Dashes

Gynn · Jun 15, 2008

I tried the search function, but it was no help. =(

Anyway, I came across this sentence online: "The actor and his wife, Jennifer Garner -- what a dreamy Hollywood couple -- like to keep their marriage and family out of the limelight as much as possible."

My question is, when is appropriate to use dashes in writing? Can you use them as an aside, in place of parenthesis?
"The actor and his wife, Jennifer Garner (what a dreamy Hollywood couple) like to keep their marriage and family out of the limelight as much as possible."

Can you choose either/or?

MumblingSage · Jun 15, 2008

I think in many cases you can--dashes just give a different feel. I prefer dashes, partially because they look more a part of the work than stuff in perentheses (which seems very closed off from the rest of the prose).

Dashes are mostly used for asides, and normally as part of the voice of a character or as part of the style of a more casual blogger or journalist.

Matera the Mad · Jun 15, 2008

Yep--that's what they're good for--and parentheses are not cool in dialog, so dash away.

Kalyke · Jun 15, 2008

Two dashes are really the signal to place an M dash in later during a global. The M dash is what is used to set off a phrase, many writers have used them instead of quote marks for dialog. To global an M-Dash, you have to do a find replace of the two dashes with an M-dash found it your special characters.

Carmy · Jun 15, 2008

I use an em dash too.

To find it in Word, click Insert, Symbol. The em dash is on the sixth line down.

Angela_785 · Jun 15, 2008

We had a guest editor at our blog awhile back and she went over m-dashes, n-dashes & hyphens, how to use them and why. If you want to take a look, here's the link...just scroll down to #3.

http://thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com/2008/03/grammbo-speaks-edition-1.html

Tika · Jun 15, 2008

Nice blog! Thesaurus was great too!

dpaterso · Jun 16, 2008

Where did the requirement for an author to replace the two hyphens (--) em-dash with an actual em-dash (—) character come from? That's handled by the typesetter, once the editor accepts your brilliant novel and decides to publish.

-Derek

Bayley · Jun 16, 2008

Actually on word 2007 it automatically creates an em-dash when you put a dash and write a word after it. For instance if I put a dash here - then a word, it would automatically convert to — then the word. Or at least it does for me. Saves you time having to keep on opening symbols and scrolling down every time you want to use one.

dpaterso · Jun 16, 2008

Recent thread on this very subject in Tech Help forum:

Auto-changing 3 periods ... into 1-character Ellipsis … in MS Word
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106003

-Derek

Write4U2 · Jun 16, 2008

Dashes...Dots!

What about dots? For example:

"It was...um...interesting to meet you, Zara."

OK...duh... I just followed the link and got my answer.

Angela_785 · Jun 16, 2008

Tika said:
Nice blog! Thesaurus was great too!

Thanks Tika.

June Casagrande · Jun 17, 2008

Yes, there's a lot of overlap between the jobs done by the dash, the parenthesis, and even the colon -- that forgotten little mark. I'm not home with my style books now, but I think the dash's main job is described as "denoting an abrubt change in tone."

In general, I really dislike parentheses in creative writing and especially news writing. To my mind, they seem to tell the reader: I have to squeeze in some information now and I can't be bothered to weave it into any nicely flowing prose.

I also suspect that parentheses cue the reader to sort of skim past the info, as if the parenthetical information isn't worth their time. If it's not, maybe it shouldn't be in there at all. If it is, perhaps it's worth weaving into the narrative instead of just cramming it in.

I base this prejudice mainly on my experience editing feature articles, where commas are sometimes the product of lazy writing and, as such, are like a rude gesture to the reader.

Of course, parentheses have their place. For example, I like 'em in Mumbling Sage's example. But I think they should be avoided whenever dashes or well-written prose can do the job better.

But then, it's late afternoon and I'm having a sugar crash. Maybe I'll see 'em more kindly in the morning. (Then again, maybe not.)

geardrops · Jun 17, 2008

Carmy said:
I use an em dash too.

To find it in Word, click Insert, Symbol. The em dash is on the sixth line down.

Also just type --.

Word will convert it for you.

Gynn · Jun 18, 2008

A final post here.

For characters interrupted, do you use dashes or ellipses?
Let's say the person is about to say, "Let's go to the movies" but gets interrupted:

"Let's go to the mov..."
"Hey!"

"Let's go to the mov-"
"Hey!"

maestrowork · Jun 18, 2008

Gynn said:
A final post here.

For characters interrupted, do you use dashes or ellipses?
Let's say the person is about to say, "Let's go to the movies" but gets interrupted:

"Let's go to the mov..."
"Hey!"

"Let's go to the mov-"
"Hey!"

Use the em-dashes. Ellipses are for trailing off or hesitation.

Cate · Jun 18, 2008

I highly recommend Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style" for information on this and a lot of other punctuation information.

Great resource.

James81 · Jun 19, 2008

If I remember correctly, dashes can be used in place of a comma in most instances.

I use a lot of dashes in my writing because when I'm reading, a comma slows me down but a dash does not. So, in effect, I think that using dashes frequently speeds the pace of the reading up a bit without sacrificing grammar to do so.

dpaterso · Jun 19, 2008

Gynn said:
"Let's go to the mov..."
"Hey!"

"Let's go to the mov-"
"Hey!"

Use em-dash to cut off dialogue, but complete the word since it's unlikely that the speaking character would break off without finishing it (unless they were, say, shot).

"Let's go to the movies, Indiana Jones is--"
"Hey! Look! I found a penny!"

-Derek

maestrowork · Jun 19, 2008

Derek is right. I hate it when I see something like "She will be here by no--" Sorry, did he just say "no" or "noon"? People don't usually break in the middle of a syllable, plus whatever's in the dialogue should be pronounceable. How do you pronounce "mov"?

HeronW · Jun 19, 2008

If it's in parentheses it's an afterthought and likely can be omitted altogether, dashes give an added lift to information or something unexpected. Again, used sparingly like chili peppers :}

maestrowork · Jun 19, 2008

HeronW said:
If it's in parentheses it's an afterthought and likely can be omitted altogether, dashes give an added lift to information or something unexpected. Again, used sparingly like chili peppers :}

I tend to agree. Although "technically" they're the same thing, I do think there's a difference. Parentheses set off something that can be omitted, while dashes set off something that adds to the sentence, but may be unrelated.

James became a corporal (his father was a corporal) today.

James became a corporal -- a highly decorated one -- today.

Sunshine13 · Jun 19, 2008

I turned off the auto em-dash in Word because I know some publishers (though I am aiming for agents right now) prefer -- vs the straight em-dash, and it's an actual requirement for MS's submitted. But I guess it's something you shouldn't headache about right now, right? I mean, it isn't a make or break kind of thing with an agent. Something like that can always be fixed. Or, do we worry about it and go ahead and make it a regular em-dash despite a publisher you may want to eventually buy into your book wanting otherwise (keep in mind it isn't being sent to that publisher first).

That was all very confusing, I hope I made sense.

dpaterso · Jun 20, 2008

ChristaCarol13 said:
I turned off the auto em-dash in Word because I know some publishers (though I am aiming for agents right now) prefer -- vs the straight em-dash, and it's an actual requirement for MS's submitted. But I guess it's something you shouldn't headache about right now, right? I mean, it isn't a make or break kind of thing with an agent. Something like that can always be fixed. Or, do we worry about it and go ahead and make it a regular em-dash despite a publisher you may want to eventually buy into your book wanting otherwise (keep in mind it isn't being sent to that publisher first).

This is one more thing to add to your list of things NOT to get paranoid about.

Just because MS Word's default autocorrect options are set up to change 2 hyphens into an em-dash, doesn't mean it's right. Turning the auto em-dash off is the sensible thing to do.

Bear in mind that Word was originally designed for writing technical documents, not for pesky fiction writers to use. You'd think by now that someone would have included an easy-to-select/one-click option for writers that switches off all the undesirable stuff like em-dash, smart quotes and apostrophes, etc. instead of having to go into numerous menu panels to do this manually.

Anyways, stop angsting and get some writing done.

-Derek

Quossum · Jun 21, 2008

Why are smart quotes and apostrophes undesirable, too? And is there anything else I should turn off in Word? I can now see the argument for the em-dash thing, as there seems to be some difference of opinion regarding how it's presented in the MS.

I'm a terrible overuser of the dash. Worse than Emily Dickinson. I find myself swatting them away like flies during the editing process.

The feeling of words in parentheses being easy to disregard: when I have students read aloud, they will open skip the phrase in parentheses, with an explanation like, "I thought that meant it wasn't important." *sigh* Useful punctuation, but be careful!

--Q

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