How to Write a One-Sentence Paragraph

22 Apr
Adrian Van Young's story, "The Skin Thing," was featured on Electric Literature's Recommended Reading blog and will appear in the forthcoming anthology Gigantic Worlds.

Adrian Van Young’s story, “The Skin Thing,” was featured on Electric Literature‘s Recommended Reading blog and will appear in the science flash fiction anthology Gigantic Worlds.

In composition writing classes, we’re usually taught (or we teach students) not to write one-sentence paragraphs. But, in fiction and nonfiction alike, these short paragraphs can pack a tremendous punch if done well.

Adrian Van Young demonstrates this punch in his story, “The Skin Thing,” which will appear in the forthcoming science fiction anthology Gigantic Worlds. You can read it now at Electric Literature‘s Recommended Reading blog.

How the Story Works

Most writers will, at some point, use a one-sentence paragraph to emphasize some point or moment. Van Young’s story is interesting, then, because he uses so many of these constructions, sometimes to conclude a longer paragraph and sometimes as a series of short paragraphs. The sentences can be long, short, and even fragments.

They tend to be used in one of three ways:

Accentuate a change in tone:

This short paragraph concludes a description of the monster’s actions. In terms of subject and style, it’s really part of the paragraph that precedes it, but it’s given its own line because its tone is different (funnier, sort of):


The Skin Thing ate his onions, too.

Summarize time and events:

These fragments deliver an accounting of the colonists’ battle with the monster:


Colonists total: two-hundred and forty.

Colonists fed to the thing: thirty-six.


Illuminate important images

This paragraph is actually a series of short, connected sentences that focus on a different part of the monster’s body:


Here, the sentences adopt a style of repetition common to speeches. The fragments illuminate a character in a moment of time:

There was:




Instead of moments from a long period of time, though, these two paragraphs break a very short amount of time into even shorter flashes of perception:


And under it: a hand. A knee.

All of these one-sentence paragraphs are designed to manipulate the reader’s perception of the events and characters in the story. They speed up or slow down time and direct the reader’s eye.

The Writing Exercise

Let’s write some one-sentence paragraphs, using the passages from Adrian Van Young’s “The Skin Thing” as a model:

  1. Write a sentence that accentuates a change in tone. One way to do this is to create a series: actions, personality traits, qualities, requirements, events, or whatever appears in your story multiple times or has its differences parsed out. The problem with lists is that they can be boring—just a bunch of stuff. In workshops, the writer Tim O’Brien discourages lists for this reason, but of course his famous story, “The Things They Carried,” contains lists in almost every paragraph. So, after a list of ____, he writes, ______. Van Young uses a shift in tone in his story as well, but rather than interpreting the list, the tonal shift adds to the list: literally, one more thing the monster did, but this thing tells us something about the monster’s intentions that the other things did not. So, in your series, search for entries that sound different. Ask yourself, “What does that difference indicate?” Does it make you uncomfortable? Does it seem to cast the other items in a different light? Try putting it at the end and in a separate paragraph.
  2. Write a sentence that summarizes time and events. People who write press releases do this all the time. They use fragments to highlight the impact or actions of a group over time: X number of units sold, X number of services rendered. Fiction writers can do this as well, as Van Young illustrates. In truth, many of us do this naturally, especially when pressed into an argument. We tally up our actions over time: X meals cooked, X hours worked, X kindness delivered or sacrifices made. To do this in a story, figure out what actions your character takes pride in; then, challenge it. How would the character defend him/herself? Try listing the tally in separate lines.
  3. Write a sentence that illuminates important images. There are a few ways to do this. 1) In a static description of a person, thing, or place, instead of using commas to set off attributes (tall, dark, and handsome), develop each adjective into a sentence or phrase of its own (so handsome that I had to look away). Then, connect the sentences with commas or semicolons. 2) In a description of a person, thing, or place in motion, break the motion down into snapshots (as opposed to a running strip of film). What is happening in each snapshot? 3) In a description of an act of perception (I saw…), do not show the entire thing being perceived. Instead, reveal one part at a time. In each of these three methods, you’re focusing on images that writers and readers alike often zoom past. Devoting an entire sentence or phrase to the image can slow readers down, and then you can slow them down further by placing each sentence into a paragraph of its own.

Good luck!


7 Responses to “How to Write a One-Sentence Paragraph”

  1. Paula Cappa April 23, 2014 at 8:02 p04 #

    I’m curious about your example “There was:” with the colon after the verb. Chicago Manual of Style states that it’s inappropriate use of colon to place a colon after a verb or preposition, because punctuation should never separate the object from the verb or preposition. Are there exceptions to this rule I’m not aware of? Please enlighten me?

    • Nathan September 18, 2014 at 8:02 p09 #

      I think fiction writing leaves an overwhelming amount of freedom in the use of punctuation and grammar. It is entirely unnecessary to conform to anyone’s manual while writing fiction.

  2. michaelnoll1 April 23, 2014 at 8:02 p04 #

    Paula, you’re right about the grammar rule. It’s one that I teach to my university composition students. That said, story writers and novelists often have more leeway with rules like this. In this case, the stylistic benefits probably outweighed the risks of breaking the rule. So, the writer was going for a particular sound and rhythm, and the way to accomplish it was with a colon after a verb. It’s up to the judgement of the writer and the editor. Some journals have looser style restrictions. Others, like The New Yorker, apply style rules rigidly.

    • Paula Cappa April 24, 2014 at 8:02 p04 #

      Thank you, Michael. I like your thinking on this. I tend to lean into the rules most of the time. I’m a copy editor and a writer so I know both sides of giving editorial advice to my clients and receiving it from editors I hire for my own work. I find breaking rules vs. artistic expression to be such a gray area. You seem to have a good handle on it.

  3. Mickel clark July 8, 2015 at 8:02 p07 #

    Before commencing writing a fabulous paragraph, it’s good to decide couple of things. How to find you talking about? What would you like to say? The goal of any paragraph can be to express an outline. Most paragraphs are made up of a small number of related paragraphs. Paragraph writing service can help you in this fact.

  4. Zain November 8, 2016 at 8:02 p11 #

    Good app


  1. An Interview with Adrian Van Young | Read to Write Stories - April 24, 2014

    […] To read “The Skin Thing” and an exercise on writing one-sentence paragraphs, click here. […]

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