Dashes and dots

Just a short one from me on the uses of dashes and dots in dialogue when you’re writing a novel. When should we use them and for what purpose?

When a character leaves a thought unfinished (which I think is worth having as long as it’s not every other sentence), then deploy the ellipsis, i.e. the three dots (never two, never four) one after the other. In the “proper” grammatical world this is a tool to omit superfluous words for speed. But of course, in fiction, we’re not bothered by “proper” grammar. We won’t let what we learned in our English comprehension classes get in the way of making our dialogue “feel right.”

Here’s an example:

“But I don’t know how to stop him. If he keeps going, then he’ll ruin everything and we’ll end up…”

In this example, the character is stopping to prevent themselves from saying the dreaded conclusion to that sentence.

Or occasionally the ellipsis can be used at the end of one piece of dialogue and at the start of another, if one character is finishing off another’s thoughts. Like this:

“But if I can by-pass the security system before we even get there…”

“…We could just walk in,” said Sarah. “That’s brilliant.”

By contrast dashes are generally for when people are interrupting each other. The ellipsis is to help finish a thought as above, or let a thought “hang” (as in my first example – the most common form). But I use dashes for when one character won’t let another finish their thought. Maybe in an argument, or a moment of high tension and drama? Though it can be used in many different ways. Example:

Brian couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “But you can’t just—”

“—Enough Brian,” said Jane. “I won’t let you take over like that.”

Okay, that’s a quick take on dots and dashes. Short and sweet, but I hope it helps?