As a reader, what is your attention span tolerance for the minimum and maximum number of sentences in a paragraph?

TinaMigarlo said:

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I like big beautiful sentences, in the same manner with which other people want a bigger slice of that blue ribbon cheesecake at the county fair. They say there's no such thing as too rich or too thin, so why can't cheesecake and sentences both share in that bounty. I want a lengthier paragraph as well. I've seen paragraphs as big as a whole paperback page, and it never made me so much as flinch. Why stop there. My buddy in high school read James A. Michener's "Space", all twelve hundred plus pages of it. There was absolutely no way he was going to get away with that, not on my watch, so I was next. A lineman on the football team who got all A's was in Literature class with us, and he was the third one to tackle Space. We called each other Clagget and Pope (protagonists in said novel), and giggled at the astronauts taking turns riding the cute Asian news reporter who was getting "exclusives" for putting her career into the stratosphere. I felt betrayed when the movie "Beetlejuice" ripped the name of the movie off of that book. Betelgeuse was a constellation the astronauts had to learn to recognize for navigation and one of them made up funny pronunciations as a mnemonic gimmick and "beetle-juice" was one. I learned all about how orbiting works and many other things as well. The book was a typical Michener extravaganza, a sort of Crichton "Airframe" author-research buff. Yes. A big book, no, a huge one. With gigantic paragraphs, and a real commanding usage of metaphor and simile to inform the reader *exactly* what he meant to convey.

The hell's even the point of I just read the topic sentence and *maybe* the conclusion sentence. So I can (appear to) read faster? So I can (again, appear to) read more books? Who am I then fooling, other than myself. To me, "reading" is reading every word, every sentence, every paragraph, and indeed the entire book. We have the word "skimming", to describe something other than reading. I don't then find it elitist in the slightest to say that I'm a reader, and the other person is a skimmer.

I've never owned a thesaurus nor consulted one. Writing then, is my time where I get to show off my vocabulary and my broad general knowledge that I largely garnered from reading (not merely skimming) so many books that I gobbled up as voraciously as an alcoholic drinks. Writing seems to be the best outlet for all this.

TL;DR --- so if a web-novel reader ever comes over for a snack, I should be sure to cut the cheesecake into a zillion tiny minuscule slices of cheesecake. Because... efficiency in eating isn’t purely for efficiency’s sake, but a respect for your own teeth. Also, I'll be sure to not be surprised if they take one small bite of the cheese part, and another tiny chunk of the crust and quit. I'll say nothing when they quickly proceed to eat (skim?) the entire thing themselves in this fashion. They can then tell everyone how they ate the whole cheesecake themselves, and in such a small space of time. I'll be scratching my head when they leave and most of the cheesecake is still there, a bite off every pointed piece, a bite out of (mostly) every crust.

If this seems to be a silly metaphor, I suppose it is. But that's what not reading the book is, to me. It makes as much sense. I don't get the point of the exercise. Mind you, we've already:

1) shortened the chapter length to "around 2k words is about best".
2) when 50 page chapters were a regular feature of paperbacks for decades.
3) one, sometimes two sentence paragraphs, because reasons.
4) now, we need to make those sentences short. Direct, clear, its all synonyms for short and sweet.

I ask you. What's next on the chopping block.

Click to expand...

Not once did my original argument favor short, “kiddy?” sentences over longer ones. A sentence can be literary and beautiful to read if it serves a purpose, not bloated for… who knows, aesthetic?

Don’t correlate maximalism with literary quality.

Your argument assumes that stories filled with meandering sentences stacked into huge walls of text are automatically a delicious slice of cheesecake. But they could just as easily be an overbaked, sickly sweet piece loaded with fat. Unrefined, excessive fat. I might take one bite and decide to toss the whole thing in the bin.

The problem is when the chef refuses to acknowledge who their target customer is, walling themselves in their shiny kitchen and expecting patrons to adapt to their cuisine. But readers aren’t obligated to read purposeless chunks of text that they don’t enjoy. And they can, instead of skimming, skip the book altogether and read hundreds of other stories on their reading list.

When your writing makes them skim, it’s less about them not being a “real” reader and more about you not engaging them enough.

@Makimaam :
honestly, I think we're both right. If only in our own way, in the type of case were picturing.
equally honestly, I think we're both imagining the bad or worst case scenario, for the other point of view.

my best analogy. you can make three identical pizzas, in the pizza shop. Dough is all from the exact same batch. All the toppings are the same quantity and batches. The same cook has their routine down to a quick performance making it. The chain oven, makes the same consistent time and heat for each. They're identical, in every way. One customer? Complains their pizza is "raw" and needs to be "cooked". The next says its perfect, best pizza they had in a while. The third? Says its burned to a crisp.

I saw this happen over and over, time and again.

my last place like this forum. I'd hear things like "christ. i get it. A sentence? MAYBE two sentences. Then move on! This is a bunch of navel gazing."
I just had a reader see the exact same portion of the exact same chapter. They literally raved about the whole chapter.
so it was a tale of two readers. One would give it the lowest rating possible, and the other would award it the highest they could.
But it was the same piece of writing.

"Jaws" - Peter Benchley. i guess you might find him "bloated". Everyone that read that book, always remarked about this one shark attack he described. I think it was six or eight straight pages, of description of a couple of seconds in real life. The pace of the novel suddenly slows, and he gets so descriptive, its unreal. When its over, the pace goes back to what's normal for the novel. Its riveting, its so terrifying its unbelievable. The only way I can explain it, is this. When you go fishing, you might cast out a live minnow trying to get a large mouth bass. When you first cast the first time, if there happens to be a a nice largemouth nearby? WHAM! and they leap dramatically, clearing the water and splashing down. When a shark comes up and hits, its like that. You, are the bait fish.

Maybe you'd find that "bloated" and "meandering". But millions and millions of people, found it to be a terrifying and riveting page turner.

we shouldn't argue.

Look, the fish out of water always looks weird. But remember that when you go swimming? You're the strange thing to the fish. If I get a dozen people together that read paperbacks, and I show them their first web novel? They'll find it weird. But I think web novel people have gotten so used to this stuff, they find "normal writing" strange now.

These web novel "rules" or "guidelines" remind me of how writing is expected for newspaper writers. Similar, anyways.

no more arguing.

when we both find the right reader? we're both "right" when they read it. And we both think the other is 'wrong' when we hear the other's rules or lack of them.

Peace, Mak.

Might be an unpopular opinion, but the purpose of a paragraph is to segment ideas and provide a visual aid. On paper, I'd say roughly 5 to 9 lines comprised of about the same amount of sentences is the limit of a paragraph, but on mobile, I'd say it's a matter of if it fits the screen.

I'm not a fan of the whole single sentence, single line trend.

It can be used for stylistic flair, but I think a lot of people are just intimidated by more than a couple lines of text in 2026.

Single sentence paragraphs should be held to the same scrutiny as their counterparts.

All of this, could have just been one simple paragraph.

I wasn't getting my degree in anything that had to do with the English Department at college. I was a STEM lord. For those who might not know, to get an associates or a bachelors degree, they force you to take little clusters of classes outside of your major, and they call them electives. There are also must-have classes outside of your degree area. There was NO getting out of several English classes. If you were getting a degree, you were going to take English Composition. A seemingly simple process, to be sure. Plot twist ! The department was filled with... I'll be charitable and say some rare personalities.

Day 1. Some self important smug man is snarking out his syllabus. Its a nine page syllabus, and that's considered huge even for a 400 level course inside a major. This is a broad introductory class for everyone; its completely ridiculous and everyone knows it. He has German, Olde English, French and Latin phrases peppered throughout his syllabus. Something like 5 books, two of which he wrote himself and he admits we "probably won't have time to get to them, but just in case". Most of his "lectures" seem to be about fifteen minutes of dumping some information that he could have just handed out a page or three to give us, with the rest of the hour spent just relating his (seemingly many) contributions to the literary field. In thirty years he's managed to get a couple short articles published, and once tenured he figured out he can force his "books" to be "printed" and he can guarantee sales by making everyone buy them to pass his course.

Screw this, he hands out really low grades because papers just didn't "soar", damn it. I'm not dealing with this. I always scheduled 7 classes, so I can drop one or two lu-lu's like this and its no biggie. Every semester, I tried another English Composition professor. The next one? The guy walked in, fifteen minutes late. He threw the garbage can down the middle of the aisle between the rows of desks like a bowling ball, and walked out of the room. "You have 45 minutes left. Write about that experience. 5 to 7 pages, or you get a zero for today. Its 10 percent of your final grade..." as he strides *out* the door. Yeah. I got up and walked out. Screw this. Several others followed my example.

The next guy? As weird as these two, but again in his own unique way putting his own unique spin on it. There a couple/several more of these... lu-lu's. By the time I was a senior, I *still* had to fill English Composition 101. To graduate witha STEM degree, mind you. All my professors I was now friendly with in my own department are laughing at the English department, everyone has stories to tell about these characters. These horror stories go around from the students and the other professors alike.

Here's a crucial point coming!

You have X weeks to drop the class w/o penalty and get full (expensive) book money refunded. One of these lu-lu's? Reminded me of the "newspaper writer father" in the "a River Runs Through it" movie. "Write it again! 100 less words this time!". Next time? "Another 100 less words!" He wanted this nine page paper boiled down and fat-rendered, then the skeleton bleached. The final assignment? One big paragraph, accompanied by short "bullet points" that told you all you needed to know. Weird, but to him that was what was essential to learn about writing. (you sit around between classes, sharing stories about things like this)

But another of these? He wanted longer and longer papers. More and more, about less and less. He reveled in descriptions of everything. Then richer and deeper and longer descriptions. He expected us to develop the ability to take something as simple as "picking up the keys and walking out the door to drive off" and to describe things in rich detail. What could we see out the window, where was the window located. What passed through our minds as we glanced past it. How many keys. What did they feel like. Were the keys different colors or shapes. Could we locate them by feel, after so much time. What did the lock sound like, the tumblers clicking. Was it loose over time and dry, or tight and well oiled. When you read *his* version of the assignment? It was something like 27 pages!

Now look at this situation. These are both the same class! I think in my honest opinion that the "short" professor would *love* single sentences and crisp tight sentences for those. 1k word chapters, too. He'd love the smaller web novel format. The "long' professor? Pretty sure he would like to read King or Michener. A third professor, worshipped what he called "rhetoric". You were to use extensive vocabulary and sentence structure. Create a flow and beat you could "feel" what he descrived as a "pulse" in your unique prose. I think he would have all but fainted reading the "Ad Finem" author I saw some of her almost poetic and melodramatic sentences in another post in another thread. He'd have held HER up as an A-plus example of how its done "right".

You might wonder how this saga ends, and I'll tell you. i'm a graduating senior. I *need* to pass, you guessed it. English, Composition, 101. I'm living in my small compact *car*, and working almost 40 hours a week to get through college. I figured out I have so many A's and B's now that I can take a D-minus is every class I have left, and it the difference between a 3.79 and a 3.81. Grades no longer matter, I just need a couple courses in the bag. My degree had sprung a plot twist somewhere along the line and hadn't saw fit to send out letters. I now needed a declared "minor". like 8 classes in a course of study outside of my degree field, but in a list you can pick from; I chose "History" and located two history professors that were cool, I only took them.

English Comp loomed. This is ridiculous! I'm going to have to wait 6 months to a year, and waste thousands of dollars, living in my car if i can't get this done? Christ almighty. A sympathetic professor finally picked up his phone, had a conversation with somene in the English department, and smiled.

"You need, the House."

"What's that, Doc."

I was given an appointment, and I was there an hour early, waiting dutifully.

Professor Waterhouse. English department professor. One of those educated hippie types, obviously educated and intelligent, but ever so soft and sweet. Think, Eldoria. An Oracle of advanced information you never knew existed, but she would end every class with a few sentences that were easy to grasp. As it turned out? Those "lu-lu" professors? Were all having "fun" with a-l-l the students outside of the English department! It was one giant prank, a punked joke. They're all laughing at how much *fun* they can have, torturing anyone not taking a degree in the English department. You study Journalism, Creative writing, English professor... you instantly get WATERHOUSE, the great but easy professor, for English Composition!

I needed to have a favor called in, to get this done.

Class was easy, but we were loaded with a lot of great information. Think... "Eldoria, the Oracle" but you and Eldoria were the only people on the forum for 16 weeks. LMAO. i polished off Creative Writing 102 with her the next semester.

Final point: the extremes of writing "rules". Each has their place. For a type of writing, or a type of reader. Or, for different parts in a novel. During a high pressure life or death fight, my MC gets quick, short, tight sentences. Mind racing under adrenaline. When the MC is at his ease, reveling in a long weekend with bis better half? Its highly descriptive, overly long and paced slow.

None of these English professors have managed to get "published" anything beyond a few short articles. Some have 'vanity' presses print their "book" and make students buy it as a flex. Waterhouse? I asked. I got her warm smile, and she showed me her "Agatha Christie" style closed room who-dunnit. She can't get published, and thinks you need to be really good *and* know someone or get lucky. One history professor writes textbooks on contract, and suggested I think about writing computer science textbooks.

Everyone is right. Everyone is wrong. Every reader is different. Every writer is different. No one knows exactly what's perfect. Welcome to the fun puzzle of writing novels and try to keep your sense of humor and perspective about it all, trying like hell to develop your own unique style while carving out some kind of niche for yourself at the same time.

Me, I grew up reading vintage paperbacks from the 50s through the 90's, with most printed from say 1971 to about 1989. i like that kind of paperback read in several genres, and I'm trying to give readers that disappearing experience, I think it might be viable when they find me.

We're all throwing our hat in the air, hoping a bird comes down caught in said hat but for some reason likes to sit on our finger, and invites other birds to do the same. If you manage to line birds up on your fingers every day, it will attract a flock of other birds to come and marvel at the wonderful human they found.

The birds? Are the readers.

I've located my first bird, and its wonderful! A few others come and go now, but I need to cultivate a flock.

Wish me luck, I wish you all of it back.

Peace.

TL;DR --- a few people might love this saga, and get it. A few will naturally hate it with a passion. Most will sit somewhere between these two extremes.

You provide your own brand of bird food and see what works for you, and might work for one , some, or many readers. Best of luck.

Sentence word count, sentences & word count of paragraphs, words per chapter.. makes little difference to me. What I'm curious about is why the hundreds of thousands of word novels? My guess is some of you are hoping to write something that clicks and gets published. Wouldn't your chances be better with ten - 70k books than with one 700k book?

Hot take but it's not really a paragraph if it's just one or two sentences in an action scene or other quick things. Then it's just a line. Even three sentences is cutting it short unless they're compound.

Tiktok kids that can't even read 3 sentences without losing focus? Good for them, have fun. Not worth gimping an entire novel just because some people who will probably never see it, might give up on reading it. Just also make sure your paragraphs are in fact paragraphs, and not a single sentence tortured at the rack. The longer a sentence goes on for, the more it really has to earn not being broken up by a period. Maybe if the MC's having a mental breakdown.