Writing One Sentence Paragraphs -- Trending in Free stories posted Everywhere.

[JayMark]

The ellipse is perfectly fine way to express a thoughtful pause or someone trailing off their thought. I've seen it used this way before the dawn of the internet and will continue to use it as such. Short paragraphs exist because people read off their phones and that's the market whose attention we compete for. Even a long paragraph will need to be broken up to look shorter. We don't have the book market, so we can't write for the book market. Simple as.


As for trad pubilishing, the standards are opaque and conflicting for a reason. They will reject perfectly good writers on vague secret technicalities and laugh about it over brunch despite making the same mistakes themselves while paying multiple editors to scrub their work [before the AI age]. They want to keep their circle as small and elite as possible, so the main ways to break in are as follows.

1. Be born into it.
2. Have really strong connections, family connections are the best.
3. Bring wealth and power to the table.
4. Win the tokenization lottery J.K. Rowling style by hoping these pretentious elite snobs take a chance on your hard work.
5. Become so internet famous that they might decide throw you a bone, but only for the revenue, which seems to happen mostly for smut writers.

You're in trad publishing. Whoop dee fucking doo. Good for you. Do you want a pat on the back? Here you go. Great job. You did it. ?

But your 'success' doesn't give you the right look down on anybody here simply because a culture devouring corporate media conglomeration decides who can be the choosen ones. And it's not because we're all bad writers either. You have some good advice, yes, and if you want to give it that's fine. But try saving the attitude and the self-glorification for your business bruncheons. We don't want it or need it.


Sincerely,

A Nobody

 

[AliceMoonvale]

The ellipse is perfectly fine way to express a thoughtful pause or someone trailing off their thought. I've seen it used this way before the dawn of the internet and will continue to use it as such. Short paragraphs exist because people read off their phones and that's the market whose attention we compete for. Even a long paragraph will need to be broken up to look shorter. We don't have the book market, so we can't write for the book market. Simple as.


As for trad pubilishing, the standards are opaque and conflicting for a reason. They will reject perfectly good writers on vague secret technicalities and laugh about it over brunch despite making the same mistakes themselves while paying multiple editors to scrub their work [before the AI age]. They want to keep their circle as small and elite as possible, so the main ways to break in are as follows.

1. Be born into it.
2. Have really strong connections, family connections are the best.
3. Bring wealth and power to the table.
4. Win the tokenization lottery J.K. Rowling style by hoping these pretentious elite snobs take a chance on your hard work.
5. Become so internet famous that they might decide throw you a bone, but only for the revenue, which seems to happen mostly for smut writers.

You're in trad publishing. Whoop dee fucking doo. Good for you. Do you want a pat on the back? Here you go. Great job. You did it. ?

But your 'success' doesn't give you the right look down on anybody here simply because a culture devouring corporate media conglomeration decides who can be the choosen ones. And it's not because we're all bad writers either. You have some good advice, yes, and if you want to give it that's fine. But try saving the attitude and the self-glorification for your business bruncheons. We don't want it or need it.


Sincerely,

A Nobody

Amen. On that note, a site for amateurs and hobbyist writers merely writing for fun will continue to be that way.
If you take things too seriously, you've lost the plot already.

 

[CountVanBadger]

You have a way of making people regret doing things the right way. I agree with most of what you're saying here but you said it so pretentiously that I would almost rather be wrong than admit that.

 

[Our_Lady_in_Twilight]

I think its worth bearing in mind that publishing conventions in themselves aren't 'the right way to do it.' Tons of great literature from before mass publishing would likely make an editor cluch their pearls (Hugo writing 50 pages on the Parisian sewers amidst Les Mis, War and Peace being intercut with honestly quite a strange treatise on Russian national identity, and Steinbeck's static exploration of the American countryside come to mind). I don't think any of this is inexperience or lack of skill - they are idiosyncracies of great artistic expression, some of which modern publishing has actually served to flatten and homogenise. I imagine that good deal of this stuff might have needed to be cut, by the modern standard, assuming the author hadn't by then amassed enough stroke to push back.

Personally I would rather write longform, in the style of a conventional novel, to the best of my ability. But I don't think calling out the way webnovels are written is entirely consistent. They are an emerging convention, just as traditional publishing is an established convention. If you want success in either field, you'd be well served to bend to its particular paradigm, but neither of them are inherently the right way to do art.

 

[OokamiKasumi]

...We don't have the book market, so we can't write for the book market. Simple as.

Ah, but the book markets look for new authors in places like this.
-- You never know if you're talking to an established author, or an editor looking for new authors for their publishing house.

As for trad pubilishing, the standards are opaque and conflicting for a reason. They will reject perfectly good writers on vague secret technicalities...

You are correct, which is why I have been posting those 'vague secret technicalities' where writers can find them -- because no one else will. They are industry secrets.

...despite making the same mistakes themselves while paying multiple editors to scrub their work [before the AI age].

Correct again.

They want to keep their circle as small and elite as possible, so the main ways to break in are as follows.

This is actually Not True.
-- Editors are always looking for the next shiny new author with a shiny new twist on a popular story line.

The problem is the agents that get to the authors first. Agents have a nasty habit of burning their authors out through over-commitment and deadline trauma before the authors ever reach their full potential.

1. Be born into it.
2. Have really strong connections, family connections are the best.

These two are pretty much the same, and True.

3. Bring wealth and power to the table.

Nope, False. Wealth and power only makes you a threat, and they won't allow threats to exist.

4. Win the tokenization lottery J.K. Rowling style by hoping these pretentious elite snobs take a chance on your hard work

Ah, No.
-- J.K. Rowling won the "Easy to Market to a Large reading audience" lottery.

Her HP series didn't just appeal to the kiddie book market. Her series was designed specifically to Age Up, to grow with the reader, appealing to a unprecedentedly Large reading audience; from Child to Adult. Plus her HP series had Exploitable Marketing Gimmicks written all over them.

Everybody loves Magic. Everybody.

I don't know if you know this, but publishing houses are Corporations, and like any other corporation, they are run by their Marketing Department. In other words, if they think they can sell it, they're going to want it.

J.K. Rowling's idea was extremely sales worthy.

5. Become so internet famous that they might decide throw you a bone, but only for the revenue,

They don't care about Internet famous, they care about FAMOUS.

A publisher's Marketing Dept only cares about selling product. They don't care if the product is crap, they only care if people wanna buy it. Famous people always have a crowd that will buy anything with that famous person's name on it, including books they may never read, but definitely want to have to show off to their friends.

which seems to happen mostly for smut writers.

Nope. Smut sells in every market.
-- I did not need fame to sell my books, I needed extremely detailed and descriptive writing, snappy dialogue, explicit viscerally arousing scenes, and a damned good plot.

You're in trad publishing.

I am. I'm also in ePublishing. EPubs pay better, and far more frequently.

Whoop dee fucking doo. Good for you. Do you want a pat on the back? Here you go. Great job. You did it. ?

Thanks!

But your 'success' doesn't give you the right look down on anybody here simply because a culture devouring corporate media conglomeration decides who can be the choosen ones.

It's spelled: Chosen.

And it's not because we're all bad writers either.

There are some damned good stories here. They just need a few adjustments to fit within publishing standards. Believe it or not, most of those adjustments have nothing to do with the writers' story ideas. It's the grammar style that's holding them back -- and no agent or editor will tell them. They'll just send them a generic rejection slip.

You have some good advice, yes, and if you want to give it that's fine.

Thank you for your permission?

But try saving the attitude and the self-glorification for your business bruncheons. We don't want it or need it.

If you don't like the advice I've written, or the way I wrote it -- Don't Read It.

Less competition for me. ?

 

[Macha]

Ah, but the book markets look for new authors in places like this.
-- You never know if you're talking to an established author, or an editor looking for new authors for their publishing house.


-- Editors are always looking for the next shiny new author with a shiny new twist on a popular story line.

The problem is the agents that get to the authors first. Agents have a nasty habit of burning their authors out through over-commitment and deadline trauma before the authors ever reach their full potential.


These two are pretty much the same, and True.

Exactly. They are always looking for authors to harvest. The internet is the best place for this. More authors mean more organs.

 

[OokamiKasumi]

Exactly. They are always looking for authors to harvest. The internet is the best place for this. More authors mean more organs.

EXACTLY!!!

 

[Macha]

Remember, everyone. They are advices. Guidelines. Not rules. This is why I always put disclaimers on my tutorials.

 

[LeilaniOtter]

Can we also set up a complaint department for writers who do this?




A sentence or two, and then an ungodly amount of spaces.




That is probably the most annoying thing about translations, I've found.




Seriously, people! Please PREVIEW your chapters before hitting that "Publish" button, would you? ?

 

[OokamiKasumi]

Can we also set up a complaint department for writers who do this?




A sentence or two, and then an ungodly amount of spaces.




That is probably the most annoying thing about translations, I've found.




Seriously, people! Please PREVIEW your chapters before hitting that "Publish" button, would you? ?

Yes Please!

 

[melchi]

I'm not completely in agreement with this advice. There is a whole other kind of publishing, light novel publishing and they in fact _require_ short chapters.

Example: https://mhwc.myanimelist.net/202507/
Kadakawa's contest recommends 1000 to 1500 word chapters.

In the Japanese media industry, Kadakawa would be the last boss. They are the biggest publisher in Japan. Some scout could see a 2500 to 3000 word chapter and outright reject it.

It is important to understand that what is a popular style in one language might not be the same in another. That being said, in Japan, they are always trying to shorten things.

500 word chapters are not uncommon on syosetu. And a whole bunch of the manga, light novel, and anime has its roots in that site. I'd point to the old saying, discredit nay-sayers with success. The fact that companies like J-novel club, yen press, and 7 seas can turn a profit in the English market shows that writing like that is valid.

 

[penitent]

This whole rant feels pretentious, hypocrite, and nonsensical and it shows a clear lack of perspective. There is no true and only way of writing a novel, short or small paragraphs can create tension in the narration with several pauses to create something more emotionally moving than just a giant block of text. It is also what's usually prefered by READERS THEMSELVES when reading in phones, which is how 99% of our audience now reads our novels (and how I do it).
Simpler grammar is easy and quick to read, which is what these authors aim for, not because they're copying badly machine translated novels, you ignoramus. Writing simple and quick chapters is how webnovels are usually designed, a chapter composed of 10 blocks of text that cover the entire phone screen is not what they want.
As someone who enjoys both traditional literature books and also web novels, I understand both of them have their own charm, but if you're writing for a webnovel, short paragraphs will come in more handy than larger, more annoying paragraphs, especially when there's a story featuring multiple characters, each one speaking with one another, you cannot just write their dialogues in a single paragraph, can you? each dialogue comes in a different paragraph or you're going to write a confusing mess.
Also, most readers will call out the overly detailed descriptions as FILLER, and they will call out the Author for writing giant blocks of text that dont advance the plot at all. They want THINGS TO HAPPEN, not you to descrive every minute detail in a 500 word paragraph.
Before you make these rants acting like you're a proffesional in the field, think a little about what other people think about it, especially the vast majority of readers.

". . . it shows a clear lack of perspective."
Followed up by: "which is how 99% of our audience now reads our novels (and how I do it)."
I found this extremely hilarious when I first read it. Guy begins a new post talking about OP's lack of perspective, only to argue his point by the utilization of a statistic that doesn't exist and an anecdotal experience. Not that I disagree with you, but if you are going to be scathing and accusing others of being intellectually bereft, then do make sure to construct the beginnings of your argument better.

 

[OokamiKasumi]

I'm not completely in agreement with this advice. There is a whole other kind of publishing, light novel publishing and they in fact _require_ short chapters.

Example: https://mhwc.myanimelist.net/202507/
Kadakawa's contest recommends 1000 to 1500 word chapters.

In the Japanese media industry, Kadakawa would be the last boss. They are the biggest publisher in Japan. Some scout could see a 2500 to 3000 word chapter and outright reject it.

It is important to understand that what is a popular style in one language might not be the same in another. That being said, in Japan, they are always trying to shorten things.

500 word chapters are not uncommon on syosetu. And a whole bunch of the manga, light novel, and anime has its roots in that site. I'd point to the old saying, discredit nay-sayers with success. The fact that companies like J-novel club, yen press, and 7 seas can turn a profit in the English market shows that writing like that is valid.

• Kadokawa Tsubasa Bunko: A collection of books and light novels specifically aimed at children, typically around 11 years old.
  
  
• Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko, Fujimi Fantasia Bunko, and Media Factory imprints: These focus heavily on light novels and manga, which appeal to teenage and young adult audiences (often referred to as shonen/shojo for teens and seinen/josei for young adults).
  
  
• Kadokawa Bunko CrossLove and Kadokawa Ruby Bunko: These are specialized imprints focusing on adult-oriented romance and Boys' Love (BL) content, aimed at female adult readers.

Are those writing lite novels on ScribbleHub writing for teenagers & young adult readers? If they are writing for the Teen-aged and Young Adult audience, then sure, short chapters that are light on description are definitely the way to go. Mainly because the younger the Reader, the shorter the attention span.

However, if they want Adult readers, they may want to think deeply about what type of writing appeals to Adults.

Serious question here:
-- Are the main readership here on ScribbleHub Teenagers and Young Adults, or Adults?

 

[CharlesEBrown]

One thing though, if you want to mimic the rapid staccato style of some writers (mostly scriptwriters, like Amy Paladino or David Mamet), the single sentence paragraphs can work in your favor during action or dialogue (heck, Dumas wrote dialogue that way with The Three Musketeers, which was kind of lampooned and kind of paid tribute in Frust's The Phoenix Guard in the 90s).
But it can also work against you, limiting some options for storytelling.

 

[PancakesWitch]

• Kadokawa Tsubasa Bunko: A collection of books and light novels specifically aimed at children, typically around 11 years old.
  
  
• Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko, Fujimi Fantasia Bunko, and Media Factory imprints: These focus heavily on light novels and manga, which appeal to teenage and young adult audiences (often referred to as shonen/shojo for teens and seinen/josei for young adults).
  
  
• Kadokawa Bunko CrossLove and Kadokawa Ruby Bunko: These are specialized imprints focusing on adult-oriented romance and Boys' Love (BL) content, aimed at female adult readers.

Are those writing lite novels on ScribbleHub writing for teenagers & young adult readers? If they are writing for the Teen-aged and Young Adult audience, then sure, short chapters that are light on description are definitely the way to go. Mainly because the younger the Reader, the shorter the attention span.

However, if they want Adult readers, they may want to think deeply about what type of writing appeals to Adults.

Serious question here:
-- Are the main readership here on ScribbleHub Teenagers and Young Adults, or Adults?

Not all adults think or are like you girl, and calling anybody that likes reading short things kids is a bit of a stretch
You could just drop this whole stupid argument and move on

". . . it shows a clear lack of perspective."
Followed up by: "which is how 99% of our audience now reads our novels (and how I do it)."
I found this extremely hilarious when I first read it. Guy begins a new post talking about OP's lack of perspective, only to argue his point by the utilization of a statistic that doesn't exist and an anecdotal experience. Not that I disagree with you, but if you are going to be scathing and accusing others of being intellectually bereft, then do make sure to construct the beginnings of your argument better.

Oh no, you got me... I admit it, I am part of the short paragraph movement that will destroy all literature

 

[Arkus86]

Are those writing lite novels on ScribbleHub writing for teenagers & young adult readers? If they are writing for the Teen-aged and Young Adult audience, then sure, short chapters that are light on description are definitely the way to go. Mainly because the younger the Reader, the shorter the attention span.

While I agree with you in spirit, there are now adults who have been watching TikTok brainrot since their teens and have an attention span of five seconds, and adults who grew up on MTL slop.

 

[Eldoria]

It's actually understandable psychologically... why readers prefer chapters with short paragraphs (1-3 sentences). Since most readers read web novels on mobile, short paragraphs make for comfortable reading. On the other hand, long paragraphs tire the eyes.

This is different from reading a paper book... short paragraphs are considered wasteful because they waste valuable paper space. Long paragraphs are actually more effective and cost-effective.

So, I'll simply adapt my fiction writing to suit the medium.

 

[Akkizakura]

One Sentence Paragraphs.
Trending in Free Stories posted Everywhere.

I am confusion. If this is trending, why can't we use it? I know this is bad, but aren't most trending free stories trending because they are bad and readers there like bad stories? They want fast food, not fancy dining. Give your customer what they want.

 

[PancakesWitch]

I am confusion. If this is trending, why can't we use it? I know this is bad, but aren't most trending free stories trending because they are bad and readers there like bad stories? They want fast food, not fancy dining. Give your customer what they want.

it becomes very ironic when you see she's a fanfic writer... she's not even an author participating in the market

 

[melchi]

No need to throw insults. Like if writing romance being heavy on details is important. Another thread suggested that 30000 words is what it takes to establish a character. So with a main character and a love interest and a 100k word budget then more than half the paragraphs should be focused on those two