Some people can easily grasp how to divide stories or ideas into discreet units, and these folks have little trouble putting their thoughts into paragraph form. For many others, however, ideas are not so easily divisible, and then paragraphing becomes harder.

If you find it difficult to know where paragraph breaks should go, you may find it useful to think of them in both the concrete (what are basic rules for forming paragraphs) and the abstract (what is the connection between paragraphs and ideas). If you think of paragraphs as basically trivial, then you will have a hard time communicating with your reader, who won’t know where you are leading him. Paragraph breaks are like traffic signs that help guide your reader down the road. Without proper use of the signs, the reader is in for a much rougher and more confusing ride.

First, some basic paragraphing rules:

1. A paragragh can be as short as one sentence. Usually it is several.
2. Each speaker gets a new paragraph.
3. A paragraph ties together related ideas. When the action shifts, for example, you should begin a new paragraph.

About rule one: why should a paragraph be made up of several sentences? To begin with, it is difficult to develop an idea with simply one sentence, so one rarely sees a descriptive or narrative paragraph that short (although they are common in dialogue). Conversely, if your idea is so complex that it requires numerous sentences, the chances are that you are really writing about more than one idea. Breaking your thoughts down into several shorter, more manageable paragraphs helps the reader recognize that you are really talking about more than one thing.

Say, for example, that you are describing your character hiking through the mountains. You write a long paragraph about the scenery he observes on his hike, and discover that you have written a half page description. When you notice such a lengthy paragraph without a break, there are several things you may conclude: 1) you are an amazing and creative writer who can break conventional rules and needn’t be bound by them; 2) you have written too much description and need to edit out some details to move the story line along; or 3) you actually have written several related ideas that can be broken down into several paragraphs. A little honest analysis on your part will likely rule out the first option and help you decide whether editing or additional paragraph breaks are needed.

One easy method for getting comfortable with paragraphing is to pick up several books in the genre you are writing and see where the breaks are. This is especially helpful for dialogue, which can sometimes be confusing. As rule two states, when the attention shifts to a new speaker, you should insert a paragraph break.

“I didn’t fall into thinking like that overnight,” Jesse said. “It began so far back that I can hardly recall. It must have been before the war.”

Sarah looked at him with understanding. “I think I know what you mean. It was when we first saw those newcomers coming in and all.” She paused and looked down.

“That’s right. It was them that did it,” he said.

So when creating paragraph breaks for dialogue, follow the speaker rather than what he says.

Rule three requires that you step back and analyze the shift in ideas on the page. You might find this like breathing—something that you can do easily if you don’t think about it, but are unable to do well when you focus your attention on it. But becoming a better writer requires greater awareness of what you’re doing. If you don’t ordinarily like to analyze your thoughts and your writing (“I like to do what comes naturally”), then this will be harder for you.

Paragraph breaks indicate any kind of minor shift in focus in your story and are a clear visual indicator to the reader that a new topic, idea, or change in action is about to take place. Much of this goes on subconsciously in the mind of the reader, who has spent years following the directional signals of paragraph breaks and doesn’t pause to think about them.

Look again at a novel and seeing what happens at the break. Exactly what shift has occurred? Did the new paragraph bring you into a different room of the house? Did it shift your attention from one person to another? Did it indicate a change in mood? Or did it show another facet of an argument or another piece of idea that the writer was developing?

If you are having trouble knowing where to put your breaks, analysis of other writers will likely help you more than anything else. Making yourself aware of what your brain already subconsciously knows is the key to paragraphing skillfully.