How To Use Em Dashes In Dialogue
Emphasize important or essential information em dashes can be used to emphasize important or essential information midsentence or at the end of sentences.
How to use em dashes in dialogue. Some authors have employed the em dash non traditionally to their own tastes. It is also common to use a pair of em dashes to replace parentheses or a pair of commas. Ellipses and em dashes can be used to add rhythm and realism to dialogue but they can be distracting if too many of them pile up in quick succession. Although colons and commas can serve the same function em dashes create a more dramatic effect. Changes of thought while speaking stammering or brief and long pauses.
If you want to include the parenthetical content more subtly use parentheses. Passions have always run high when it comes to punctuation issues it would seem. The mirror fell and i knew you d drop it. When your time is up post your practice in the comments section. The em dash sometimes just called a dash is used to set off information from the rest of the sentence and mimics or copycats other more formal punctuation marks.
So use them judiciously. Some people have different tastes but here are a few examples and rules to let you know when to use. To answer your last question amanda ellipses can be correct. Authors like to use em dashes in all three cases. It s pretty much agreed that there s not really a wrong way to use an em dash or rather most ways in which people are naturally inclined to use it are acceptable.
Ashley stared at max who was sitting in the middle of the disheveled living room. Write for fifteen minutes on the following writing prompt. 2 the weary traveler forgot something in the airport bathroom her plane ticket. If you want to draw attention to the parenthetical content use dashes. It is often used in place of colons or semicolons.
The hyphen the em dash and the ellipsis. James joyce used it to set off dialogue because he had a particular antipathy for quotation marks. Dashes are considered less formal than parentheses. Below i ll show examples of how to use these punctuation marks depending on the nature of the interruption. An em dash is also useful in dialogue to show a break in thought that s abrupt rather than a trailing thought that gets an ellipsis.