Got Any Spare Paragraphs, Mate?

Hello, I'm Fabrizio Giullare, and this is another of my long-running series on writing dos and don'ts.

Just for those who need a little bit of a catch-up, and can't be arsed looking back over the rest of my posts.  I'm the writer of a number of novels and comics.  My biggest novel has been Shepherd With Some Straw, that's currently in the process of being turned into a movie.  While my most recent novel is Claiming Benefits from the Wrong Window.  Both of which are available on Amazon.

My highly acclaimed comic work includes Little Dots, my collaboration with famed Japanese artist Yuudi Maeda and my work at Marvel on the Drooling Slugs crossover event.

Now that we've got the re-introductions out of the way, lets get down to what you're here for.  In the past I've talked about the importance of having too many paragraphs on the page, it's an annoying habit that lots of writers have that puts readers off.  I know my editor gets quite ratty when I hand her a manuscript with more than four paragraphs on a page.

"Fab," she says to me.  "Why do you need to clutter up the page with so many different paragraphs.  I've come to terms with your overuse of sentences, but this is almost too much for me."

And I have to agree with her and I find myself putting the offending clumps of words together into that glorious pattern of monolithic blocks of text that I know people love so much.  Bear in mind, this only happens three or four times in a nine hundred page manuscript – my editor is an exacting woman, and she hates to see a page with too much white space.  That's free space in which you can be telling the reader about the character's favourite hat.  It all adds up to that wonderful power of narrative that you're building.

"But, Fab, surely it doesn't entirely matter!  Surely you need to let the work flow as freely it obviously needs to!" I hear you cry.  And I answer by saying, "Watch the adverbs, buddy, there are ladies present."

I know it may seem like it's a completely arbitrary thing to fixate on, but you need to wake up and smell the bergamot, my friend, this matters.  It's on a par with naming characters Beryl or Angela – who the fuck does that any more?  It brings people out of the story that you're creating and makes them think about old ladies who smell of lavender and pee.  The same goes for too many paragraphs, except without the lavender and pee, it makes your reader start to wonder if you know what you're talking about.  A good, confident writer knows that a strong block of text on the page tells the reader this guy knows what he's talking about and makes them more eager to read what you give them.  Heavy slabs of text give your reader something to hold onto and strengthens your narrative.

I've come to terms with my editor's hatred of the full stop and she's come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to stop using it.  We both agree that plants should never be involved in a story, for any reason whatever.  This is just lazy writing and your readers will forget what their names are and probably start selling their bodies for Victoria sponge.  That's how serious getting the writing correct is, you'll ruin human civilisation.  I know you don't want to do that, you're a nice guy, so behave.

Until next time, I'm Fab Giullare, saying write well!