: Re: 'Ellipsis' - what do they convey and how to use them aptly in a Novel? In the writing practises guides, it is usually mentioned that use of ellipsis is a bad practice. But I have come

@Heady158

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When you are deciding if a form is good or bad, it is important to look at the context.

Are you writing a safety manual as part of a technical writing job? Then using one to imply there is more that should be obvious and has been left unsaid is probably 'not a great idea'.

Are you writing a novel, and attempting to convey different pacing and emotion in dialog between characters? Then they can be a wonderfully useful tool.

Contrary to what many will attempt to claim, the only proper way to use a grammatical tool is in a way that is understood by the reader...

That is to say, writing is a living construct that shifts and changes over time, and different tools or ideas may be used in different ways, or they may fall out of practice entirely. [I'm looking at you thorn, you sadly missed and misunderstood character. Your passing has left generations thinking Ye 'sounds old'...]

The two primary ways that I've observed this used in novels over the last several decades seems to boil down into one of two meanings.

A pause, delay, non-reply, or other place holder of "some bit of non-trivial time is here" - "Have you seen my stapler? ... Wait, there it is" suggests to a reader that there was a longer period of time between the statements - The speaker found it shortly after more looking rather than noticing it at the same time they were saying stapler.
As a placeholder for additional information that is implied, but not formally stated.
If anyone really need more details on this one, then I think we can all agree what that says about them...

There has also been a long trending rise in how it is written.
a. "like this . . . " - seems to be considered the 'textbook proper' form
b. "like this ..." - seems to be growing in usage, and arguments against it fair as well as "two spaces after a period" does these days.

However I personally support the mindset that spacing implies duration. ie:
' ... ' and ' . . . ' and even ' . . . ' are viable constructs to use in the same novel, and would imply longer duration. [Note the jump from the use of 1 space to 3 spaces, rather than from 1 to 2 - To be useful these need to have a very clear visual difference, but going more than three or four levels deep with this concept is probably better served with a more direct phrasing in your text.]

c. "like this..." - without the leading space seems to imply it is type #2 from above, however this is somewhat inconsistently applied and has possibly been on the rise for usage as either over the last few decades.

There is no legal authority that oversees how writing and grammar are deployed in English. No one will cart you off to jail if you do something different or 'wrong'.
You're really only using it wrong when readers are consistently coming away with a meaning very different than what you intended - When in doubt, check with a test reader from within your target audience.
[It doesn't matter what a textbook or manual of style says is 'the right way' if your target readers don't know, understand, or agree with it.]

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