: Re: How long should each paragraph be in fiction writing? In high school and even college most students are told to aim for around 5-6 sentences per paragraph. I am now trying to write fiction,

Purdue OWL gives a great definition of the concept of a "paragraph":

Paragraphs are units of thought with one adequately developed idea.

In other words, paragraphs are not just clusters of sentences, but instead ideas. The length of the paragraph, therefore, represents how much you develop the idea in the paragraph, and the division of paragraphs should be dictated not by some arbitrary word limit (100-200 words is what I learned in high school), but instead by the clear, logical division of ideas.
If you are having a problem where your paragraphs are too short, you may not be adequately developing the ideas in each of those paragraphs. If they are too long, on the other hand, it's a sign that you're overdeveloping your ideas to the point of monotony, and might be getting too abstract and verbose.
From that definition, we can provide some helpful rules of thumb.

One main idea per paragraph. Don't overcrowd your writing with any more than that. Develop that idea fully, and if you find that your paragraphs are getting too long, see if you can split their ideas up into smaller sections, and vice versa.
Paragraphs should be three to five sentences long, with the exception being when you are trying to provide deliberate emphasis. Long, rambling paragraphs will turn into "walls of text" and bore your reader. Very short paragraphs, on the other hand, are great attention-grabbers if you put them between longer ones for contrast.
Make sure your paragraphs fit nicely on the page. If you have a giant chunk of a paragraph that gets cut off by the page ender, it won't look good on the page. Similarly, a lot of short paragraphs might look unpleasant and choppy on the page. Think about your page size when considering how long your paragraphs can be before you should cut them down to size.

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: Re: How long should each paragraph be in fiction writing? In high school and even college most students are told to aim for around 5-6 sentences per paragraph. I am now trying to write fiction,

More posts by @Kaufman555

: Enjoying my writing vs. maintaining writing habit How do I resolve the conflict between: Being interested in what I write about Ignoring my inner critic, pushing past writer's block, starting writing,

: Welcome to the Writing Stack, Alayna. When you write, it's usually more effective to focus on one project at a time You've already noticed that you can't always remember what you were planning

: All my characters sound the same. How can I change this? I am writing a fantasy series. I am a new writer. I am almost done with the first draft of the first book, I have about 400 pages.

: This is a problem that doesnâ€™t seem to have an answer My bad guy is very very very complicated. My entire story exists because for thousands of years (no one knows why) regular people from

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