Balance on the Page (Plus a fun World of Silence update!)

Hello folks! So glad to be back on the blog here…anyway, I have a post on writing, just something I’ve learned from snooping around on the internet and reading books. So, here’s that and at the end a super fun announcement for World of Silence!!!

Balance on the Page

Hey guys, I’m here today to talk about something that I think all writers struggle with at some point or another. I’ve seen writers who are traditionally published and Indie or Self-Published do this and I think it’s something we need to talk about.

   So, balance on the page. What do I mean? I’m talking about the paper to printing ratio, black and white, in simpler words your paragraph size.

   Sometimes it’s hard to know how big a paragraph should be. Where should it be cut? What if it all connects, or seems to connect but is really super long and you’re not sure if you should leave it as one or break it? How much white paper is showing through? How much ink is on the page? Can they see much white or is completely covered in print? Does it look scary to you as a writer when you think about editing it? Is this paragraph getting on your nerves? Did you sigh before you started reading it? Did you have to take a minute to decide if you really wanted to do this or not? This is what I’m talking about.

   We don’t readers to look at our paragraphs or pages and be like, “Good gravy, that’s a lot of writing, I don’t want to read that right now.” Snap goes the cover, and the reader avoids the book for a while.

   Now, while most of us can’t even imagine doing that, some people do it all the time! My sisters are both those kinds of people (I’m guilty from time to time) but if they see a long paragraph and aren’t particularly invested in reading that day, they’ll just avoid it.

   So, how do we fix this problem? I have to have paragraphs you say…well, yes you do, but I’m not talking about getting rid of paragraphs simply talking about learning how long to make them.

   The more white we have on the page, the more likely that the reader will keep reading and not get scared off. We like our words, we like our paragraphs, but our readers may not appreciate that fifteen sentence block sitting in the middle of the page, instead they might feel better reading it in five sentence paragraphs.

   I know this goes against what your writer’s brain wants to do. Fill the page with words! Words are ink, ink is black, black page is good! Right?

   Wrong. Black scares a reader. Too many words, too much info, too much to take in. White shows promise of dialogue, promise of something happening, convenient places to stop.

   Here’s an example piece pulled from my writing.

     Skyview looked the room over and saw many faces filled with awe. He didn’t like the reaction his name provided; he had only done what had to be done. If they knew the truth, maybe they wouldn’t look at him like that. They probably wouldn’t. Why not tell them how it really was? He nodded to the innkeeper then walked to a chair by the fire, took off his wet cloak, and said as he sat with a sigh, “I’ll tell a story, one you have all heard before from the Story Keepers, but you have never heard it told quite like this. It’s the story of a young squirrel, the true story, mind you, and it all started on a day, not unlike tonight…”

Secrets by Kaytlin Phillips

Pardon the bad grammar and not so great writing, I haven’t got around to editing this bit yet…but as you can tell that’s quite the paragraph…put it on the page of a 5” by 8” book and you have yourself almost a whole page of black, and this is pulled from chapter 1!

So, to fix this predicament I have typed myself into, here’s what I’d do…

   Skyview looked the room over and saw many faces filled with awe. He didn’t like the reaction his name provided; he had only done what had to be done. If they knew the truth, maybe they wouldn’t look at him like that.

They probably wouldn’t. Why not tell them how it really was?

He nodded to the innkeeper then walked to a chair by the fire, took off his wet cloak, and said as he sat with a sigh, “I’ll tell a story, one you have all heard before from the Story Keepers, but you have never heard it told quite like this. It’s the story of a young squirrel, the true story, mind you, and it all started on a day, not unlike tonight…”

Secrets by Kaytlin Phillips

   Now, this doesn’t look so different from before, but on a 5” by 8” page it would make a world of difference, allowing in some much-needed white space.

   Turn off the inner voice that says more black on the page is better…it’s not true. The more paper you can see, with everything sounding right, the better! It will keep readers from being scared off and keep their attention better!

The Announcement:

Okay, here’s the super fun announcement on World of Silence! Blog Tour sign-up is open!!! Woo-Hoo!!!! Yay!!! I finally got the form down-packed and it’s ready for you guys to fill out if you’re interested! There will be an ARC form in a few weeks for those who don’t want to participate in the Blog Tour but want to review the book!

So, here’s the link to the Blog Tour sign-up form:

   I’m so excited!!! The Tour is running for two weeks…up to the release day. So it starts on May 16th and will last till release day which is May 25th! I’m super excited about this!!!!

I hope you guys enjoyed today’s post! Have a good one!!!

Bless!

Kayti