Week 38 Conclude your Paragraphs with a Click

All About the Rhythm!
by Valerie Ipson

"Take special care with the last sentence of each paragraph," William Zinser advises in On Writing Well. "It is the crucial springboard to the next paragraph ... Make the reader smile and you've got him for at least one paragraph more"...as quoted in Wilbers Mastering the Craft.

So just as we've practiced ending a sentence with a bit of a punch, we can, and should, do the same with our paragraphs.

Wilbers teaches that this technique is more than paragraph structure, more than figuring out beats, and more than putting your best line at the end. It involves RHYTHM. 

Your homework, should you choose to accept it, is to check out chapter 38 and read the examples included. Read the concluding sentences of each paragraph by Eudora Welty, Kevin Kling, and Stephen King out loud and listen to the rhythm of the lines leading up to the pause. See how the concluding sentences create an impact.

Week 37 Write in Sentences, but Think in Paragraphs

Week 37 Write in Sentences, but Think in Paragraphs

by Peggy Urry

Benjamin Franklin had a great sense of curiosity (and I would say, a great amount of luck on his side: think lightning rod).

As a lad, there was a peer with whom he would debate. He "usually found himself on the losing side of these 'disputations'". Franklin, in his autobiography says the "lad" was "naturally more eloquent, had a ready plenty of words; and sometimes, as I thought, bore me down more by his fluency than by the strength of his reasons."1

To hone his skills, he took an old volume of The Spectator (Joseph Addison and Richard Steele) and studied the essays. He took notes, he wrote them in verse, then after a few days would try to put them back into essay form. And made more notes on how he could improve the next time. Sometimes, apparently needing a bigger challenge, he would jumble his collection of hints and weeks later attempt to put them back into order.

Sounds grand, doesn't it? Let's give it a try using a paragraph from an essay in The Spectator by Joe Floren, "Writing in the Age of Data Drench". Put the following sentences in order:2



___ How often would we make careless spelling errors if correcting them meant starting over with a new rock?

___ It's no coincidence that the typewriter is wordier than longhand, the word processor wordier than the typewriter, and dictation wordiest of          all.

___ Despite its many benefits, the computer gets the blame for increasing reader overload.

___ Imagine how concise we'd be if we had to chisel our messages into rock.

___ Its ease of use encourages writers to be wordier and less organized.

___ Easy writing quickly becomes lazy writing.

Need a few hints? Remember Week 36's paragraph instruction: topic, development, resolution. A topic sentence may look back before going forward--a transitional topic sentence. The one above includes a comma. The sentence that clarifies/amplifies meaning comes next. Guessing on the fourth sentence might be careless and lazy isn't always last. Good luck. Check out Stephen Wilbers's book Mastering the Craft for more hints.


1 Mastering the Craft, Wilbers, Stephen, pg 206.
2 Mastering the Craft, Wilbers, Stephen, pg 207.

WeeK 35 Use Paragraphs To Frame Your Thought and Set Your Pace

Point & Shoot
by Valerie Ipson

You may have noticed that the 52 weeks of lessons found in Mastering the Craft began with the basics...first, choosing your words wisely, and then on to constructing powerful sentences. Now we're experts (right?) so we're ready to tackle the almighty PARAGRAPH.

Wilbers compares it to taking a picture. We "decide what to place inside the frame and what to leave out" MTC, 194. In putting together a paragraph, it's the same...you choose the words and sentences and where to place them.

Our manuscripts are not emails where we might wander from thought to thought randomly. Instead, we use paragraphs crafted with a purpose. In fiction, they introduce and develop a thought, but also "mark shifts in scene and dialogue" MTC, 194. They compel a reader from thought to thought at a pace we as the author decides. Longer paragraphs slow the pace, while the short, choppy paragraph steps it up.

Often we take a photo that has too much sky or too much going on in the background and we have to crop it. Cropping is a great tool for writers, too. Give readers some white space around your paragraphs!