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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. Twoback

    Twoback Active Member

    Frankly, I think this device should be a felony.
    You can split a quote if there's a natural comma ... or even an elipsis.
    You cannot split a quote that does not have a natural break.
    EVER!!!!!
     
  2. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    With you on that, Two.

    It changes the meaning of a quote, which should be the ultimate no-no.
     
  3. imjustagirl2

    imjustagirl2 New Member

    "She went to the store and bought a package of Depends with her unemployment check."

    Now I wonder who she is, why she's unemployed, and why she needs Depends.

    Does that make it a spectacular sentence?
     
  4. Tim Sullivan

    Tim Sullivan Member

    Since you asked:

    A fisherman who can't catch a fish in 84 days is strange and unusual. A woman who spends her unemployment check on Depends is, on the face of it, unremarkable.

    Man bites dog: News. Dog bites man: Not so much.
     
  5. imjustagirl2

    imjustagirl2 New Member

    Then we agree to disagree. Because there is nothing in that Hemingway sentence that makes me want to read more. I just assume the guy sucks at fishing.
     
  6. Jones

    Jones Active Member


    That really is one of the fabulous paragraphs.
     
  7. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    What about dog sniffs Bektashian Shriner's hand then starts barking madly?

    [​IMG]

    And "The Old Man and the Sea" is a terrific read. Even that Joe DiMaggio would think so.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  8. A paragraph is supposed to convery a complete thought, and like a story, should be as long as it needs to be. It can be one word or five sentences. Hemingway -- even though we're quoting a novel here, and not some of his newspaper work, which could be wordy as hell -- did it well one way. Thomas Friedman, whose leads sometimes take up half a column, does it well another. But from a writer's perspective, you split my grafs, you better have a damn good reason beyond "I thought it was too long.'
     
  9. SixToe

    SixToe Well-Known Member

    How about this one: "Readers don't like long paragraphs."

    Interesting. I've never heard that one on a survey reply before.

    A website editor I wrote for a few times would split up every sentence, presumably to make the story longer. I asked once why he did it, since it broke up some of the context and flavor of paragraphs.

    "It's just the way I do things and readers don't like long paragraphs."

    I didn't write for him anymore. He's no longer the editor of that site, either.
     
  10. KG

    KG Active Member

    I personally don't like long paragraphs. And by long, I'm talking about one that takes up half the screen on the computer. After reading a few sentences, it just starts to turn into a big block of letters swimming around.
     
  11. Edna's take on the hungry guy is the best I've ever seen.

    If I write one that good, I'm going into another profession the next day.
     
  12. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    VERY interesting. Because I sure have.

    This is really pretty clear-cut, has been as long as I've been doing this. The half-page paragraphs of novels look like undecipherable blocks of gray on a newspaper page. Short paragraphs. Generally short sentences. Simplify.

    If a writer can't write short paragraphs, he/she will quickly find a copy editor who will make them that way.

    I think Andy Beyer is the ultimate in horse-racing journalism, and will use him whenever I can on a major race. But you can be sure the five-paragraph, 27-inch story I get off the wire will look different when it hits the page.
     
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