If You Learn to Write Better Paragraphs, You Will Make a Better Writer

A simple guide on writing clear and better paragraphs.

Readers are travelers. They travel through your articles from the title to the conclusion.

They can have a good journey experience or a bad one. And that experience is yours to decide. You decide whether your reader has a good journey experience or a bad one.

Bad writing, like a bad road, is broken and full of potholes. It makes the journey time consuming and uninteresting. A good road, on the other hand, is smooth and straightforward. The journey experience is timely and enjoyable.

Now, what experience do you want to give to your readers? Struggles and time-wasting or speed and enjoyable?

Then you have to learn to write better paragraphs. Because the secret of a well-written piece is in the paragraphs.

The secret of a well-written article is in the paragraph.

What's a paragraph?

A paragraph can be described as a group of sentences organized around a central idea. And in the context, a paragraph is the basic functional unit of an article. It is a group of related sentences that can stand on its own to express and defends a point or an idea.

An article is made up of a group of related paragraphs that illustrates, express, defend or drive an idea to a logical conclusion.

Paragraph + paragraph + paragraph +… = an article.

How to write better paragraphs.

Paragraphs are built by laying one related sentence on the other to make a coherent idea or thought. It is like laying bricks when building a house. But in this case, the bricks are the related sentences that eventually make up the paragraph.

For a fair share of my writing life, I did not understand how to write a paragraph. I just write and sometimes I get it right and other times I don’t. This continued until I started to analyze the paragraphs of some writers much better than I: Anthony Moore, Thomas Plummer, Ali Mese, Linda Horton, Shannon Ashley, Tom Kuegler to mention a few.

Looking back, I can say I got lucky with paragraphs — sometimes. But it’s not a good place to be. Nothing increases the confidence of a writer like knowing how to write or build paragraphs. It’s confidence borne out of know-how — none compares to that.

If you know how to build a paragraph, you will be more confident writing. And when that happens, you will communicate your message with clarity and grace.

Here’s the basic structure of a paragraph and how to write one: state a fact, defend or support the fact and then bring it to a conclusion (or reveal consequence)

Mathematically, A Paragraph= statement of fact + supporting points + conclusion (or consequence).

My candid advice is that you write that formula where you can always see it. You may not have time or remember to come to this article again. So do so before we move to the next paragraph.

The formula up there may seem a little impractical for some young writers; so consider this instead:

A Paragraph = "what?" + "so what?" + "now what?"

Where,

• The fact or leading statement answers the question, “what?”
• The supporting sentence(s) answers the question, “so what?”; and
• The conclusion answers the question, “now what?”.

Do you get the idea? Good.

Samples of paragraphs from some notable writers.

Now let's consider some paragraphs from some widely read and seasoned writers:

1. "Avoid adjective strings: If you have to use more than two adjectives to describe something, you should probably choose one stronger adjective instead. Not only will the description be more concise; it will probably be more accurate." — Ali Mese

2. "This ability to hide behind our writing allows us to often dig deeper into our souls dragging out the hidden baggage we have kept stored in those darkest corners for fear of letting the world see us as we really are, a flawed human like everyone else. Writing is a cleansing of the soul and a purge of a dark mind allowing you to find the deepest expression of the person you are that no one else can see." — Thomas Plummer

3. "Readers appreciate concisely written articles because it gives them time back in their day and allows them to learn something or consume a story on their lunch break." — Tim Denning

4. “Because the truth is, you don’t control the outcome. You don’t control anything — except yourself. The only parts you truly have control over are your attitude, your mindset, and your actions. The rest is out of your control.” — Anthony Moore.

5. “The thing is, humility is pretty much at the top of my list when it comes to admirable attributes. I can see what you have and what you do — talking about how much you spent is just not necessary. In fact, it speaks of insecurity more loudly than of success.” — Linda Horton

You may not have to separate these three components in your paragraphs all the time. As you get better writing, you will learn to blend one into another and still qualify as a paragraph. But if you're just starting as a young writer, learn to make a clear distinction of each sentence making up the paragraph using your punctuation marks or conjunctions.

When you learn to write better paragraphs, your writing will be an enjoyable read for your readers. You will get their recommendations and support. Your work will get to a larger audience and most of what you desire as a writer — popularity, money, credibility… — will come to you.

All it takes is a well-written piece that communicates value with clarity and grace. And you do that by learning to write better paragraphs.

Always remember: the secret (of a well-written story) is in the paragraph.

Thanks for your time.

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