suicidedesign

I've noticed in novels that there are paragraphs without a space between them. I was wondering why this is used and when you should use it. Perhaps an example will clarify things:

The Shining - Stephen King (Possible minor spoiler)

"The buzzer would go off and George would whirl around to stare furiously at Jack, who sat beside it. George's face at those moments would be flushed, his notes crumpled spasmodically in one hand.
Jack had held on to George long after he had cut most of the obvious flat tires, hoping George would work out. He remembered one late afternoon about a week before he had reluctantly dropped the ax. George had stayed after the otehrs had filed out, and then had confronted Jack angrily."

You see the paragraph break type thing between "...in one hand" and "Jack had held..."?

I'm currently working on a story but have not included this type of paragraphing? Should I?

mwd

Um, not quite sure what you mean by "without a space between them". I mean in pretty much any novel there's no blank line between paragraphs, but the first line of each paragraph is indented.

Should you do it this way, though? Depends. If you're submitting your work you'll want to use typical manuscript format and follow the guidelines, which in most cases will mean that yes, there will be no extra line between paragraphs (although all lines will be double spaced) and the first line of each paragraph will be indented.

But if you're just going to put the story up on the web (like here for example), spaces between paragraphs and no indents is easier for internet reading.

And if you're just writing something that you want to read yourself, you might as well format it however you like.

cbrmale

A bit of history, paragraphs were always presented as first line indented, each paragraph following on from the previous. Novels and stories are always presented this way. In the last thirty years, an alternative for paragraphs is no indentation, blank line between paragraphs. This is used in business writing, on web sites and in discussions like this one. For stories however, we still use first line indentation.

A variation arises when we sometimes insert a blank line between indented paragraphs to show a change of scene. For example, an indented paragraph describing the boarding of a train, end paragraph, blank line, new indented paragraph describing them arriving at their destination. We should not overdo these scene break blank lines, perhaps no more than two or three per chapter. If there are too many breaks, it is showing our writing is not flowing well.

I hope this helps.

aspiring

I completely agree.

This is never done - you either include a line break and then begin the next section with the first line up against the margin, or you indent. Never both. However, the 'leaving a line space and then beginning next paragraph aligned to margin' is quite common in fiction - I use it myself - to show a section break rather than a paragraph break.

suicidedesign

Thanks to everyone who gave advice. I'm beggining to understand a little better now.

cbrmale

That's funny, because I have a book in my bag at work and this is how it is done in my book, and another book that was lying around and this is how I was taught as well. I can't say it is Australian, because the book lying around at work was Harry Potter of all things (whose reading that?).

So the advice remains, for a soft section break leave a blank line and start a new indented paragraph.

aspiring

Then this is evidence of a house style (and therefore to be formatted by the publisher) not based on correct layout rules. My Harry Potter books (Bloomsbury UK) all follow the rules of a line space and then no indentation - I just checked.

No, advice I would give is that it doesn't matter hugely because this is the sort of thing that will be sorted out by a copy editor anyway. However, I teach all my pupils to leave a line space and then don't indent the next paragraph to show a section break. This is the method I use in my manuscripts and so far, not one of my four publishers has asked me to change it.

Fantasy of You

There are a lot of irregular things format-wise in The Shining. It's not the best book to think upon.

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mammamaia

in your ms that is to be submitted to agents or print publishers, you MUST indent and have no line spaces unless a line break is called for by change of time or scene... in which case a # goes in the center of the line and no line is left blank...

if submitting to online venues, it's normal to use line spacing instead of indents, since the internet wasn't set up to accept indents...

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