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: 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
An ellipsis indicates an omission. It can also be used to indicate a pause. In the passage quoted in the question, we are seeing a haracter's stream of consciousness, and each ellipsis indicates a little jump in the thought process, a sort of mental hiccup. This sort of thing can annoy the reader if it goes on too long or is overdone, but as with all stylistic choices, there is no hard rule.
An ellipsis can be used to indicate that only part of a passage, particularly in dialog, is being skipped.
"Let me tell you about my Uncle Alex, and how he got his nickname. He was workign in a bakery at the time, and ..."
When Alice when off on these long anecdotes about members of her family that no one else knew, Mary tended to lose track. But she realized that the end of the story was approaching now.
"... and that is how he came to be known as 'Alex the Greedy'.
"That is all vey well, Alice, but what are we goign to serve at our luncheon?"
Here the ellipses are used to indicate an entire passage that was omitted.
As to formatting, if a work is published, the publisher will have a house style on how an ellipsis should be handled, and one should normally not try to vary it. In particular, i would advise against using differently formatted ellipses to mean different things. Even if the formatting makes it though the publication process without error, most readers will miss such a detail.
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