Here on The Engine Room we love superlatives. We've already discussed the longest URL; what about the longest paragraph?
I ask this because some copy was filed recently that contained a 175-word whopper – doubtless not a record-breaker but still rather hefty for a magazine article.
"This writer really hates paragraphs," commented one of my colleagues, also a sub.
"No, he loves them – that's why he makes them as big as possible," I replied.
Any other huge pars out there?
beanie (hat)
1 week ago
7 comments:
Only in newspapers? If not, I suggest you look at Saramago, who can crank 'em out at 2, 3 pages...
At the risk of sounding pretentious, I tried reading "In Search Of Lost Time" by Marcel Proust a few years ago, and the longest paragraph I found was a little over three pages long. The longest sentence was nearly half a page. I didn't get very far!
I was going to suggest Proust [no, Gareth, you're not being pretentious; well, I don't think so, anyway].
Failing that, how about Kerouac? Almost anything really, even the 'poetry'.
The final paragraph in Gabriel Garcia Marquez' Autumn of the Patriarch is approximately 17,000 words long.
And it's only one sentence.
http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2008/09/prose-of-cormac-mccarthy.html
Thanks, everyone – some mighty paragraphs there.
Our magazine's own record has just been beaten with a 197-word effort (that's the unsubbed version, obviously).
As i writer I would have to raise my white flags with long paragraphs - or maybe it is just me!
LONG SENTENCES, the best way to hide your incompetence - I'd say.
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