• don’t trust their writing
• don’t trust readers to interpret
• make an attempt to be dramatic—and fail
• write the words as they hear them inside their heads, including the pauses between the phrases.
The pause is properly called an ellipsis (. . .). When used as an obvious pause, it's effective. "I was thinking. . . maybe. . . "
Too many writers use it as a dramatic pause. It rarely works. Trust readers to get the point without going melodramatic.
• She hopes against all hope that Ben isn’t dead. . . that he’ll soon return. . . that she’ll finally be able to tell him the truth. . .
• Scenes of my own arrest flashed rapidly. . . my disgrace. . . my loss of innocence. . .
If I write clearly,
readers will grasp my meaning.
Posts
As always, very basic and very true. Thanks Cec.
ReplyDeleteNow does a tsk...tsk...tsk deserves it too? ;-)
Thank you for your wise counsel. Does this inclued overuse of the m-dash?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't classify the overuse of the em dash as purple prose, but it's easy to overuse. A few years ago my wife made me aware that I had started to overdo the em dash. After that, I watched it more carefully.
ReplyDeleteThe em dash is a printer's term, and we make it with two hypens immediately after a word and before the material we want to add and no spaces between the words. As soon as you hit the space bar, Word makes the two hypens into a long dash (em dash).
I'll write more about the em dash later in this lengthy series.