Hey everyone! Back again with another post. This week has been pretty busy with a lot of different things going on. But I’m excited for this weeks post. It’s not as long as the last one but it was also interesting to write. So without furhter ado…
Prose: Length
Length is something important to consider when writing prose. To go along with the post from a couple weeks ago on Syntax, the length of a sentence, paragraph, or story can indicate different things to your readers and also help you to show things about characters or plots without having to say them directly. Length is also important in defining what type or genre your story is as well.
There are several areas in which the length is important and hopefully in this post we will be able to go over just a few of them to give you a starting idea of how important the length of something is to prose.
Book Type
The first area of prose in which length matters is when determining the type of book that you are writing. Different book types are generally within different lengths. For example, a novella is typically shorter than a novel but longer than a short story as far as word count goes. Often times, a writer is unsure of the length of a story after it is written but after writing out what they felt needed to be said discovered that it was a novel rather than the novella they had assumed it to be.
The length is not only important in determining what kind of book you are writing but also how to market that book or which publishers to pitch it to. For example, if you are writing an anthology of short stories following the typical word length of a short story than you do not want to pitch your book to a publishing company that typically only publishes longer novels. So the length of your writing is important in determining the type of book.
Genre
The length of writing is also important for genre. Different genres have different lengths not only of their typical novel size but also of paragraphs and descriptions. For example, a book that would be considered of the high fantasy genre are usually characterized by larger paragraphs of description and explanation than the typical Young Adult or New Adult novel.
Romance novels often times will have shorter overall sentences – using the least amount of words possible to make a point – than a science fiction novel which might use more. The length of your writing and the length of the sentences and even sometimes the length of the words used is determined by the genre you are writing. There are different conventions required for different genres.
Description
Description (as mentioned above) changes from genre to genre but also from plot point to plot point. Related to syntax – the length of your description should fit the situation that your character may find themselves. If you want your character to emphasize that the situation is stressfull you should not only shorten the sentences as discussed in the syntax section but the paragraphs should be shorter with less detailed description and more racing thoughts that are seperated by many shorter paragraphs.
If your character is coming out of surgery or waking up after passing out and are feeling a little groggy, the paragraphs should be longer and fewer with longer sentences and more descriptions as your character tries to understand what is happeneing around them. The use of length in both sentences and paragraphs is important in helping to keep the reader as part of the story and not as someone reading the story on the page.
Length is important in prose in many other ways other than these three but these three were the ones that I see misunderstood the most often. One way to really understand the use of length in prose is read a lot of book in the same genre as you are writing to see what the typical length for the genre is. If you are unsure why a specific scene isn’t working, consider reading similar scenes in other books and check to see if your length in the scene is the problem.
Never be afraid to change things in your writing that might improve it. I hope that this post helped you to better understand the importance in length. If you can think of any other good examples in writing where its important to consider the length reply in the comments below or the forum area.
That’s all I’ve got for this week. We only have 3 more posts left in this series before a few stand alone posts. Make sure to stick around to see what’s coming next week on adjectives and adverbs in prose. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, become a blog page member, share, and follow me on social media at the link on the bottom of the page. And remember,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!
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