: Re: Eliminating the Dash in Prose Writing I have been accused — shock, horror — of using the dash (the one that indicates a three-quarters pause) too much in my fiction. Thing is — I quite

@Gonzalez219

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I disagree with the premise -- Mostly I disagree. I think this is a matter of opinion.

I think like the use of a pet word, using the dash can be overdone, but the error is in using it to the point of irritation for the reader. Dashes and ellipsis indicate pauses for dramatic effect; or with a character thinking, a self-interruption to modify or amend something just said. This latter, from the narrator, is seldom appropriate. Skip the original utterance and rewrite completely. Except in first person present tense, the narrator should never be thinking.

For dramatic pause, I find it fine, but I think doing it too frequently is grating.

That said, in dialogue they do have their place; dialogue is written as if the character is speaking in real time, self-interruption or pause for dramatic effect -- or dare I say interjection? -- are the kinds of speech timing marks people really use. Much like commas, periods, question marks and exclamation points are marks indicating timing or tonal qualities of the speech. The character's mind is active and producing multiple thoughts at once. Indicating that state of mind can help the reader understand the mental state of the character.

For the narrator, for interjections, I would not use dashes to indicate that, I'd set it off with a pair of commas.

Or for the narrator (for interjections) I would use parenthesis.

But in speech -- especially halting or uncertain speech -- dashes are the way to go ... unless the sentence trails off or the pause is quite long. Then I would use an ellipsis.

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