This series of articles discusses writing habits that upset editors.

Here’s article #1. Do you see the problem?

Introduction to Excerpt

This is representative of blunders I encounter sometimes while reading.

Excerpt

Harry crept toward the hallway. “The smoke is too thick, Jenn. I don’t think …”

“Shhh,” she interrupted. “He’ll hear us.”

“But I think …”

“Shut up,” she butted in.

“You shut up! You’re always the …”

She cut Harry’s exclamation off with a smack across his face. “How dare you …”

“How dare I?” he interjected, voice growing louder with each word. “I’m not the one who …” The rest of his retort was smothered by an explosion that shook the room.

Jenn’s head hit the carpet.

Here Are the Problems

The dialogue is punctuated with ellipses to indicate sudden interruptions. However, ellipses should signal left-out words, pauses in action, or unfinished sentences.

And there’s a double whammy. Although the ellipses in the excerpt are supposed to indicate interrupted dialogue, several redundant phrases perform the same function:

she interrupted

she butted in

She cut Harry’s exclamation off

he interjected

The rest of his retort was smothered

Another snag: Editors who went to the University of Only-Use-Said will scowl at some of the dialogue tags.

Here’s One Solution (The Chicago Manual of Style Format)

(Observe spacing around the em dashes.)

Harry crept toward the hallway. “The smoke is too thick, Jenn. I don’t think—”

“Shhh,” she whispered. “He’ll hear us.”

“But I think—”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up! You’re always the—”

She smacked Harry across the face. “How dare you—”

“How dare I?” His voice grew louder with each word. “I’m not the one who—” A deafening explosion shook the room.

Jenn’s head hit the carpet.

Another Solution (The Associated Press Stylebook Format)

(Observe spacing around the em dashes.)

Harry crept toward the hallway. “The smoke is too thick, Jenn. I don’t think —”

“Shhh,” she whispered. “He’ll hear us.”

“But I think —”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up! You’re always the —”

She smacked Harry across the face. “How dare you —”

“How dare I?” His voice grew louder with each word. “I’m not the one who —” A deafening explosion shook the room.

Jenn’s head hit the carpet.

Observations

• The original excerpt shows and tells.
• Removal of redundant phrasing reduces word count.
• Changing ellipses to em dashes corrects the punctuation.

The Chicago Manual of Style recommends that em dashes should not be separated from text by spaces. The Associated Press Stylebook recommends the opposite.

The Chicago Manual of Style approach:

Never use peanut butter—or almond paste—in this recipe.

The Associated Press Stylebook approach:

Never use peanut butter — or almond paste — in this recipe.

Note the spacing in the following. Both style manuals recommend that em dashes adjoin closing quote marks.

The Chicago Manual of Style: “But I don’t want to—”

The Associated Press Stylebook: “But I don’t want to —”

No matter which style guide you follow, an em dash preceding a quotation mark could result in a line break that looks like this:

“I never wanted to go in—
”

Although workarounds like non-breaking thin spaces might solve the problem, they cause unpredictable results in some platforms used by self-publishers.

P.S.

All resources I’ve found recommend that ellipses should be surrounded by spaces except when they appear with quote marks:

Neil Armstrong said, “… I’m going to step off … now. That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.” (Ellipses indicate missing words. No space between opening quotation mark and ellipsis.)

“I’m going to bed now,” she said. … “Are you planning to join me?” (Ellipsis indicates a pause in dialogue. Note the spaces surrounding it.)

Naomi patted her too-full stomach. ”I want another piece of cake, but …” (Ellipsis indicates a trailing off of dialogue. No space between ellipsis and closing quotation mark.)

Consider the next sentence:

She yelled, “Get out or [space] […] [space] [”]

The space after the ellipsis could result in the following scenario:

She yelled, “Get out or …
” (isolated quotation mark)

Note the similarity to the line-break problem presented by spaces around em dashes.

P.P.S.

Using an em dash to indicate interrupted dialogue (—“) produces an opening quote mark rather than a closing mark after the dash. To get around this Word idiosyncrasy, type qqqq” throughout your WIP.

When ready for final edits, copy an em dash to the clipboard.

Then do a search-and-replace:

Search for: qqqq
Replace with: —

Result: Every instance of qqqq” will have been transformed into —”.