This will be the last re-post as my Vacation time winds down. I picked this one at random, for no reason whatsoever.
Dashing Dashes
I recently mentioned the use of ellipses. Used in dialogue sometimes they are erroneously used in place of what should actually be a dash.
What’s the difference? Good question.
Ellipses… are three consecutive dots that generally indicate words, sentences or entire sections are being left out.
Dashes – indicate dialogue, speech or something is being interrupted or cut off. A dash is the punctuation. No periods, question marks or exclamation points are used.
Example time:
The tone is set by punctuation.
Dale crossed his arms and scowled. “I don’t think…”
“No, you don’t think Dale. That’s the entire problem.” Scott waved his hand dismissively at Dale.
In that example, Dale comes across unsure or hesitant. That is not the tone I want to portray. Let me try again with a dash.
Dale crossed his arms and scowled. “I don’t think-”
“No, you don’t think Dale. That’s the entire problem.” Scott waved his hand dismissively at Dale.
I wanted Scott to cut Dale off rudely. Scott is slipping and I want his rude factor to go up. With Ellipses, Scott was just mean-ish. With a dash, he was both rude and mean.
In some circumstances, I’ll make the cut off more obvious.
Amber handed Rachael the Envelope. “I need you to go down to-”
Rachael flicked her hand cutting Amber off. “I know where to take the Quill Company proofs.” She snatched the paper from Amber’s hand.
I just love making mean people mean. In Rachael’s case, she has just cause to dislike Amber and be short with her. Both Amber and Rachael’s lifestyles, attitudes and personalities conflict. Not all cut off’s are a personality flaw, in this moment Rachael is annoyed with Amber, she’s not usually rude in this manner.
Some programs such as *Word or *Microsoft Office don’t allow dashes in dialogue. When this happens I leave the punctuation out, cap it off with the quotation mark and manually go back to add the dash.
“I think we should-“ “ mark is curled the wrong way! Ugh. Word automatically does this and it drives me bonkers. I go back and fix it manually.
“I think we should” “I think we should-”
Maybe I’m missing a setting or something, maybe not. I’ll probably end up looking into it. While this manual fix is not efficient, it works for me. Like with all good things I would probably pick one character that might lean on this rude behavior as a quirk. A foreshadow of their true selves. Arguments are a good place to use them or for a character to make a point by cutting someone off.
My advice about Dashes.
They are an abrupt interruption, not a trailing off. Be careful who you have rudely interrupting conversation. Too much might make everyone come across as a jerk.
-Sheryl
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I wrote a book. Now what? 
Quotations the wrong way, the bane of my life! I often miss it mores the pity. I was re-reading the other day and found countless occasions. Since I don’t see well, I can only imagine how many have escaped me. Oh auto-correct where for art thou when I need you? lol. Thanks for explaining the dashes as that’s another that confuses and annoys. 🙂 You rock!
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Thanks for leaving me a wonderful comment as you always do. 🙂
I found that “Auto correct” is too unreliable. It varies too greatly between programs. I’ve recently found Grammarly and love it. I’m contemplating actually paying for the full service. It caught things that WP and Word programs don’t.
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I have Grammarly. Like you, I’m thinking of buying the full service deal because it catches everything. I so agree with you. I can sure tell when it isn’t working roflmao. Although there are times when I curse it haha since it doesn’t agree with me!!!!!!!!!!!! haha
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Too funny, there are times in dialogue where I have to tell it to ignore because that’s the way I want the character to speak and it doesn’t like what I’m saying. I might give it a test run and see how it goes. I’ll let you know if it is worth it or not.
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I know and I agree and thanks 🙂
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I haven’t done much interrupting in my writing post, but that’s a good point to keep in mind with the dash. I actually didn’t know the dash rule. I do use the Ellipses, and I believe correctly. (I’m sure there are times I haven’t) I’m always leaving chunks of data out to get to the meat.
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I find my use is character and scenario driven. If it’s intense people tend to cut other off. Also, some people are just rude…
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I don’t think…believe you are right! Nice one.
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I see what you did there. 😉
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