Thursday, November 25, 2010

Rethinking Paragraphs

I once saw paragraphs as formulaic.

At least four sentences.

Topic Sentence.
Supporting Detail #1
Explanation of Said Detail
Transition Word followed by Supporting Detail #2

And so on

Tidy rectangles.

Blogging changed this.

Without the economy of paper, I could reduce a paragraph to four sentences.

And guess what?

No one cared.

If anything, the medium itself screamed at me, "You can't pull a Dickens and run a 12 sentence paragraph.  These are pixels not papyrus dammit and you'd better respect the fact that they are one tab away from chatting with friends than reading your long-winded nonsense."

So, I began to see paragraphs as different.

Breaths.

White space.

No sound is still considered a note in music.

Space.

Liberated from the confines of grammar school lectures and formulas.  I'll write as short or as long as I please and press return when I want, because I need space.

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