Joelle – Paragraphs in fiction aren’t “about the same thing” in the same sense that they are in nonfiction, but they still have a unity of focus – they’re “about” what this person is saying, or a part of a fight, or what someone is seeing or doing. The rules of structure and syntax aren’t as strict; some people use paragraphing as a tool for pacing, the same way you can use punctuation.

Elizabeth – I’ll think about it.

Chicory – Transitions are the part I hate most, but yeah, they start showing up at the paragraph level. And transitions in fiction can be more complicated than the ones in nonfiction, because you have so many more things you can be moving between: time, place, focus, thought to speech to action, etc.

I think all the collage papers I’ve written these last few years have helped give me a sense of what transitions should look like. I just need to translate what I learned there into story transitions.

Thank you!