Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Yea or nay? Or more reasonably, when are single-sentence paragraphs appropriate (in novels, other than dialog), and when are they red flags?

What about the practice of making the opening sentence a separate paragraph to try to give it more impact, even though it properly belongs with the following paragraph?

Of course, there's always "any guideline should be broken if the result is better than following the guideline." Vonnegut, for example, was fond of single-sentence paragraphs. Most of us aren't as good as Vonnegut, though. [I could only wish.]

I'm not usually a fan because they can be heavy handed and sometimes feel like forced profundity, but there are people who make it work. And I'm guilty of the occasional one sentence paragraph as well.

So as always, if it works it works.