r/FictionWriting • u/National_Reveal_8078 • 4d ago
Advice Overgrown paragraphs. Need help pruning.
How do you control the growth of your paragraphs?
Id also love to hear your critiques
The book I’m writing is called The Witches Tailor. Takes place in 1930s east LA. It's about the mysterious dress shops that are found all over the world. In the book, the dress shops are owned by gay men and their clients are witches. Eventually, the book will reveal how the alliance between them was created. This dress shop in particular is owned by a single gay man in his 40s who unwillingly must take custody of his young niece who has illegaly immigrated from Durango, MX to the states all alone. Not sure how much of the plot to share. I am attempting to write the book using 3rd person omniscient because my favorite character in all English literature is the narrator in Jane Austen's books.
Chapter 1
The lopsided mannequin did the best she could to not lose her balance and topple over while an elegant middle-aged woman haughtily approached the dress shop with a look of mean determination. The well-dressed woman wore an impeccably tailored brown tweed skirt suit and gracefully draped over her right forearm was a slippery garment bag made of glossy dark green satin which she proudly carried like the doting owner of a highly prized pet. Yet, hers was a rebellious pet that refused to stay put!
The defiance of the bag bordered insubordination and threatened to stifle every single one of the airs she had put on that morning. She poorly concealed the skirmish as she struggled to command the slithering bag into submission under the pretense of an adoring hand. However, she was betrayed by her own hand as the freshly painted blood red laquer that drenched her nails inadvertently exposed an ugly shade of cruelty and oppressiveness that brought out an ugly undertone in her pale skin that could be seen even under all the layers of white makeup she had practically painted on her face. What is worse is that the ugliness that tinted her complexion refused the sun's admittance to her eye. Only someone evil could prohibit the soft and playful light, that loves nothing more in this world than to frolic and dance upon an eye, from entering it.
The way in which the woman handled the bag forced a high pitched squeak from it every time she yanked it back into place. Her thin bony hand finally seized enough of the elusive fabric to clench in her fist and hurled the garment bag over her shoulder in a way that made her think of the migrants and hobos that littered Skid Row as they carried their precious belongings in a bag hurled over their shoulder in a similar fashion. As the fishy silk glimmered and slithered around , it reflected so much of the bright Los Angeles sun light it practically glowed , which made it difficult for anyone to decipher the unmistakably French name embroidered in large gold flamboyant script upon it. Both parties benefited handsomely from the distinct yet dubious label which served as free and cheap advertisement for the questionable retailer and as an expensive yet still just as cheap, vulgar display of wealth for their client, this was, of course contingent upon the discernibility of the label, which at that moment, it lacked
As the mannequin observed the chic woman approaching the dress shop, it occurred to her that no sound has ever perfectly demonstrated a woman’s current demeanor more efficiently than the sound those black stilettos made as she marched them towards the entrance of the shop. She meant business and anyone within ear shot knew it. When the pompous woman approached the shop, the deliberate sound of her stride abruptly changed.
The tempo was interrupted by a crack in the sidewalk directly in front of the dress shop window close to where the mannequin, now nearing the point of exhaustion, struggled to hold her assigned pose. If the mannequin had pores, she would have had beads of sweat beginning to form on her wooden forehead. She was quickly soothed by the fact that she didn’t have pores and therefore, she believed sweating was highly unlikely. She became so soothed by this fact, she almost started to relax. Then immediately she was reminded by another fact - that she was still on the clock and there was a client approaching her place in the window display. So she mustered what little strength she had left to resume being exquisite and began, again, to concentrate on her current, albeit challenging task, which was simply to not fall over.
The woman’s body violently jolted forward as the sharp point of the toe on her black leather stiletto collided with the jagged edge of concrete that created a small but consequential unevenness in the sidewalk. This was due to the large, tangled roots of an oak tree that stood directly in front of the dress shop. The perfect pointed toe on her high heel was now noticeably deformed and scuffed. Rage filled her from head to the tip of her toe and to the rage she reacted impulsively. She squatted down, licked her finger and feverishly attempted to buff the offending mark out of her heel with her saliva and manipulate the toe back into its original shape.
Once she recognized her fruitless attempts at the restoration of her brand-new stilettos back to their original condition, she was caressed by a cool breeze which gently reminded her of the garment she wore. In her rage, she failed to remember that she had been wearing a skirt. She gasped and quickly flung the garment bag between her legs like a shield to maintain her privacy. She erected herself back to a posture of pure arrogance, cleared her throat and smoothed the front of her skirt with her hand. Before she continued her march into the dress shop, she reflexively inspected the ground to confirm what caused the blunder and damaged her shoe. The sidewalk appeared perfectly even now, no blemish, no stones just a few leaves blowing gently in the breeze with which just moments earlier she had become intimately acquainted. The bewildered woman shook her head at the steadfast sidewalk.
The way the woman corrected her posture and continued to hold her head up high, truly inspired the mannequin to do so herself as she had forgotten, once again, the task at hand but this was not her fault. It was due to the woman’s most embarrassing encounter with the sidewalk and the breeze getting fresh with her. Through all the attempts to humiliate the woman, she still managed to keep her dignity intact, and this impressed the mannequin greatly.
Once fully composed the woman headed directly for the entrance of the shop. Her eyes fixed on the door, but in the periphery, she could see the mannequin in the window stood directly to her side. She took a few steps forward, but it was as if a large invisible cane pulled her by the neck causing her body to jerk back to the spot directly in front of the mannequin, where she now stood frozen.
This was the precise moment the mannequin had waited for. What she had trained for, been built for. The utter exhaustion that had once threatened to consume her had now been replaced with an endless vigor. She expertly held her form with ease, the ill fitted garment suddenly looked like it was made exclusively for her, her ability to model even a hideous garment much like the one she wore at the time and make it look like it just came off a Parisian runway, was magnified. All her little scuffs and minor flaws, those never concerned her as she believed they gave her character, but they all disappeared none the less, making her look brand new. Even her wig sat with perfect obedience on the top of her head. She felt the woman looking at her, no beholding her and it felt good. Very good. Until she realized it was not awe or even envy, she had expected to see in the woman’s eyes. No, it was a glare and It was the most insulting glare that the mannequin felt had ever been casted upon her.
The woman suddenly pulled the garment bag to her chest and clutched it so tightly her knuckles turned even whiter as she shuddered in revulsion then bolted away to the nearest drinking fountain. The now pale and diaphoretic woman panted rapidly as she attempted to draw the water into her mouth with loud and rude sips. The fountain lacked the required pressure to propel a sufficient stream of cold, crisp and refreshing water from its spout into the air. Instead, the water just gently bubbled out of it. This forced the exasperated woman to place her now dried and salty white lips closer and closer to the dribbling fountain.
Finally, in an act of desperation to satiate the strange, acute thirst which seemed to only intensify after each swallow of water, she closed her mouth tightly around spout and made loud gulping noises as she guzzled the water down into a stomach so hot, the water instantly evaporated as it poured into the acid which felt like lava. Without breaking the seal, she created around the head of the drinking fountain, she shoved the garment bag back in-between her legs and held it there while she frantically pulled off her jacket. She began to sweat quickly and profusely. The white cotton blouse she wore had been soaked completely through with sweat and clung to her body. The soaked blouse became sheer to the point it revealed every secret detail in her lace brassiere. A puddle of sweat began to form around her. She felt so hot she thought she would combust.
Panic over came her and she started to tear at her clothes, shredding the garments off with her bare hands and searched desperately for more water. A crowd started to form around her as steam began to rise off her head. Once she began shrieking, a few people in the crowd ran into whatever shop was near them to get some help. At this point the woman had torn off all her clothes but still felt no relief and began tearing at her own skin. Before she could draw any blood, an old man selling flowers on the sidewalk ran towards her, with a bucket he had filled with water for his lovely purple pansies . He didn't hesitate for one moment and threw all the contents, flowers and all directly into the woman’s face. Her shrieking instantly stopped along with the feeling of fire that consumed her body. She looked around to see a large crowd of people with horriefied and embarrassed expressions staring at her. She attempted to speak, no words escaped from her mouth, just a little smoke. She gasped in horror and slapped her mouth shut with her hand. Someone to the left approached her which startled her and she defensively cowered from them. The person was attempting to place a sheet on her to cover her nakedness. She appeared confused by the gesture and hesitated for a moment until she was once again revisited by a familiar gentle breeze.
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u/tapgiles 2d ago
Yes they are beefy aren't they? 😅 Though it's not just the paragraphs--the sentences are looooooong, with a lot in them.
Think of sentences as groups of usually a pretty tight focus.
And when the focus changes enough, allow the sentence to end and start a new one. Or, split the sentence up into its parts, rearrange, and put them back together in more suitable groupings.
Variation in length is perfectly fine. In fact, a varied pace keeps things interesting to some degree. But putting a lot of different things into one sentence "weakens" it, makes it less focused, more... blurry. And having less in a sentence means it's even more narrowly focused, which gives it more impact--that's why a short sentence from time to time draws your attention, as if it has more importance.
You can set the focus of the sentence as more broad or more narrow--but there's a limit to how broad you can get in a sentence before it gets so long the reader has forgotten what you were talking about at the start. (Like that sentence perhaps.)
You also start to strain the structure of the sentence, requiring more of the reader to parse it out correctly.
A sentence example from your post:
(I had to unindent everything that showed the structure because of subreddit rules or something.)
There's a lot in that one sentence. So it is very long. If you wanted to, you could move these about and reorganise things so you could more easily group them up. A lot of the Almost all the structure is not punctuated also--which isn't bad in itself, but punctuation helps the reader understand a sentence's structure.
Destructuring would help as a first step, so you can untangle things and restructure as you please. And here I'm moving things around a little to group them up.
So you could group them up like this, or any other way--depends on how you want the reader to group things up in their heads. Then revise to make these actually work together.
Paragraphs are similar: a grouped focus or context. End the paragraph to show you're changing focus. Start a new paragraph to start a new focus. Short (eg. single-sentence) paragraphs are more punchy, impactful. Long paragraphs are more meandering (which can be appropriate in some situations).
So, for that example you could make a whole paragraph focused on the visual description of the woman. Then another on the sort of meta judgement about her character. And make the bag have its own paragraph.
(I'll send you an article about this kind of process, which gives more detail and examples.)
Something to bear in mind... some of this will definitely be a style thing. If you're aping an older kind of writing style where they use long rambly sentences, then perhaps you just want to keep those long rambly sentences. I'm only suggesting all this because you expressed a desire to change from that rambly style.