You wouldn’t think that three little dots would cause so much trouble… but here we are! An ellipsis is the mark of punctuation created when you join three periods together and hit the spacebar–your writing program should join the separate periods into a single unit of punctuation.
An ellipsis indicates hesitation… and it’s really annoying when people overuse them. There are legitimate reasons for people to pause in your writing (especially during narration), but when someone always ends a sentence with an ellipses, it makes them seem uncertain about everything.
A few ground rules:
- An ellipsis includes three periods. Not two or four, but three.
- An ellipsis can function as end punctuation. You do not need to add a period or question mark or exclamation point after it.
- You use an ellipsis to indicate a pause in the sentence, a moment for a character to find the right word or decide how to proceed or what to say, or even for the narration to reveal something … slowly.
- Generally speaking, treat ellipses like a word when they occur in the middle of a sentence or clause; that is, they get a space on either side. So if you begin … a sentence, and then continue the thought, it looks like this.
- If the ellipsis occurs after a complete clause, put a space after it, but not before. So if I’m not certain how to do this… but eventually I read a blog and figure it out, it looks like this.
- If the ellipsis ends the clause and the next sentence is its own thought, capitalize the first word after the ellipsis. For instance, if I am uncertain… Then I go home and read a blog about ellipses, this is how it would look.
Ellipses in action
If the ellipses ends the sentence, it looks like this:
- Don’t get me wrong: I had a blast. I don’t know… It just didn’t spark anything, you know?
- “I won’t let you paint my nails because…” Jordan thought for a moment.
If the ellipse is in the middle of sentence, it looks like this:
- He paid his bills, his taxes, bought what he needed … and watched his bank account dwindle.
- We’d need sets, actors, cameramen, sound people … and more importantly, money to pay those people.
If the ellipses is in the middle of a sentence where it is more “stuttering” or hesitating, it looks like this:
- I… I don’t know.
- Wh… What?
MORE Ellipses Examples
No Space before—new idea after ellipses…
- Gabriella tells her, “Like you… yes… I see a part of myself in your face, the way you are looking at me now.”
- He helped them start the genocide that’s happening where I was born, blinding them into believing they were gods… that they have the power over life and death.
- It’d break her heart to hear… and you and I both know I shouldn’t be naysaying a gift.
- I would say I like to go out in that rec yard, but it’s a concrete box with mesh over my head… still walls. No need to belabor that… I’m fucking done.
- But this… this type of thing, she can’t investigate.
- Wilson’s dead… my boy… my legacy is dead, but I’ll be goddamned if my legacy will be some bitch sitting in my house.
- He swirls the brown liquid in the cup, teasing spilling it on her white couch… messing with her some.
- I know you have something you want to say… Not speaking isn’t an easy thing for you.
- I… I don’t know.
Space—pause within same idea … within the sentence (Christopher Walken style)
- “They are evil. Devils … destroying what was a great country, a great people.”
- Some places … like the one I was at before all this started, they had good food.
- Her face absorbs the seriousness of the space … and the death.
- Tanner … Brogdon is not just some pretty boy.
- That you exaggerated or lied about … some truth.
Both space and no space in the same sentence!
- He thought … he couldn’t accept that by working with those … savages who now control the South… He thought he could control everyone.
- Either you embellished it or something, or you made it up… Either way … it hurts your credibility.
The bottom line is that ellipses are hard, but they can be mastered by following a few simple rules. Think about the clauses in your sentence and use that as your guide for spacing!
