: Re: The use of elipses in writing a novel I am a little confused and need some help in clearing things up. In writing dialogue and the speaker pauses how do you show this. Now, from my understanding

This is called aposiopesis. And you can use either the em-dash — or ellipsis. There seems to be no real agreement on the proper use. I generally use ellipsis with space after but not before but having one both after and before is recommended by some.

That said, if you want to show someone paused, you usually should just say it. Strictly speaking apart from few specific uses ellipsis simply means that the sentence was not completed, it does not specify if there was a pause in speech beyond the normal short one between sentences. It is also misleading if the sentence is completed but after a pause.

The em-dash might fit you better since "self-interruption" is one of its uses, unlike with ellipsis. "I believe I shallâ€”no, I'm going to do it." is example Wikipedia gives which sounds lot like what you want to me.

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: Re: The use of elipses in writing a novel I am a little confused and need some help in clearing things up. In writing dialogue and the speaker pauses how do you show this. Now, from my understanding

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: Structuring a book? So I am attempting to write a book, the first I have attempted yet. My current method has been to just write scenes that come into my mind and I have over 40 pages of

: Limited 3rd Person: How to reveal character's black skin? I have a scene that I'm working on. The character in the scene is an actor who's black wearing a black face. At the end of the scene

: Publishing other peoples anecdotes I have asked friend and relations a question and want to publish the answers with their name by the answer. If I ask them if they mind it being publishes

: How to refer to a crowd of many different species? How could I say the equivalent of "A pouring wave of humanity," when there are more than one species in the scene being described?

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