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I like paragraphs that are more than one sentence long

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by sirvaliantbrown, Aug 6, 2007.

  1. SixToe

    SixToe Well-Known Member

    Multiple-sentence paragraphs provide context without a dumbing-down effect being employed. Thoughts or descriptions sometimes need to be contained in one paragraph to convey the full flavor. Knocking one into three or four sentences can dilute that.

    That isn't always the case. But often it is.

    Personally, I hate quotes being tacked on or into the middle of a paragraph. The WaPo example's lone quote would get a swift knife from me and become a new graph.

    One other pet peeve is splitting a one-sentence quote in the middle with a dramatic "he said" to make it appear the speaker is in deep thought.

    "It was," he said, "a pretty good pitch."
     
  2. Why do you think it's so good?
     
  3. Terence Mann

    Terence Mann Member

    1. It makes me want to know more.
    2. It has a pulp fiction quality about it.
    3. Years later people still talk about it.
    4. It has a fatal shooting and breakfast in the same sentence. You don't see that every day.
     
  4. Mystery_Meat

    Mystery_Meat Guest

    It tells the entire story in a few words. The phrase "fixing his breakfast" conveys a message that "fixing his dinner" might not.
     
  5. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    I didn't drop the Papa sentence because he's Papa, but because it shows how his training as a journalist shined through in everything he wrote.

    That's a newspaper lede. It captures the essence of the story, and, as someone pointed out, allows the reader a bunch of information while at the same time preserving the basic question.

    Give them the who, what, where and how. The why belongs to the reader.

    Same principle, a little different style:

    Washington -- Clifton Pollard was pretty sure he was going to be working on Sunday, so when he woke up at 9 a.m., in his three-room apartment on Corcoran Street, he put on khaki overalls before going into the kitchen for breakfast. His wife, Hettie, made bacon and eggs for him. Pollard was in the middle of eating them when he received the phone call he had been expecting. It was from Mazo Kawalchik, who is the foreman of the gravediggers at Arlington National Cemetery, which is where Pollard works for a living. "Polly, could you please be here by eleven o'clock this morning?" Kawalchik asked. "I guess you know what it's for." Pollard did. He hung up the phone, finished breakfast, and left his apartment so he could spend Sunday digging a grave for John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

    Again, we are given all the information quickly, save for the name, which Breslin holds back until the end of the first paragraph.

    It isn't so much about one-sentence paragraphs as it is about getting the important information where it needs to go. Either style can be effective.
     
  6. I could read that story a thousand times.
     
  7. From Miami Herald writer Edna Buchanan, the best crime reporter ever:

    Gary Robinson died hungry.

    He wanted fried chicken, the three-piece box for $2.19. Drunk, loud and obnoxious, he pushed ahead of seven customers in line at a fast-food chicken outlet. The counter girl told him that his behavior was impolite. She calmed him down with sweet talk, and he agreed to step to the end of the line. His turn came just before closing time, just after the fried chicken ran out.

    He punched the counter girl so hard her ears rang, and a security guard shot him - three times.
     
  8. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    I want concise. I live for concise.

    Seven-sentence paragraphs lose me.

    I spend much of my night creating paragraphs in wire copy for ease of reading.
     
  9. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    That's great pacing, builds speed until the em dash ending. Nice stuff.

    Side note: I love em dashes. Love em to death.
     
  10. spnited

    spnited Active Member

    Sorry IJAG, that is a wonderful sentence, full of information without a single wasted word.
     
  11. PHINJ

    PHINJ Active Member

    I love em dashes, too.
     
  12. Twoback

    Twoback Active Member

    If you've never read the book, you MUST get your hands on one.
     
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