When reading “Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Student”, the author E. Shelley Reid brings up so many very good principles, rules and ideas that are very important and crucial when it comes to good writing. One of her ten ways that I resonated with was number 7: “Wash-and-Wear Paragraphs.” This one stood out to me because since elementary school, like the author mentions, as students we are taught a million different rules a paragraph should follow, how it should be a certain number of sentences but cant be too long and each sentence should have a purpose etc, and although I know in my mind that these rules are not set in stone, still even as a junior in college I find myself coming back to them over and over again.
When writing, In the back of my mind the thoughts “this paragraph is getting too long” or “this sentence doesn’t feel like it has a specific purpose” run wild and hinder how I write because I find myself cutting a paragraph short or removing a sentence I feel is filler. When Reid talks about how paragraphs should be, she mentions the idea of “what do you know about how big a load of laundry should be?” and equates writing a paragraph to washing clothes, which I thought was so clever. If a paragraph is too short, it’s like a small load of laundry and could be a waste of time because at that point, why not was some more clothes? But sometimes there’s a good reason to run a small load of laundry and therefore its okay.
Ideas like this help shape in my mind how paragraphs should be set up and determine how long they should be. Reid mentions splitting up a large load when it’s too big and how separating laundry into darks, lights and colors is similar to how paragraphs should be set up and how to details its different parts. Reid explains her example in such a digestible way, making her metaphor so clear and clean, and it’s definitely an idea I will be keeping in my back pocket.
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