Several times during my writing career, I thought I knew how to break paragraphs. When to end the current paragraph and start a new one, or when to keep semi-related sentences together and when to break them apart.
My latest understanding was that every paragraph should have a single point or purpose.
You’re describing this magical wand? Keep all description to the same paragraph. Now your protagonist grabs the wand and uses it? New paragraph!
Your hero is chasing the villain? Use one paragraph for the section where they climb onto the roof, use a new paragraph for the section where they fire on each other, and another new paragraph for the moment when one of them falls down fatally. Each paragraph has a specific point or purpose that’s different from the one before or after, and they only describe the same action broadly speaking.
This is … fine. It has served me well and led to much clearer prose, which made me confident enough to start publishing and selling those stories. And once you’re done with this article, you’ll see how this “rule” will still be valid in most of the cases.
This principle, however, was mostly based on non-fiction writing. This is what we’re taught in school when we’re supposed to write an essay, or at university when we’re writing papers. You start a paragraph with an introductory statement, then you expand on that particular statement in the rest of the paragraph, until ending with your strongest conclusion around that point.
In fiction, the lines are blurred. The story switches between feelings, action, description, dialogue, comments from a narrator, anything! What belongs to the same “point” being made? Which of these are still part of the same “idea”?
Cast a net that’s too wide, and you end up with huge paragraphs that are intimidating to even approach. Move to the other extreme, and you end up with single-sentence paragraphs all the time, which turns your writing into a stuttery grocery list.
While translating and revising another batch of short stories for The Saga of Life, I called my current principles or intuition on this matter into question once more. There was something about both translating and editing a story (from Dutch to English, or vice versa) that really made some clunky paragraphs stand out to me, even though they probably seemed “fine” when I wrote them.
After searching for more advice, I tried several other approaches for the next batch of stories. In a way, I focused more on my prose and paragraph breaks than the plot of those stories. After all that, I want to explain what I currently believe is the best way to think about this.
Motivation-Reaction
The idea behind this approach is simple on the surface.
Write your story as a cycle of Motivation paragraphs and Reaction paragraphs.
Most stories are about a main character doing something. Thus,
- The Motivation paragraph will contain description or something happening passively. The main character is observing this (instead of acting themselves in some way), and it’s their motivation to then react.
- The Reaction paragraph will be the actual action (in reaction to the Motivation) taken by the main character.
For example, remember my example from the introduction.
- Motivation = describing the magical wand
- Reaction = grabbing it and doing something with it
Or another example,
- Motivation = someone accuses our protagonist of stealing
- Reaction = they get angry and attack them for spreading lies
First you write a paragraph with observations that provide motivation to react, then you write a single paragraph with the actual reaction.
But there should always be a paragraph break between them. These two should never be glued together in the same paragraph!
This was probably my biggest breakthrough here. It helped me realize why some parts of specific stories seemed hard to follow for other readers. Not because the sentences were difficult or the actions badly described. No, because I had both motivation and reaction in the same paragraph, muddying the waters.
A simple example
See the example below. (This is not a real example from my story or someone else’s story, just something I make up on the spot for this article.)
MUDDY: A revolver lay on the table, half-covered by stained cloth. Without breaking eye contact, John’s fingers moved towards it behind his back, searching for the trigger. It was a Ruger, loaded with two bullets. Mark approached, his arms spread wide in an attempt to block John’s escape. John grabbed the gun, twisted it before him, and shot.
Despite having simple sentences, this is a bit muddy. An entire chapter of such paragraphs would be tiring to read. The motivation (what John notices and sees) and reaction (acting to grab the gun and shoot) are mixed into one paragraph that shoots in wildly different directions.
If we collect all motivation sentences into one paragraph, and then all reaction into another one, the communicated story clears up (if you ask me).
CLEARER (1): A revolver lay on the table, half-covered by stained cloth. A Ruger, loaded with two bullets. Mark approached, his arms spread wide in an attempt to block John’s escape. (Motivation)
Without breaking eye contact, John’s fingers moved towards it behind his back, searching for the trigger. He grabbed the gun, twisted it before him, and shot. (Reaction)
Easier to read, easier to understand.
One reason I might have initially written that first paragraph (in some rough first draft), might be to create some tension. Now, the act of reaching for the gun then shooting happens right after one another. Whilst, in the original single paragraph, there’s some delay between these events to build tension.
This initially gave me pause. Wouldn’t this approach yield very stale and lifeless paragraphs? But after trying it for a while, I’ve found that: no it doesn’t, and when I’m in doubt, you can rewrite to get the original intent.
For example,
CLEARER (2): A revolver lay on the table, half-covered by stained cloth. Mark didn’t seem to notice. (Motivation)
Without breaking eye contact, John’s fingers moved towards it behind his back, searching for the trigger. (Reaction)
The cold metal shocked his fingertips. Must be a Ruger. Still loaded, he felt two bullets inside. (Motivation)
Mark approached, his arms spread wide in an attempt to block John’s escape. A nasty grin of sure victory spread across his face. (Motivation)
John grabbed the gun, twisted it before him, and shot. (Reaction)
By extending the paragraphs with some extra information—a little more motivation, a little more reaction—you can still create more time between important moments and achieve the original intent. But now it’s much easier to read with very logical paragraph breaks.
This is often all you need. Go and try it! Take your first few chapters and force yourself to rewrite it into these Motivation-Reaction cycles, really sticking to the principle even when you might feel you can ignore it. This will train you how to do it as well as show its limitations.
As stated, merely realizing this and practicing it a bit already improved my prose.
So let’s talk about the limitations or my initial sources of confusion.
What if I need multiple in a row?
As you saw in the previous example, sometimes you might feel the need to have multiple Motivation or Reaction paragraphs in a row.
This is, of course, absolutely fine. I do, however, want to make two remarks.
Firstly, it brings us back to the original problem: when do we start a new paragraph? If we’re writing a lot of motivation, such as describing a few different things, other characters saying a few things, how do we chop that into pieces?
In this case, I still fall back to that original principle. Each unique, specific source of motivation should have its own paragraph.
- Paragraph = When the character describes the room they walked into.
- Paragraph = When someone welcomes them
- Paragraph = When the character describes their feelings as they hear a familiar song taking over the party
Try to group sentences based on a similar thought, concept, idea, or point you’re trying to make. I’d go more with intuition and flow here.
Secondly, if you write so much motivation (or reaction) after one another you need to break it into many paragraphs, you might want to reconsider. That’s a sure sign you’re getting stuck in one mode instead of using this nice cycle between the two.
If stuck in motivation, your story comes to a standstill and you’re describing too much. If stuck in reaction, your story is an overwhelming barrage of unconnected actions.
The cycle between Motivation->Reaction->Motivation->Reaction is the engine behind story. It’s what turns any plot into something that flows and keeps the reader engaged, keeps moving forward with momentum.
As such, I’d recommend really keeping it a cycle for the most part. One paragraph motivation, one paragraph reaction, then one paragraph motivation, and so forth until the end of your story.
As shown in that example, you can play with the order or gathering of sentences to make paragraphs longer or shorter as needed.
For example, to “fix” my list of paragraphs from before.
- Paragraph (Motivation) = When the character describes the room they walked into.
- Paragraph (Reaction) = They walk to a specific corner (because of what they noticed in the previous paragraph)
- Paragraph (Motivation) = The host of the party greets them
- Paragraph (Reaction) = They ask them to change the music
- Paragraph (Motivation) = They describe their feelings/memories associated with that song
These interjections of reaction might seem silly in an example like this. But hopefully you feel how this gives a much better engine to the story. These reactions can be just one or two simple sentences. But now we’ve changed one long page of description into something broken into smaller bits, with the main character being proactive and actually reacting to what they see.
What if multiple characters are doing things?
I often write stories with many characters on equal footing. Perhaps because I come from a large family, perhaps because of my hyperactive brain.
This necessitates a good collection of scenes with many people all getting involved, reacting to events, taking turns grabbing attention and making something happen.
Sure, it might still be told from a single perspective, but that person might share the spotlight in that scene with many others.
How do you apply this principle then? If the main POV character is not the one always reacting?
At first, I was a bit stumped by this. I tried several approaches again, such as simply rewriting the entire scene such that the POV character was always the one reacting and being the most active, but this was just bizarre. It made every protagonist seem hyperactive and way too full of themselves, while nobody else received any screen time :p
No, of course this is not the solution. The solution is simply to allow the “reacting” part to come from different characters.
- When you write the motivation, check if this is some public knowledge. (For example, everyone in the room notices the broken window, while only the narrator will know their own feelings or thoughts.)
- If so, the reaction can be from a different person. This still leads to clear prose and a nice story engine. (Instead of your protagonist mentioning the possibility of a break-in, someone else might do it, and this is all fine.)
Other characters should still be doing stuff and reacting to what happens, of course. If they don’t, the scene is just jarring and happening in a void.
The only trick here is to never let that overshadow the main protagonist. For every few reactions by other characters, there should be one from the main POV. Most reactions by other characters should become motivation for the main POV.
For example,
- (Motivation): Describe the broken window upon entering what should be a guarded room.
- (Reaction->Motivation): An advisor mentions it and fearfully proposes that someone might have broken in and stolen some artefact or whatever.
- (Reaction): The main POV character reacts to this by stating this is the advisor’s third failure and that they are simply too incompetent to remain at their post.
I also like this approach because it naturally leads at a final lesson about prioritizing reactions. Different reactions happen at different speeds. For example, a reflex or intuitive movement will happen before your character starts thinking or speaking in reaction to something. Similarly, another character might simply be more quick-witted or more athletic and therefore constantly react before the main character in certain situations.
This was another source of confusion in some of my earlier prose: I’d messed up the order of reactions, placing a slow reaction before the fast one. Which gives a sort of time-traveling whiplash to the readers!
WRONG ORDER: John was surprised to see a tiger in this remote area, especially considering climate change. He narrowly escaped the beast’s bite.
If a tiger comes at you, you first instinctively dodge its bite, and then start thinking about the statistical likeliness of this appearance and climate change :p
BETTER ORDER: John dodged the beast’s bite. He climbed a tree, still surprised. A tiger in this remote area, especially after the river dried up?
In general, the list of priorities seems something like the following.
- Instinctive, immediate, reflexive reaction first.
- Emotional, habitual, trained reaction second.
- Then longer sentences with more thought or consideration.
- The story has a nice engine that always pushes it forward and keeps the reader engaged, with a nice little dance between motivation and reaction.
- The paragraph very naturally fall into the right places and lead to clear, readable, non-intimidating prose.
And yes, in many cases this aligns with the earlier principle of “each paragraph has one idea or one action”. But that earlier principle is needlessly vague and doesn’t cover what I’ve found to be the most important cases or situations that made me doubt.
After trying this approach for several short stories, I also started doing it for the next Wildebyte books, and I am very happy with that slight improvement in prose quality. Even though many chapters are unchanged, there are certainly moments where I can see how much more clearly the story guides the reader from start to finish now.
So, what have I learned?
- Write your story as a cycle of Motivation->Reaction paragraphs.
- Never mix a Motivation sentence and a Reaction sentence into the same paragraph. That’s how you get muddy prose, even if the sentences are simple and straightforward by themselves.
- There can be multiple of the same type after another. But prefer sticking to the cycle and rewrite as needed to achieve this. (Lots of same-purpose chapters after another is a signal the story comes to a standstill and you get stuck in something.)
- Let other characters react and do things too, but use that as the motivation for the main character’s reaction. It should never overshadow them.
Hopefully, these ideas help you out when writing your next story too. Or, better yet, go back in your current story and rewrite a few chapters as pure Motivation->Reaction cycles. See if you like it, see if your prose “clears up” or “opens up” as I’ve experienced a few times.
And, hopefully, this noticeably raises the quality of all my future stories again!
Until the next time, keep reading and writing,
Tiamo