Do you guys believe in the 'I can't focus because of long paragraphs' supremacy?

[Ainoum]

Not sure what supremacy is, but it felt fitting. I saw some post about it before, about how short paragraphs feel more comfortable on mobile formal because long ones feel too long and make one lose interest. Is this an unpopular opinion?
I looked up what supremacy is and I don't think it fits but what's done is done

[ThunderChicken]

I have the attention span of a golden retriever on meth. I AM the "I can't focus because of long paragraphs" guy. Which sucks, because when I write I often use long paragraphs.

[Leyelle]

I think it can easily be the case, just because it can be hard to track the words when they're all bundled together. that said, I still often do long paragraphs myself because I write my stories like poetry and am often thinking of the overall effect. I bundle ideas together in long paragraphs when I want thoughts to look smeared together for things like panic attacks and such. When thoughts are supposed to be choppy, I'll often have one word or less than a word per line.

[Ainoum]

I totally agree with this. I feel like it's more about the effect that reading it has on the reader rather than something else. I actually used to do the chopping up words thing because it just felt so dramatic and up my alley before, but I saw many writers talking about how it looks amateurish so I shy away from doing it anymore. I just put a period between most lines and get it over with.

[Leyelle]

well, i do chop up lines for dramatic Affect when I want to, and stretch them when I want to as well. don't let other writers' opinions change the way you write. writing is self-expression, do what you feel creates the best story.

long paragraph versus choppy-

---

My head spins again, turning bodies topsy turvy. Smearing faces into the paint. Baptized with blood in the white space. I’m not even sure when I woke up or how long I’ve spent lying here, staring at the walls or the ceiling. My senses are all scrambled. Am I facing the left or the right? Am I hearing or feeling the voices crashing around me, a barrage of nervous wrecks? I swim in the excruciating sensation, almost blacking out. I feel as though I'm hanging from the rafters by my hair, and the pressure in my neck only increases with every crash of my heartbeat. My mouth defies me as I try to call for a nurse - my jaw is locked tight as if it’s been screwed shut and it's stubbornly set on staying that way for the moment. The whole thing fills. With bitter bile. I can’t swallow. And I try desperately not to drown before somebody finds me.

---

The shadow shrieks-

I slip my teeshirt off and add it to the pile on the floor - pull on the dress, and tie the sash-

Don’t think about that now-

My face burns as I rush to the bathroom and pull my hair into a messy sort of bun - try to fix my makeup through the trembling.

This is going to be okay. We’re gonna-

I lean on the sink so I don’t collapse.

Breathe, Licia. Just breathe.

What if someone from The Foundation is there- they’re gonna-

Breathe

In front of all those people - god - not - I’m not ready-

My heart moves too slowly and too quickly at the same time - I can’t get enough air into my lungs-

I’m not going out - I’m not gonna go out - I’ll have to text Kat-Mrs. Moon-

[VibrantFox]

okay so this is a new open discourse to me in the sense that i'm only really just discovering how much people are talking about it online nowadays

as a kid who was a total bookworm i dont think i ever really cared about the length of a paragraph or how page breaks/paragraph breaks were interspersed because i was so wholly immersed in the reading. but now as tech changes and attention spans change or we're becoming more aware of our limits and actually talking about them i both see and understand both sides.

coz personally i dont think it's exclusively an issue with how long a paragraph is (though lets be real not a lot of folks want to read a wall of text) but more about sentence variation.

this is probably one of my favorite illustrations on varied sentence length since it perfectly shows how mixing things up can aid in the flow of reading. it's a simple thing but the impact is obvious.

personally i prefer mid length paragraphs but specifically with this kind of sentence structure; because when the page is just sentence by sentence or line after line im gonna lose interest even faster than if i were faced with a wall of text. i say it often but it's about balance. so if the writing lacks that it's a lose either way. line by line can be good for tension or to show impact but sometimes long paragraphs can have their uses too.

like i genuinely dont mind either way but a lack of god flow can and will ruin the reading experience for me

[2DLenzy]

I agree that reading long/short paragraphs on a phone is easier than a wide PC screen. True it makes the paragraphs look longer vertically, but I can actually read sentences a little faster without losing whatever line I was on. Reading to me is a matter of repetition and practice, so the more I stretch that focus, the less distracted I'll get. I used to read thick books in school, and my learning/memory was better because of it.

Now, ironically, I prefer comics on a wider screen, cause I like bigger pics and the text is easier to read. My memory is sh*t now XD

[coffeedragonstudios]

I have ADHD.

I can't read books anymore because of it.

My attention starts to drift if a comic paragraph runs too long

I am currently working on training my brain how to be bored so I can read properly again

[NickRowler]

I think "preference" would be a better word to use than "supremacy".

A lot of online novels tend to be read by casual readers. So the short paragraphs are just easier to digest what is happening.

I have ADHD.

I can't read books anymore because of it.

My attention starts to drift if a comic paragraph runs too long

I am currently working on training my brain how to be bored so I can read properly again

I don't have ADHD but I sort of get this too. But I noticed it has to sort of do with if the story is interesting or not. Sometime long paragraphs are just rambling and could have been cut down to something shorter. I understand why readers would lose interest if a long paragraph was about something that didn't interest them.

[AvaDW]

In my experience as a reader, I do find long paragraphs quite intimidating and draining. I've had instances where something is mentioned in the story in reference to a previous incident and I had no clue what they were talking about, but deep down I know it happened in some of the paragraphs I skimmed/skipped.

I prefer shorter paragraphs. While long ones are good and even necessary once in a while, it's best if an author alternates between long and short ones. It's also best if long ones aren't too long since most readers read on mobile and 200 words could span for a few pages.

As an author, I've accidentally had super long paragraphs on one book in the past and readers poured in as soon as I edited the book and broke them down. So I'd say yes.

[kyupol]

Used to make longer paragraphs back in the day....

But I understand that attention span has become a lot less these days that's why I use shorter paragraphs. The most I do is like this now: