TECHNICAL ACCURACY
How to demarcate paragraphs
This guide will take you through the two methods for demarcating (meaning ‘marking out’) your paragraphs, including how to do each, and, more importantly, when to do each.
This guide is part of the Technical accuracy series:
Indentation vs. leaving a line
There are only two valid ways that you can demarcate (meaning ‘mark out’) a paragraph:
Indent the first line of a paragraph (used for fiction writing)
Leave a blank line between two paragraphs (used for non-fiction writing)
You should never just start a new line. You must either indent or leave a whole line blank.
Indenting paragraphs
Most of the books you have read will have had indented paragraphs – unless they were text books or books for young children. Indentation is the convention for fiction writing. Here’s what this looks like:
This is an indented paragraph. Note how the word ‘This’ starts a bit further from the margin than the first word of the second line We call this method of demarcation indentation. The first line of the paragraph starts a little bit inside the margin (maybe a thumb’s width) and all the other words in the paragraph are written against the margin.
This one is indented too.
And this one. Notice that the previous paragraph was only one line long and so the whole paragraph was indented. This is how it’s meant to look, with nice clear paragraphs, not big blocks of text.
We can even have lots of short paragraphs.
Like this.
And they’re all indented.
Look at all that lovely space on the left.
Then we might get a longer paragraph, like this, which wraps over more than one line of the text and so reverts back to being lined up with the margin in the second and third lines, as you can see. This is what your creative writing should look like.
Leaving blank lines between paragraphs
The other common way to demarcate a paragraph is to leave a blank line between two paragraphs. Like this:
This paragraph is not indented. Note how all the words on the left-hand side of the paragraph line up with one another.
This is a new paragraph, which is also not indented. It is demarcated (meaning ‘marked out’) through the empty line that separates this paragraph from the last one.
Here is another new paragraph, with another empty line marking it out.
This guide uses this blank-lines method of paragraphing, rather than the indentation method. That is because this guide is a non-fiction text rather than a fiction text. Leaving lines between paragraphs is the general convention in non-fiction writing, though not for very long forms of non-fiction like biographies. These use indented paragraphs too, most of the time.
Why you shouldn’t leave blank lines between paragraphs in stories
The problem with the blank-lines method of paragraphing is that it’s not very efficient in terms of space.
When you’ve got short paragraphs, as you often will in fiction (e.g. direct speech), you waste a lot of space paragraphing in this way. That’s why novels don’t use this style of paragraphing – it would cost a lot more to print the novel with an empty line between every single paragraph. This is also why long forms of non-fiction like biographies don’t use this method either.
The other problem with this form of demarcation is that students often forget to leave a blank line, especially when they use several short paragraphs are used in a row, and so they leave some paragraphs undemarcated.
That is why we want you to get into the habit of indenting paragraphs – it means you’re less likely to forget.
Why are there some blank lines between paragraphs in my fiction book?
Good question. The other reason not to leave blank lines between paragraphs in your stories is because this generally has a different meaning in fiction writing. When fiction writers leave blank lines (or sometimes blank lines with a *, or a series of *s, or even numbers), it is to mark out a different section of their story.
It might be because the story has jumped forward or backwards in time, or it might be because it has switched to a different character’s viewpoint. The blank lines mark out the end of a mini-chapter. A chapter within a chapter, essentially.
It’s unlikely that you’ll need to do this in your writing assessments in school, since you won’t be able to write very much in the time available to you, but it’s not impossible, and you may certainly want to do it with your own writing, if writing is something you do for pleasure.
Why are there some paragraphs not indented in my fiction book?
Another good question. In some books, the first paragraph in each new section (e.g. the first one in a chapter or the first one after a blank line has been left to make out a new section of the story) the paragraph will not be indented. This isn’t always the case, but some publishers use this convention in their books. It’s fine if you want to take this approach in your own writing too (e.g. if you want to leave the first paragraph un-indented).
In summary – key things to remember with your paragraphing
Make sure you demarcate all your paragraphs, including very short (one line) paragraphs
You should indent your paragraphs:
When you write a story
When you write a passage of description
You should leave a line between paragraphs:
When you write an essay
When you write a speech, a newspaper article or a leaflet
When you are answering reading comprehension questions, like in GCSE English Language
When you want to mark out a new section of a fiction writing story
It’s acceptable not to indent the first paragraph of a new section of a story – this includes the very first paragraph. Just make sure you indent all future ones.