Ellipses

Ugawa said:

I have a few questions.

I know when there is a question mark/exclamation mark at the end it is written like this …?

But what if it’s the end of a sentence? Would it be four dots? Three dots a space, then a full stop. Or just still only three dots?
- …. / … . / …

Also, which one of these would be right?
He…was / He … was / He… was ?
Thank you, any help is appreciated
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I think this is one of those areas where there are lots of "correct" answers.

The latest Stephen King anthology handles it:

And she went into the night. . . . (Period followed by three spaced dots.)

A Canadian writer insists this is correct where she writes:

And she went into the night... . (Spaced period after three unspaced dots.)

My new Associated Press manual says it should be:

And she went into the night. ... (Period, space, then three unspaced dots.)

Some publishers still use three spaced dots at the end:

And she went into the night . . .

Seems to me that the upside of this is writers have lots of latitude, and publishers can change ellipses to suit their rules.

As usual, the answer is, "It depends."

For your own work, decide on your style and be consistent.

When you're writing for publication work to that publication's house style, and be consistent.

The Chicago Manual of Style used to state that an ellipsis should always be followed by appropriate punctuation: so, if it's at the end of a sentence you add a full stop after it, or an exclamation mark or question mark.

However, in her excellent essay about copy-editing, Teresa Nielsen Hayden says that Tor's house style is to NOT punctuate ellipses.

As I said, decide on your style and be consistent.

Do something reasonable, like Chase suggests, and expect your publisher's copyeditor to change it to the publisher's standard format.

For the record, my manuscripts follow the Stephen King example above.

I was taught to put a space after the ellipsis but never before; and not to add one between the ellipsis and its following punctuation. So:

He said yes.... Then he walked away.

He said yes...! Then he walked away.

He said yes... then he walked away.

And remember an ellipsis signifies a trailing off, while a dash signifies an iterruption.

I always just used just the three ellipses

"And she told me that was all..."

The other ways just look strange to me. I dunno...

See what I did there?

So "I was taught. . . ." and "I always just. . . ." are the very reasons there's no single, one and only, universal method to represent ellipsis points (using the singular term to indicate a series of dots) or ellipses (the plural term).

It's also why every 333 days we dig this dead horse up and re-beat it.