Questions on Style

dahabnz said:

I have heard that publishers have different preferences regarding how a manuscript should be formatted. What I am looking for is some guidance on what preferences to use.

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Always use the publisher's style guide, if there is one. Otherwise:

Spaces after periods/ fullstops.
One space or two?

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One. But as others have pointed out when this point gets argued, it's highly unlikely that your manuscript will be rejected if you use two.

Using Ellipses … and M-Dash

I use both in dialogue. When the speaker ends a sentence unfinished or with a pause I use an ellipse … If the dialogue is interrupted, I use an m-dash —

Eg
‘No I … Why don’t you come inside and—’
‘Do you think I’m idiot? I’m not going in there.’

Is this the best usage, or should I choose one or the other (ellipse or m-dash) and use it for both? And if so which one.

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Your usage is correct. Dash for interrupted speech, ellipsis for pauses.

Formatting dialogue

I remember being told in one of my courses that publishers have different standards for formatting dialogue. My question is which one to use.

Should I put my dialogue in line with action of the speaker or on a separate line. My preference is to include the speaker’s dialogue in the same paragraph as their actions

Eg
John sat down. ‘I like it here.’

John sat down.
‘I like it here.’

It seems to be a style thing. I have looked in bookstores and the voyager imprints appear to include dialogue as part of the paragraph dealing with the speaker. This is my preference, as it suits my style or writing, but I have heard conflicting views.

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I'm most familiar with your first example, to the point where I'd think it weird to see the second, and can't imagine why you'd do it. Keep the action with the speech, unless what the character is doing is so long and involved that there would be a natural paragraph break before he or she speaks (in that case, make sure it's clear who is speaking, either with another brief bit of action or a dialogue tag).

Hope that helps.

I still use two spaces after a sentence, and as an editor, I much prefer writers do the same. It gives me a bit more room to insert proofreaders' marks. But anyone who says it matters is simply wrong. Your manuscript is not going to be published, and such spaces in a manuscript have zip to do with spaces in the published book. Editors, at least those who know what they're doing, don't give a rat's ass how many spaces you place after a period.

The one space after a period rule is mostly a myth. It came about because of early electronic submissions, not because two is a holdover from typewriter days, not because any print editor ever asked for one space, and not because there's something wrong with two spaces. It's a myth, and it makes no difference at all in the published book. Forget it.

As for dialogue, if John is the one speaking, it should always be formatted as your first example.

John sat down. "I like it here."

If you change lines here, you'll need to add attribution It's a matter of whether the words are actually connected to the speaker, and whether the dialogue is a continuation of the action. In this case, they are because you're really saying "John sat down and said, "I like it here."

This means the dialogue remains on the same line. If dialogue isn't a direct continuation of the preceding words, however, you make a new paragraph.

As for ellipses, as an editor, I hate seeing them used to indicate a pause in dialogue. Unfortunately, this has become fairly common in fiction, and is now considered acceptable by many. But make a decision, either ellipses or em dashes, and stick to it.

This is an interesting one, and a good question. I was raised on AP newspaper style, and consequently had developed a lot of habits that made my editor crazy: two spaces after a period, no spaces between ellipses, a space on either side of an em-dash, and so on.

But as Marlys said, always use your editor's stylebook. Mine uses the Chicago Manual of Style, which I like a lot, but was really a struggle for me at first (and there are still some places where the CMOS punts and you've gotta sorta ad lib). Now that I've gotten used to it, I do like it and use it, more often than not, as my go-to guide for formatting and citation questions.

Jamesaritchie said:

But make a decision, either ellipses or em dashes, and stick to it.

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One reason for this should be obvious. If you do something consistently, it is easy for the editor to Search and Replace it to the way he wants it.

Jamesaritchie said:

As for ellipses, as an editor, I hate seeing them used to indicate a pause in dialogue. Unfortunately, this has become fairly common in fiction, and is now considered acceptable by many. But make a decision, either ellipses or em dashes, and stick to it.
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I think ellipses and em dashes connote slightly different things. I use em dashes for speech that is abrubtly cut off, ellipses to indicate a traing off of speech.

"What the hell -- "
"Please don't use profanity," she interrupted.

As opposed to:

She shook her head. "Well if that's what you believe..."

Or, ellipses to indicate a slight pause. "No thank you. I don't drink...wine."

__

More and more publishers prefer one space. Since most typesetting is done electronically, it's easier so they don't have to convert. But really, many don't care one way or another.

The common usage of ... and -- (at least in fiction I've read) is the way your described it: use ellipses for pauses and trailing speech; use em-dashes for interruption.

If the action is relevant and it's the person who speaks, place the action with the dialogue: He shook his head. "No, I don't think so."

There are, of course, exceptions to the rules. Consistency is the key.

Even in the days of computers & word processors, all my keyboarding & business teachers rigorously enforced the two space rule. Students who missed even one lost 10% penalty.

The only two other rules that were so highly enforced were:

-- Keep all your fingers on the Home-Row keys!
-- Don't look at the keyboard, look at the screen!

I'll go with what James Ritchie said. Sums it up nicely.

However, there's an oddity here. A lot of amateur guidelines are out there making weird formatting demands BEFORE the work is even submitted. No. We shouldn't have to reformat our work unless it is accepted.

There has been a standard manuscript format for ages, and a basic text file format to go with it. Just because a newbie editor is unaware of it, doesn't mean they can ask for any wacky foamrt they want. Or, if they do, they'd be pretty dumb to throw out a perfectly good story because the author didn't use double-weird-dashes when they "should have" used a curlicue. Odds are, if a story pulls them into it, they won't see the formatting anyway.

After a piece is accepted, I'll gladly format it however they like.

I take guidelines seriously, but I object to any idiotic demands included in them. It's usually the sign of a bossy perfectionist editor or an entire operation that doesn't have a clue.

One space or two? One, according to page 206 The Little Brown Handbook (9th ed.). This is the grammar/style book used in many college grammar and comp classes.

The problem with using two spaces is that, when text is justified, "holes" appear. This is especially noticeable in narrow columns of justified text. The small town papers in my area frequently receive emailed press releases. I can always tell which writers use two spaces because of the holes. The newspapers just copy and paste; they don't remove the extra spaces.

Ellipses: For academic writing, three in the middle of a sentence, four at the end. MS Word likes to make non-breaking spaces, but the correct way, in academic writing, is this:

I think . . . he said. . . .

For the three in the middle, a space after the word they follow and spaces between. For the end, the first one is the period and is next to the last word with no space. Yeah, I know it looks weird. . . . (LBH, pp. 206, 510)

However, the AP Stylebook (1995 edition) says three periods with one space on either side. Like ... this. With the period at the end of a sentence, it's a period, space, ellipses:

I was about to say something. ....

Keep in mind that I'm not an editor—just a former English teacher who owns a couple of books.