they generating ideas? Organizing their thoughts, perhaps with an outline or storyboard, a timeline or a story mountain? Maybe they're writing a discovery draft or rehearsing their story. How can I not become a better writer when I ask these questions day after day and hear eight-year-olds telling me, "I noticed I didn't have enough dialogue and I didn't orient my reader to the setting?" If my third graders can hone their craft, so can I.

Every third grader in my class, and most of the younger students in our school, also know Lucy's mantra "When you're done, you've just begun." I finished my novel and sent it out. Now what? "When you're done, you've just begun." Go back to your writer's notebook and start thinking about ideas for the next piece.

If you are not a teacher but you are a writer, I encourage you to find some of Lucy Culkins' work. THE ART OF TEACHING WRITING is a great place to start. You might even use it as a template for your critique group if you have one.