Ask the Editor
This page is a quarterly feature of Murder We Write Chapter of Sisters In Crime Chris Roerden is a book editor celebrating 44 years in niche publishing, a former college writing instructor, and past president of a regional trade association of 250 commercial and university presses. She has edited authors published by St. Martin’s, Berkley Prime Crime, Intrigue, Midnight Ink, and many more. For her six years of service on the MWA southeast regional board, she received the Magnolia Award. She expanded her Agatha Award-winning, triple finalist [ Macavity, Anthony, and ForeWord Magazine] DON’T MURDER YOUR MYSTERY to apply to all genres under the title DON’T SABOTAGE YOUR SUBMISSION. Both are available from bellarosabooks.com.
Chris is a member of Sisters in Crime, the Guppies Chapter and the Murder We Write Chapter in High Point, North Carolina. Learn more about Chris at http://www.marketsavvybookediting.com
Ask the Editor
Q. In writing dialogue I want to show that the conversation is quick, with the characters practically speaking on top of each other, so I’d like to employ a dash. Is it an en or an em dash that I use? Also, if I want to slow down a conversation and show that the speaker is taking his/her time in the conversation, without using “ers” and “hmms,” would I use an en or em dash or an ellipsis?
A. I’m so glad you asked because I see writers using all sorts of variations of the dash and the ellipsis. Aside from being incorrect, the usage is frequently distracting and downright annoying to knowledgeable readers.
1. The dash
The one-em or 1-em dash is used for an interruption, a cutting short of a line of dialogue before the character has stopped speaking. For example:
“How many times do I have to––”
“Leave me alone!” My daughter stamped her size ten. “I was just about to––”
“I’d never know it by watching you add more stuff to all this clut––”
Notice that I use a double hyphen above to simulate the em dash. For anyone having trouble remembering the keyboard shortcut that creates this full-length dash, or who learns the shortcut from someone with a different word processing program for a different platform, simply use two hyphens. A doubled hyphen is often preferred because it’s unmistakable, especially if your editor specifies Courier font. Experienced typesetters and page layout people know to search for and replace certain recurring features, such as the double hyphen.
The downside of using two hyphens is that sometimes the pair falls at the end of a line and breaks in the middle, causing the next line to begin with a single hyphen. Don’t worry about those breaks. Be sure to leave no spaces before or after either a dash or a doubled hyphen. Frequently, writers leave a space before the dash but not after, and sometimes after but not before. Sometimes I see every possible combination of dashes, spaces, double and single hyphens known to humankind, all in the same manuscript. It’s okay to strike whatever keys your fingers happen to hit at the moment your mind is focused on putting the scene before you into words, but do fix those inconsistencies when you later revise. This means using the search and replace feature over and over until you find every variation of those willy-nilly impulses.
In the three-line dialogue sample above, also notice the lack of end punctuation after each dash just before the close quotation mark. Even though the first line of dialogue begins as an interrogatory, the dash is not followed by a question mark. One exception is to follow the dash with a comma IF a “said” tag follows the close quotation mark. But a tag would defeat the purpose of using dashes to simulate rapid-fire interruptions, wouldn’t it?
The terms “en” and “em” to distinguish the length of a dash come from the width of the type itself: just as the letter M is twice the width of the letter N, so too are the dashes that match those widths. The en dash is used only under specific circumstances, such as to connect a range of numbers or dates:
The event is the 2009–2010 national conference.
Please reserve the months June–August to prepare for the September trade show.
The en dash has other uses, but those are rare and occur primarily in the writing of nonfiction. The Chicago Manual of Style, currently in its 15th edition, is the authority for these and all other style standards used in book publishing. These standards are not the same as set forth in the Associated Press Stylebook for the publishing of periodicals–habits of usage that writers with a background in journalism find hard to give up.
2. The ellipsis
In dialogue three dots are used to represent the speaker’s trailing off. If nothing follows that third dot except the close quotation mark, add a fourth dot to represent the period. In nonfiction an ellipsis signifies words omitted from quoted material. Additional punctuation options are more complicated than with dialogue, especially for academic writing and research that attempts to be true to the original source.
However, the frequent use of ellipses is deadly. Readers lose patience with characters who are continually trailing off or pausing. You have many more effective techniques for slowing a conversation, such as using longer sentences than you would for fast-paced dialogue. Also add more narrative. One form of narrative that’s especially effective are the beats that follow lines of dialogue, instead of tags. Use standalone sentences or beats together with dialogue to show the character’s body language and other behavior.
If the purpose of an ellipsis is to suggest that a character is reluctant, hesistant, or doubtful, there’s no better model than the series of stalling behaviors of the headmaster on pages 58–61 in For the Sake of Elena by Elizabeth George. Each behavior is a perfect example of how to show a character taking his time about answering a detective’s questions. I quote several paragraphs from this excellent scene in Clue #21 in my own books for writers, Don’t Murder Your Mystery and Don’t Sabotage Your Submission.
Subtle behaviors and body language reveal so much more about a character than a series of monotonous ellipses. The effective use of such techniques separate the imaginative, observant writer from the amateur.
Q. I keep coming across the word “density” but I’m puzzled. I think of density as making something more difficult to understand, or to crowd more text on a page. Yet I’m getting the impression that density is a positive quality. What am I missing?
A. Density in your novel occurs whenever something you create, whether a character, image, object, word, or setting, serves multiple functions or purposes. Let’s say one of your characters witnesses a crime that reminds her of some traumatic event in her past. When she’s questioned by a detective she pictures the past event and mistakenly gives an incorrect description of the scene she recently saw. That description serves at least two purposes in your novel: one, it illuminates the traumatic event that still haunts her and accounts for her current quirky behavior, and two, it creates a “red herring” that complicates the plot by sending the detective off in pursuit of the wrong suspect.
Think of density as pulling double duty. Or triple, although some elements in your novel may exist for only a single purpose. That’s okay, too, such as for a very minor, walk-on-type character who has a specific, limited function in the plot. But if you make this character funny, the humor he adds is a secondary function that gives some density to his role. Occasionally you’ll find that you can combine two minor characters into one, especially if you have a great many characters. The result is greater depth for that composite character.
Let’s say you create a character for the initial purpose of having her find a piece of evidence. This scenario advances the plot. Then you decide to create a personality for her that serves as a foil to the very different personality of your main character. In addition, you might develop her behavior and dialogue to suggest a limited education.
Already this character is serving three purposes, not bad in the density department. Let’s say you then discover that you’ve developed her role to show an unschooled, unsophisticated person who nevertheless possesses a level of native intelligence that results in her making a profound observation about a situation. That’s a theme. It may even turn out to be an unplanned twist on your main theme, such as all the education available to a wealthy person doesn’t improve his judgment.
Density has to do with packing multiple meanings, functions, or purposes into what might start out, on the surface, as a single-function element. Even a metaphor has density. Readers (and editors) enjoy discovering multiple layers.
Diverting suspicion
Q. I worry that I’m making the identity of my killer too obvious, so I revise and then worry that I’m making the killer too obscure. I’m not sure how to achieve the right balance.
A. Here’s a simple but often necessary technique to throw readers off the scent and enable you to surprise them in the climax. Be sure to eliminate your killer, fairly early, from the pool of suspects by establishing that she couldn’t possibly have committed the crime. Give her an airtight alibi (lack of opportunity), which is cleverly proved false much later. Or have your detective determine that your wheelchair-dependent villain couldn’t have delivered the fatal blow to the top of the basketball player’s head (lack of means). Or come up with something else that indicates an apparent lack of motive. Naturally, you’ll endow other, innocent characters with nefarious behaviors to create suspicion.
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