Some of you may have seen me whining recently about my over-reliance on the em dash. I was reading earlier and saw a few cases of ellipses used in dialogue, in place of where I'd normally put an em dash. I saw it most often used to suggest shock, or a trailing off.
For example (to borrow from one of Angel Leigh McCoy's essays):
John said, “Honey, I’d like to get ice cream before the…” He stared as an alien burst from his wife’s chest.
I always use an em dash when a character has stopped abruptly. In fact, I never use ellipses at all. Is this a fault? Am I breaking the system? I do have a ridiculous amount of em dashes in my work and I suppose the occasional use of an ellipsis would lighten the load for good ol' Em a little, but I just don't know if I like the idea.
I think I could get down with an ellipsis if it was used in more thoughtful speech: Dr Kevorkian said, "Well, I can't imagine a reason for a child's head randomly exploding, unless..." He thought a moment. "I suppose his head could have been filled with atomic minibombs, implanted by fascists during an abduction many a moon ago."
I still would have knee-jerked and used an em-dash in place of an ellipses there.
What say you, people of LitReactor? Em dashes or ellipses for you?!
I personally believe the ellipsis should be used rarely, if at all, and only in the case of dialog trailing off. And I don't let my characters trail off, because people who trail off while speakng should be tied to a tree and set on fire.
Ergo, the em-dash is my friend. It acts as a parenthetical aside during speech, a clarification or amplification in narrative, or the solid break in dialog when my character gets punched/shot/stabbed/eaten.
Also, most people misuse the eillipsis because they are stupid. Your example above, using Dr. K, is an appropriate and correct usage.
I use ellipses for pauses in the middle of sentences, and try not to use them at the ends whenever possible. Even for pauses, though, I prefer to imply those by jamming a tag or some action in the middle instead.
"I think," she said, scratching the back of her neck, "it's time for you to go."
In dialogue, dashes are for abruptness, yeah. Interruptions. In narration, I use them as an alternative when I've got too many commas going on, to set a phrase apart or clarify a statement, and help the reader find the rhythm and avoid confusion. Kind of like how you group terms in math. Less so in dialogue, when I tend to stick with our friend the comma, but sometimes.
He imagined that, in the years since they last dated—twelve, by his count—she had taken at least as many lovers, each more skilled than himself. "Yeah, I'm gonna just … um … the babysitter's probably wondering where I am."
I'd avoid using the term 'he thought' since it is a little to show and not enough tell for me.
But if you describe specifically what he thought, that's still showing, and the ", he thought" is just to let the reader know you've switched modes. Or you could just italicize the sentence, depending. But if it's something like "He thought about his childhood" or "he thought she was beautiful," yeah, that's lazy.
Show v. Tell I think is a pretty misunderstood concept as it's somehow commonly equated to the execution of style rather than the substance.
Ellipses are bleeorgh.
Em-dashes are cool because parentheses don't really have a place in fiction, where everything is about rests and full stops and other rhythm cues. When I started reading in school I always thought things in parentheses shouldn't be vocalized, like stage directions or something, so when reading aloud fiction you would skip over it. Anyone else have that? But dashes make sense, they push you faster to the next thing.
Dashes!
I'd keep it more observable, if pragmatic. He blanked as he hesitated.
I'd say show v. tell it is less about style or substance, and more about immersion into the story.
Thanks for all your replies. Jeff, you have my agreement regarding characters who trail off (and the rest of what you said, too). And Gordon, I think you hit the nail on the head as to why I've never really had cause to use an ellipsis--if someone 'trails off', I'll put an action tag in there to show it, not a simple ellipsis. I'm with you on the use of em dash throughout text too. I use them all the same ways.
Dwayne, though I was using a madeup sample sentence, I gotta agree with Gordon that 'thought' can be a 'show' description. I think people really, really overthink the 'show vs tell', and I think that can hurt a writer a lot in the long (or short, depending on how long it takes to get their shit together) run. For a while all I heard was, 'show ALWAYS, NEVER tell' and I tried to live/write by that, and while it was helpful to a point--being able to identify when I really was 'telling' when I should have been 'showing'--my aversion to not 'telling' at all led to disasters like significant overemphasis on what should have been insignificant actions, and taking too long for the story to go anywhere because every little minor detail was picked apart to 'show' instead of 'tell'. Okay, I'm embellishing a little; it wasn't quite that bad, but I can say it wasn't good. But I read a lot, and then a lot more, and I noticed that in books I love and adore there is plenty of 'telling' as well as plenty of 'showing', and they've just managed to choose the right time to do the right thing. I truly believe it is okay to tell, sometimes.
I think all these writing rules that people toss about are dangerous things. They can be helpful to a point. Beyond that, they can become a hindrance. I remember when I went on a crusade against adverbs. You know what? I like adverbs. They're nice and neat and quick. I like adverbs as a reader. They let me get to the meat of the action. They shouldn't be used always, but they shouldn't always be avoided either.
And Dwayne, I remember SGJ had/has this big thing about people using the word 'as'. He hates it. So your example of 'he blanked as he hesitated' would not go down well with that particular author. That's the thing, though. There aren't rules that blanket-suit everyone. Different writing teachers will give you conflicting advice. Different critiquers will give you conflicting feedback. There aren't hard or fast rules, ever. That's the lovely thing about language. You can do whatever the fuck you want with it and if you're skilled enough, you can make it work.
Anyway, this is not at all a rant against you Dwayne, I promise. You just got me thinking about opinions I've collected in my head over a period of months, and here they are, spewed out on the page. I've gone a little far away from ellipses and em dashes. Sorry about that.
He blanked as he hesitated.
@Dwayne
This is incredibly clunky—no offense—and much less straightforward than He thought a moment. If I were to read this in the context of a story, I would probably stop to make those observations before continuing my reading if I so chose. He blanked as he hesitated destroys whatever rhythm was present. He hesitated is the essence of what you're trying to communicate, but that's probably not show-y enough for you. How about something similar to [but better than] His forehead wrinkled—obvious physical description? I know this is harsh, as I'm sure He blanked as he hesitated was a spontaneous example, but because we're giving stylistic advice, I think it's worth noting that He thought a moment is a better sentence—regardless of context—than He blanked as he hesitated.
@Arkadia
One of my mantras is Loose ellipses sink ships. Ellipses draw too much attention to themselves and should be used sparingly if at all. I think they tend to make the writer seem as indecisive as the character's speech. I prefer the em dash.
I think all these writing rules that people toss about are dangerous things. They can be helpful to a point. Beyond that, they can become a hindrance. I remember when I went on a crusade against adverbs. You know what? I like adverbs. They're nice and neat and quick. I like adverbs as a reader. They let me get to the meat of the action. They shouldn't be used always, but they shouldn't always be avoided either.
Amen.
Of course, some rules are better than others. For instance, the "loose" in Loose ellipses sink ships is important addition that makes this mantra worlds away from Ellipses sink ships. [Granted, it's a modified version of Loose lips sink ships, but still.]
And Dwayne, I remember SGJ had/has this big thing about people using the word 'as'. He hates it. So your example of 'he blanked as he hesitated' would not go down well with that particular author.
As I remember it, Stephen Graham Jones had a beef with people misusing as, and Dwayne uses it correctly [as far as I can tell] in his suggestion.
That's the thing, though. There aren't rules that blanket-suit everyone. Different writing teachers will give you conflicting advice. Different critiquers will give you conflicting feedback. There aren't hard or fast rules, ever. That's the lovely thing about language. You can do whatever the fuck you want with it and if you're skilled enough, you can make it work.
Hallelujah.
I don't believe I've ever used an ellipsis in narration (only dialogue). Unless it was first person; yeah, probably done that.
Bret, I'd have to disagree with almost everything you said there. "He thought" seems at best lazy, at worst horrible. I'm not really concerned with what SGJ thinks. He is okay, and good for him he is doing well, but not that impressive to me. I'm not saying that "blanked as he hesitated" is a thrilling example, but I think it is a solid sentence.
I wrote a really lengthy reply, but it boils down to me saying that every writer has an arsenal of rules that they live by and that show v. tell, "never use an ellipsis in narration," etc. is just part of our personal context. Dwayne used "as" in his sentence and I blanched because I've been taught that to use "as" is a lazy way of making a connection between two actions and that it's a cop-out for a writer who can't make the connection with context.
But just like show v. tell and the "never, ever use a dialogue tag that isn't said or asked" rules are just little pieces of information that someone found important enough to keep in their arsenal, like me with the word "as." Take advice in the context of who's saying it -- consider what they write and their genre, and that'll make a big difference when you listen to what they say.
EDIT: I didn't learn it from SGJ, but I understand the point of saying it in this context. There are no hard and fast rules to live by when you write. I hate ellipses and will put a book down if one is used in narration, but some people like it. I fucking hate the word "as" -- in any form, and I consider Dwayne's use a "misuse" -- but not everyone has to.
The reason I despise it so much is because it really does make a suggestion that you could've made otherwise in a better way. "He blanked as he hesitated" is just a way of saying that this action was done both because and at the same time as he hesitated, but rather than use narration to explain it and let the reader get into it, we can just get it out of the way. It seems like telling to me everytime I see the word as because you're not showing the reader the action happening at the same time.
"His hesitation made him blank." Shit example, but it gets my point across. That's how I'd have written it because the word "as" is anathema to me.
I consider these writing rules to be tools, not rules. Use the right tool for the job.
Sometimes it's time to show. Sometimes it's time to tell. There are no rules once you know the rules. They may be so, but they are not always so.
(exception: no smiles or laughing. If I've done a LbL for you, you know why.)
Also, I don't like punctuation (especially in dialogue) beside quote, period, comma, and apostrophe I'm okay with a colon, but I don't like semi-colons and dashes (like I told Avery one time, if you're going to use your colon, use the whole thing, not just part of it (a semi-colon/anal sex joke. That's nerdcore).
That's just personal taste, though. Ellipsis remind me of instant messaging.
Rules don't go away once you've learned them. You just get to break them successfully and in interesting ways, instead of the ham-handed '"Oh RIchard, you are so tricky!" She smiled' variety.
Rules are in place to safeguard us against bad writing. The secret is, good writers can write badly (see, an adverb, and I am a great writer) when there is a purpose. Bad writers break rules, churn out bad prose, and then claim creative amnesty when they are called on it.
claim creative amnesty
I love that. It's so true. It's like the diplomatic immunity of the writing world.
claim creative amnesty
I love that. It's so true. It's like the diplomatic immunity of the writing world.
I'm Julian Assange, bitch!
Also, I don't like punctuation (especially in dialogue) beside quote, period, comma, and apostrophe I'm okay with a colon, but I don't like semi-colons and dashes (like I told Avery one time, if you're going to use your colon, use the whole thing, not just part of it (a semi-colon/anal sex joke. That's nerdcore).
Don't think I've ever used a colon in fiction, though I just sent out a story with a semi-colon and an em-dash. I was same as you a short while ago, staunch in only using commas for pauses and periods for full stops. Then the story happened where I needed some em-dashes.
claim creative amnesty
I don't even think it's that I think it's pure obliviousness as to how bad it is.(Btw "as" has many uses, I think maybe two out of the dozen or so make more sense than any alternative phrasing.) I know primarily because of my own terrible writing. But, you know, bad writing gets published too and it works for what it is.
I'm off the mind set that if the reader notices you breaking a rule, you proably shouldn't have broken it. A chapter in the last Dexter book (Double Dexter http://www.amazon.com/Double-Dexter-Novel-Jeff-Lindsay/dp/0385532377/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345333425&sr=8-1&keywords=double+Dexter) had a chapter that was 30 pages of just the narrator telling stuff. But it was so well written, and moved the story along so smoothly I didn't notice till it was almost done. So yeah you can get away with it, but most the time it just seems to make things a worse read.
In dialogue, I use the elipses for trailing off and the em dash for when someone has been cut off or stops abruptly.
In prose, I don't use elipses at all, and on very rare ocassions use em dashes for parenthetical stuff.
I think anything I'd have said is pretty much covered by others. But I'll throw my vote for ellipses rarely to never, and only for trailing off (and like Gordon, I also would rather see a tag or action to suggest this instead if you can), and em dashes for most everything else. I think em dashes are fine for parentheticals in narrative, but ellipses don't seem reasonable there to me in all but the most unique circumstances.
