WEBVTT - The Paragraph, Part 1 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.280 My Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:14.319 My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.759 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:21.200 And in today's episode, I wanted to take a look 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:25.319 at a writing convention, and that is the paragraph or 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:29.240 the paragraph break. I think there was a single moment 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.000 of genesis in my desire to do this episode, and 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:36.480 it's that, Uh, you know, some number of weeks back, 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:39.120 I was doing research for some episode and I ended 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:43.159 up looking up an archived plane text version of an 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:46.080 old book. Rob I'm sure you've had this issue on 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:49.879 the show before. So you get plain text and the 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.479 text is there, but all the original paragraph breaks are 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:56.280 messed up, like they're they're either in the wrong place 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.360 or there are no breaks, and I was like trying 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.240 to read it. I was just like, this is horrible. 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:05.440 I hate this. Even though the whole text is here, 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:10.480 I'm basically incapable of reading it. Somehow, the existence of 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:15.440 paragraphs with reasonable breaks is what makes a massive text 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:19.520 physically consumable to me, right and and certainly if it 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.240 is supposed to be paragraphs, is supposed to have paragraph 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:25.760 breaks in it. Um It's like if someone were to 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:29.039 bring a seven course meal to you and say here, 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.560 here it is in stew form. Um, please enjoy it. 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:34.399 I mean. And it hasn't been blended up in this 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:36.280 scenario at all. So it's not like it is it 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.120 is garbled. All of it is still there. But here 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:41.120 it is without the little breaks. Here it is just 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.640 all you know, either either in the same pot or 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:45.680 even just mashed together on the same plate. No, no, no, 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:48.440 I want these We need these breaks between these different 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:51.800 things that we're going to consume. Uh, there needs to 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:54.320 be an order to to what is occurring, right, Why 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:56.720 not just put the tierramisiou in the clam chowder and 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.920 then you get it all at once? Um? Yeah. And 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:04.040 so this got me thinking about paragraphs in general, and 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:08.359 wondering about where they come from historically, and why we 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:10.960 build them the way that we do, if there even 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.520 is a consistent way that we build them, and all 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:16.320 kinds of questions like this, And one thing I thought 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:19.600 might be interesting to get us kicked off today is 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:23.880 to just talk about the literary effect, the effect on 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:26.680 the reader when you're reading a book with a lot 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:30.560 of long paragraphs versus short paragraphs. Like, how does that 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:35.440 change the experience of reading and the impression created. I'm 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.360 sure other people have different ways of answering this, but 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.000 one immediate distinction I thought of in my own reading 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:45.359 experience has to do with the feeling of substance versus 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:49.240 the feeling of momentum, and I would explain it like this. 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.679 When I think about good books with very short paragraphs, 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:57.000 I tend to think about readability and hooky noess. Like 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:01.840 you know, airport thriller novels. They tend have very short paragraphs, 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:04.720 and those short paragraphs are I think effective for what 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.720 they're meant to do. That they tend to make the 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:10.239 text easy to read. They make it feel like it's 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.880 fast moving and inviting. It wants to keep you reading, 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:17.560 making you less likely to put the book down. Meanwhile, 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.600 when I think about good books with very long paragraphs, 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:26.000 I tend to think about literary richness, like obsessive observation 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:29.680 or description or insight texts that feel like they are 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:35.120 packed with detail and texture and thoughtfulness. Um So, in 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:38.480 trying to like balance out those two different advantages you 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:41.520 get from different paragraph links, I came up with a 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.600 kind of perhaps silly metaphor but I started thinking about 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:47.560 trips to bring groceries in from the car. You know, 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:49.240 you ever go out shopping, you have a bunch of 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:51.760 different things, and you can, you know, you can take 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:54.240 one or two bags each time, or you can try 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:57.120 to do everything in one go, but sometimes that's impossible 0:03:57.120 --> 0:03:59.480 and you have to stop halfway to the door. So 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.040 like when you're paragraphs are too short, it's almost like 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:04.880 you're trying to bring the groceries in one item at 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.480 a time. Something just starts to feel kind of insubstantial 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.680 and absurd about what you're doing. But if paragraphs are 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:14.119 too long, that's kind of like trying to bring everything 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.440 in in one trip and you just stop, like you 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.000 have to put it down and decide, okay, I can't 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:22.760 do this. So you're kind of balancing mobility, the mobility 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:26.359 of carrying less with the substance of carrying more. I 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:28.159 think that's a good That's an interesting way of thinking 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:31.080 about it. That's certainly because because the other side of 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:33.919 that is I'm instantly thinking of the person that is 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.880 obscenely trying to carry all the groceries in in one go, 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:40.520 like you know, and I've I've I think I've tried 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.520 to do this before. Where you're you're just you have 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:48.200 multiple grocery bag straps on each hand, you have something 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:51.960 on your arm cradling something. Yeah, and then yeah, I 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:54.559 guess you're planning on opening the door with your foot 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:56.840 or just slamming into it or hoping there's somebody on 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.160 the other side to help you in. And here's the thing, 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:02.360 as the reader, like I'm either the door or I'm 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:04.320 the person on the other side of the scenario, and 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:06.880 you just would want to be like, calm down a 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.960 little bit, like I bought the book, or I I 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:12.360 rented the book, or I borrowed the book from the library, 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:14.840 whatever the case may be. We can get to all this. 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.120 We don't have to have it all in the first paragraph, right. 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:20.920 And this is not I think this is not unique 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:24.080 to modern readers. I mean people who are writing handbooks 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:28.680 of composition and rhetoric in in centuries past warn that 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:32.440 overly long paragraphs have the effect of quote over taxing 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:37.240 the reader. There's something about unbroken blocks of text that 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:41.320 just gets tiresome, and somehow, even though the text continues 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:45.159 either way, just putting more breaks in between, separating that 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:48.920 in the smaller chunks. Smaller paragraphs somehow makes the text 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.800 feel lighter and like you're just sort of like skipping 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:53.960 over it at a you know, at a breezy pace, 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:57.360 as opposed to getting bogged down and feeling this weight. 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:00.640 I was looking around for different writings on paragraphs and 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:05.560 I actually came across the night paper titled writing Paragraphs 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.880 by Tolkien at all uh, and it's it is j R. 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:11.960 Tolkien himself and wow, weird. Weirdly enough, one of the 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:16.080 co authors was a professor at Memphis State in Tennessee. Uh. 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:18.760 I didn't get to the bottom of how these individuals 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.440 all come together on being credit on the same paper, 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.240 but it gets into some of the basics and challenges 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:28.200 and goals of of teaching effective writing. But even in 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.039 this paper, the authors point out that the unity of 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:35.480 a given paragraph is often illusory. A longer paragraph, they 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:38.800 point out, can often be broken into without upsetting anything. 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:40.640 And they point out, for instance, this is often done 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.560 at the spirits, certainly at the editing phase and newspapers. Uh. 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:46.760 The the author wrote a paragraph it's a little bit 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:49.240 too long looking on the screen, you just shop that 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:51.120 sucker in half. And a lot of times you can 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:54.159 do that without any ill effect, And likewise they point 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:56.400 out that the reverse is true. In many cases. You 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:58.880 can take shorter paragraphs and kind of combine them together 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.360 and you're not going do effectively break anything. So that's 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:04.280 I think that's something interesting to keep in mind, even 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:06.719 though at the same time they are acknowledging that, yeah, 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:10.040 a lot of paragraph writing is about Okay, here's your 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:12.760 this is the stuff we all learn in school, right 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:17.000 here is our our topic sentence. Then we have supporting sentences, 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.000 and the paragraph is supposed to be this one concise 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.000 nugget of thought for us to consume. Well, that's a 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.840 great transition to the next thing I wanted to get out, 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:28.840 which is that you know, of course we're talking about 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.960 reporting our subjective feelings as a reader on you know, 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:35.480 reading paragraphs of different links. But the other side of 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:39.040 the approach to paragraphs is the more prescriptive approach. You know, 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.840 here's what a paragraph must do, with the most famous 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.440 or uh if you like, infamous prescription being that a 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:50.720 paragraph must develop a single idea, and that idea must 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:53.240 be announced near the beginning of the paragraph in a 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:57.840 topic sentence, and then there must be supporting sentences. Uh, 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:00.600 and you know, we can talk more about the prescriptive 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:03.320 idea of the paragraph later, I guess. But anyway, I 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.880 find it interesting to consider the surface level paradox that 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:11.280 paragraphs are absolutely essential to most modern readers. I think 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:13.680 you and I are probably not unique in this. Like 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:16.440 the prospect of reading a book or even a long 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:20.760 article that's just a single, unbroken block of text makes 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.880 my blood run cold. I could not do it. And 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:28.200 yet it is difficult to explain exactly what the rules 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:32.920 are for creating paragraphs like they're essential, but but attempts 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:37.559 to codify them in a universal way are, I would argue, 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.800 and I think we will argue later on pretty much 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:44.480 universally failures at at least at describing the way paragraphs 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:48.000 are actually used in popular writing. You know, so, questions 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:50.680 about where do we break the line and why are 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:54.679 in some ways still kind of elusive, even though breaking 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.960 the line is a must. Now. I don't know how 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:01.000 successful this will be, but I did at think is 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:05.800 it possible to mention favorite paragraph breaks and writing? I 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:09.400 was struggling to have any like Obviously, I have a 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:13.199 lot of bits of writing that are a paragraph, But um, 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:15.800 I was struggling to think of examples where the break 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.640 of the paragraph is what I admire in the writing, 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:20.600 as essential as it is to a piece of writing 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:23.640 as a whole. Yeah, I was once you brought this up. 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:25.839 I was thinking on and I'm on my own here, 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:27.640 and I was thinking, well, okay, what are what are 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:29.280 bits that stand out to me in writing? And I 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:31.040 found that a lot of times the things that come 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:35.080 to me the easiest are opening lines or sometimes closing 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:39.440 lines from from novels, and a lot of those A 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:41.560 lot of the time, if not all the time. It's 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:45.000 super short. It's often not even perhaps a true clinical 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:48.600 paragraph in that in that it is actually just one line. 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:52.040 And like a couple of examples that I instantly thought 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:54.960 of Dante's Inferno as a great one in them. And 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.400 of course we're getting into poetry here, we're getting into stances, 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.880 but uh, it's effectively a in tents in the middle 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:03.440 of the journey of our life. I came to myself 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.000 in a dark wood for the straight way was lost. 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:09.160 An even better example, and this is from an actual novel. 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.960 This is from Alan rogue Grils The Voyeur. It just 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.200 begins with a short sentence. It was as if no 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:18.960 one had heard. And I always loved that one because 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:22.400 it's so evocative, like what what is the thing that 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:24.960 no one had had heard? Why had they not heard it? 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:27.520 And who is making or what is making the sound 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:29.880 like it? It asked so many questions that I have 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:33.360 to keep moving. Another good one Fahrenheit four fifty one 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.000 by Ray brad Berry. It was a pleasure to burn. 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:39.240 Oh that's interesting, So these pros works. I've read these, 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.640 but I uh I did not recall the the opening 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.120 paragraphs being a single line. Yeah. A couple of other 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.360 ones that came to mind. Uh nearrom Answer by William Gibson. 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.160 The sky above the port was the color of television 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.400 turned to a dead channel. Or this is a famous 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:57.360 one as well, from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.400 by Hunter S. Thompson. We were somewhere around are still 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:02.320 on the edge of the desert when the drugs began 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.240 to take hold. Uh yeah, that's that's another good one. 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.920 So you're a fan of the the short, possibly single 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.880 sentence opening paragraph in fiction at least? Yeah, Yeah, there's 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:15.480 something about this, like that one line. It's really they're 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.600 really either either. It really makes me think and establishes 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.480 kind of a vibe, or in some cases it establishes 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:26.040 a different definite setting or scenario, whether succinctly. For instance, 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.720 the Gibson one to a certain is really more about vibe. 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:33.559 Um the Voyeur quote is more about vibe. The Hunter S. 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:36.280 Thompson one is vibe and setting. It gives you a 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:38.720 sense of where we're going and sort of what is 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:41.920 going on. I was, obviously I'm a big fan of Dune, 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:43.680 so I thought, well, what was the first line of 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:45.280 doing I can't remember it off the top of my head. 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:50.320 There if you skip past the quote from from the Princess, uh, 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.199 the first line is in the week before their departure 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.520 to Aracus, when all the final scurrying about had reached 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:59.920 a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:03.000 the mother of the boy Paul. Now that's that's not 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:05.040 a paragraph that I would just say, oh, I put 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:07.040 that on a T shirt for me, or or can 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:09.320 I have that inscribed in my flesh? But it is 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:13.120 a great, a great opening, the opening line that just 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:16.880 establishes exactly what is going on and gives you, you know, 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:19.000 it gives you some mystery. I guess you don't know 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.439 what Iracus is at this point, and you were instantly wondering, well, 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:26.400 who is this old crone? And it sets the story 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.080 and it does a good job of just just having 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:33.080 dived directly into the action. Really, but I couldn't remember 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:36.280 or just looking around really quickly find an example of 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:39.880 a of a multi sentence paragraph. Uh, particularly an opening 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:43.880 paragraph from a work that I held to a really 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:45.880 high standard. I don't know how about you, Joe. I'm 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:47.680 sure if I had more time thinking about this, I 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:49.960 could come up with good examples. But but I have not, 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.000 because again, I think paragraph breaks are essential, but I 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:58.160 have not scrutinized individual breaks enough that it that they 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:00.920 really like. Stick with me. There there's something that is essential, 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.559 but they mostly to me become invisible in a text. 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:07.920 I don't remember where the line breaks happen. Usually, Yeah, 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:11.120 if a paragraph is is put together effectively and it's 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:13.320 doing its job, you don't notice. That's one of the 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.000 things about it. Uh, it's it's it's I've never had 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.800 the experience of reading something to think, yeah, that's a 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.160 great place for a paragraph break. I might think the 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:24.880 other the opposite of that, I might think, couldn't we 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:27.880 have broken this up a little bit more, Um, Frank 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:30.400 Herbert or whoever I'm happening to read, And it's not 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.560 necessarily I was thinking about this as well, like what 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.880 is the experience of reading a text that is not 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:40.560 just one big breakless paragraph but has but does have 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:45.880 some rather expansive paragraphs. I find that sometimes when I'm 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:48.079 looking at this page, I still have a gut instinct 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:51.720 that it looks like work, Like you know what I'm saying, Like, 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:53.480 even though the thing is, if it's a book that 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.880 I'm even halfway interested in, it's not like big paragraphs 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:58.520 are a stumbling block to me. It's not like I 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.160 get lost in them or I'm not going to finish them. 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:03.839 It's not like I need to to, you know, artificially 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:07.080 throwing paragraph breaks from my own reading. Uh. It works 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:08.920 just fine. But there's something maybe it's like a call 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:13.800 back to uh, to early reading experiences, but they're sort 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:17.439 of that initial uh impact in my psyche where it's like, 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:20.200 these paragraphs are too long? What is this author doing? Oh? 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.480 This is funny though, because inserting your own paragraph breaks 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:27.120 in the work of an author who otherwise creates really 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:31.680 unholy chunks. Uh. This is something that some like teachers 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.960 actually do, and one specific writer I was reading for 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.240 this episode talks about doing so. One of the main 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:40.720 things I was reading in preparation for this was a 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.920 great essay by a scholar named Richard Hughes Gibson called 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:47.880 Past Lives of the Paragraph which was published in the 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:52.640 Hedgehog Review. That's an interdisciplinary culture journal based out of 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.080 the University of Virginia. And I'll refer back to this 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.800 article several times in the episode, but towards the end 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.680 of his article, Gibson tells a story about how several 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:08.120 years back he was um trying to prepare reading for students. Uh. 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.160 And this was by a critic who, uh, well, I'll 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.800 just hear read from from what Gibson writes, quote said 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:19.040 critic had a pension for composing labyrinthine paragraphs, which I 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:22.800 now realized would quickly exhaust my students. Although I felt 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:26.120 a tinge of compunction about tampering with those paragraphs, I 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:28.480 set to work and, knowing this was the only way 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:31.600 of salvaging the reading. The breaks came easily, though, and 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.320 I soon found the work enjoyable. I was seeing the 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:37.440 piece in a new way, and I quote discovered several 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:41.720 remarkable sentences that I had overlooked while navigating my way 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:44.760 through the labyrinths UH. And then he also says that 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:48.320 this did indeed make the this article much more enjoyable 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:50.360 for the students, and he just started doing it in 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:53.360 all his other classes. When somebody has huge paragraphs, he 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:55.360 would just go in and edit them to add in 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.560 paragraph breaks and you could see. So, I don't know, 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:00.960 an author might be mad to find out somebody was 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:03.160 doing that to their work, but you can also clearly 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:05.840 see the advantage. Yeah, yeah, it may. It does make 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:08.280 me wonder if there are new editions of books that 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.200 come out that that engage in this, or is it 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:16.000 considered forbidden? You know, I don't know, I'd be I'd 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.000 be very curious to hear about this. Um. I was. 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:22.000 When I was looking around for some other info about this, 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:26.000 I did run across UH a paper title but how 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:29.640 to write a thesis according to umberto Echo by umberto Echo, 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.360 And in it he briefly touches on the paragraph UH, 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:37.400 and he U he writes the following quote begin new paragraphs. 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.040 Often do so when logically necessary and when the pace 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:43.440 of the text requires it. But the more you do it, 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:47.240 the better. That's funny because Echo has a tendency to 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:50.320 write some really long paragraphs. But I mean, in his 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:53.360 in his defense, a lot of his long paragraphs are 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:56.240 full of exactly that quality of richness that I was 0:16:56.480 --> 0:17:00.400 mentioning earlier, Like the long paragraphs feel substantial old, They're 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:05.119 full of detail and insight. Yeah. This, of course, I 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:07.320 was thinking about other authors that I've really loved over 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:09.720 the years, and I started thinking about Cormick McCarthy, of course, 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:13.160 who is often very succinct, especially in his later works. 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:15.760 So really most of his works past, like the first 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:19.520 novel um its Name leaves me at the moment, but 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:24.320 his first novel is a little bit denser. But but 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:26.040 but a lot of his later work, especially with more 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:28.560 recent work, is often characterized by being just you know, 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:34.120 very succinct short sentences, uh no quotation marks. But occasionally 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:37.080 you get a nice like super run on long sentence 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.040 that is essentially like a big paragraph that is almost 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:43.600 the opposite of what we're talking about here, where it 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:46.080 just keeps going and going, but at the same time 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:48.960 it has a rhythm to it and uh, an intensity 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:51.640 and the mere fact that it won't end is like 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:55.280 like it's like a crazed thought being poured directly into 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:57.880 your brain and you can't quite turn it off. Yeah, 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:01.000 long paragraphs can definitely lend themselves to a kind of obsessive, 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:05.160 immersive or stream of consciousness quality to the text. It's, uh, 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:08.040 you know, when you are like stuck deep in somebody 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:10.800 else's brain and you're not coming up for air, that 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.800 that's often going to be a long paragraph. Yeah. Yeah, 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:17.080 I mean it's almost like there's a conversational aspect to 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:20.840 paragraph breaks, like this is the amount of of text 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:23.760 that is occurring before the speaker pauses, has a sip 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:26.840 of their beverage. Gives you an opportunity to to think 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.639 or say something in return. But it's just that paragraph. 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:39.240 Then perhaps you're being preached at thank thank um, I 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:43.679 was thinking of I also was thinking, Okay, obviously, paragraph breaks. 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:45.480 I think we all agree that these are great. But 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.800 surely there's somebody out there who's gotten a bit experimental 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:51.600 and decided I will craft a work of fiction that 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:55.879 has no paragraph breaks. And I didn't. I don't remember 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:59.160 every encountering anything like this. I've certainly read books that 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:02.280 for instance, don't have quotation marks for dialogue, or I 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.880 think I've read books that don't have intentions on new paragraphs. 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:08.040 I'm trying to remember what this would have been. I 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.680 think it was an Anthony Burchase book, but I don't 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:15.480 recall I've I've certainly read books where you have, you know, 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:18.439 large sections written in fictional slang, it's et cetera. But 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:21.840 I've never encountered anything that is one massive chunk of text. 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:24.560 I looked around to see if such a thing existed, 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.040 and I did find some threads on like a creative 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:30.720 writing board message board where someone was like, Hey, I'm 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:34.359 thinking of writing something with no paragraph breaks. What does 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.760 everyone think? And uh, there were some great answers. You know, 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:40.040 people were like, well, I think it's gonna be hard 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:42.440 for folks to digest. I think it's gonna you know, 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:46.159 they're gonna potentially recoil from seeing that big, massive block 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:48.440 of text. And and so it was. It was interesting 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:50.400 because yeah, there's so many things you can you can 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:54.280 break and play with as a writer potentially, uh, and 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:56.639 and more so if you know what you're doing. But 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:59.560 but when it comes to the paragraph break, it does 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.560 seem there is something from the modern standpoint anyway, that 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:04.840 is essential about it. Yes, And I think this will 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:07.280 make a great transition to talking a bit about the 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:11.600 history of the paragraph, where paragraphs come from, because if 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:14.520 you go back far enough in in history, you're going 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:18.440 to find a lot of literature that is made entirely 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:22.679 with that block of text mentality. Man, you hate big 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:25.960 blocky masses of text. Look at like an ancient Greek 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:30.120 men you script and just feel the chill. Yeah, that's 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:33.000 and I was, I was looking at some of these examples, 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:35.160 and and so I couldn't help but think a lot 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:37.720 about the medium involved too. So like if you go 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:41.080 back and look at super old examples of writing that 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:45.040 have survived, you're looking at things like oracle bones, which 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:47.960 you know, often times you're dealing with with like say 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:49.800 the bones from a turtle, part of the shell, that 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.639 sort of thing with inscriptions on it, or you're dealing 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:56.919 with with like wooden strips. You see that sometimes from 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:01.280 from from from from from you know, Indian tradition. There's also, 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:05.280 of course the use of clay tablets, and a lot 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:07.800 of times you're you're you probably have to realize, okay, 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:11.399 this is this was relatively expensive and consumed a lot 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:13.520 of time and energy, So you would want to fit 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:15.399 as much text on one of those as possible. And 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:17.679 at the same time, there's only so much text you 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:21.120 could get on there, you know, like how many thoughts 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:27.400 could you effectively encode into an oracle bone? Um, even 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:29.439 if you're in even if what you're putting down is 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:31.879