My editor recommends a space after, but I think this is only when you're starting another sentence, right? When you're just breaking up a sentence, like someone stammering in dialogue, you don't need spaces? It just looks funny with them.
Deke
Correct. Wha...what happened? is correct. And then I turned around.... There was a monster behind the door! is correct. Anything else is nonstandard.
Note that if you are going to have a space, there are FOUR dots. One is the period.
Note that if you are going to have a space, there are FOUR dots. One is the period.
It's true that having a space after the ellipses is non-standard, but my editor recommends it to help with ebook formatting. If an ellipses occurs near the end of the line on the screen of an eReader or a reading app, then everything - the word before the ellipses, the ellipses and the word following - will be treated as though it were one word and will be bumped to the next line and spaces will be added between the words of what precedes the ellipses. You end up with the following:
I shook my head in disbelief.
"Wha...what happened?"
Adding a space after the ellipses gets you the following when it occurs near the end of the line:
I shook my head in disbelief. "Wha...
what happened?"
[Edited for clarity.]
I shook my head in disbelief.
"Wha...what happened?"
Adding a space after the ellipses gets you the following when it occurs near the end of the line:
I shook my head in disbelief. "Wha...
what happened?"
[Edited for clarity.]
I align-left for ebooks. Pretty much all the "big press" books I buy do, too. It never looks right when it's justified because it doesn't have the hand-tuning that a formatter gives to a print book, and there are ALWAYS ugly, distracting lines, especially on small screens. I personally do a ridiculous amount of reading on my phone, and I hate it when books are unreadable because of justification.
I always use a space after, unless the ellipsis is leading into the word, or it's a broken-up word. In the case of Wh...what it might be acceptable to use no space, though I always prefer to use one. If a completely different word follows, I always use the space.
Of course now the disciples of CMoS will undoubtedly show up to say I'm wrong, but frankly I don't think CMoS is very good with ellipses anyway.
Of course now the disciples of CMoS will undoubtedly show up to say I'm wrong, but frankly I don't think CMoS is very good with ellipses anyway.
It depends which style guide you subscribe to. The Chicago Manual of Style (13.39) says to use suspension points like this . . . to indicate faltering speech. I hate suspension points because of the way they often get formatted at the ends of lines.
Because there are so many different styles, whatever you do, some people will think it's wrong. The conclusion I have drawn is just be consistent. I happen to prefer the way an ellipsis with a space after it formats in ebooks.
Because there are so many different styles, whatever you do, some people will think it's wrong. The conclusion I have drawn is just be consistent. I happen to prefer the way an ellipsis with a space after it formats in ebooks.
Agreed - I always put a space after the ellipses so it won't format weirdly.
And it might be proper style, but I never put a fourth period after the ellipses, at the end of a sentence. The way I look at it, the ellipsis takes the place of the whole end of the sentence, including the period. And it looks weird. So I don't do it.
And it might be proper style, but I never put a fourth period after the ellipses, at the end of a sentence. The way I look at it, the ellipsis takes the place of the whole end of the sentence, including the period. And it looks weird. So I don't do it.
I thought putting a space after an ellipsis was wrong unless you also have a space before. A while back, I did a bunch of research and was convinced it should either be "word ... word" or "word...word" not ever "word... word." I was confident about this from what I found at the time, but it's been a while, so I don't remember exactly what I read.
Anyway, I put no spaces between ellipses, and I don't see any formatting problems, at least on my Kindle. I'm looking at a line right now on my kindle where two words are connected by an ellipsis with no space, yet there is still an appropriate line break. It looks like this:
word...
word
(even though the words are connected like this: word...word)
Anyway, I put no spaces between ellipses, and I don't see any formatting problems, at least on my Kindle. I'm looking at a line right now on my kindle where two words are connected by an ellipsis with no space, yet there is still an appropriate line break. It looks like this:
word...
word
(even though the words are connected like this: word...word)
I like the fourth period approach, but oddly that appears to be possibly nonstandard except in the case of quoting text. When trailing off, it's way less clear. Unfortunately most of the style guides I've seen seem to take a "La la la I'm not listening" approach to dealing with the trail-off ellipse, so there's very little good information to go on.Carol Davis said:
Additional dot (the period, in fact) after the three-dot ellipsis, then a space because you put spaces after periods.
A lot of people don't know that when you end a sentence with an ellipsis, you need proper sentence-ending punctuation (period, exclamation point, question mark) after the ellipsis.
Beyond that, I'll let my editor yell at me over spaces before or after or in the middle or whatever. While I'm writing, I don't put any spaces around them unless they end with a period.
A lot of people don't know that when you end a sentence with an ellipsis, you need proper sentence-ending punctuation (period, exclamation point, question mark) after the ellipsis.
Beyond that, I'll let my editor yell at me over spaces before or after or in the middle or whatever. While I'm writing, I don't put any spaces around them unless they end with a period.
Like dashes, most style guides will tell you to EITHER put a space on each side or to put no spaces at all.
As far as a fourth period, MLA reference-style quoting will call for that, but I think most fiction styles will not. I am *pretty sure* that CMOS recommends ending sentences with 3 periods. A trailing off sentence is SUPPOSED to signal an incomplete sentence, just like a dash does for an interrupted sentence. It admittedly gets a little muddy when there is a sentence immediately after it.
There is also a difference between 3 periods and an ellipsis character. For simplicity and compatibility, I personally use 3 periods.
NOW FOR MY RANT!
I personally think CMOS, etc. do not properly account for ebooks, or an age where text is not meant to be hand-positioned. If you ever put a space before dashes or ellipses, then you end up in a situation where they can start a new line, which is VERY awkward. Left-justifying does not fix this problem (meaning if you are traditional and left-justify, you should not have any spaces).
For me personally, I use dashes, ellipses, colons, semi-colons, periods, and commas ALL consistently. Maybe it's because I'm a programmer and love consistent syntax. That means (no space)(punctuation mark)(space) whether you are ending a sentence or not. This style also allows you to right-justify text and allows word spacing to look more consistent over the entire line.
I wrote a blog post about this with pictures for clarity, if anyone's interested!
http://dominofinn.com/the-almighty-dash/
I'd love to hear what people think about this style, even though I know some will hate it.
As far as a fourth period, MLA reference-style quoting will call for that, but I think most fiction styles will not. I am *pretty sure* that CMOS recommends ending sentences with 3 periods. A trailing off sentence is SUPPOSED to signal an incomplete sentence, just like a dash does for an interrupted sentence. It admittedly gets a little muddy when there is a sentence immediately after it.
There is also a difference between 3 periods and an ellipsis character. For simplicity and compatibility, I personally use 3 periods.
NOW FOR MY RANT!
I personally think CMOS, etc. do not properly account for ebooks, or an age where text is not meant to be hand-positioned. If you ever put a space before dashes or ellipses, then you end up in a situation where they can start a new line, which is VERY awkward. Left-justifying does not fix this problem (meaning if you are traditional and left-justify, you should not have any spaces).
For me personally, I use dashes, ellipses, colons, semi-colons, periods, and commas ALL consistently. Maybe it's because I'm a programmer and love consistent syntax. That means (no space)(punctuation mark)(space) whether you are ending a sentence or not. This style also allows you to right-justify text and allows word spacing to look more consistent over the entire line.
I wrote a blog post about this with pictures for clarity, if anyone's interested!
http://dominofinn.com/the-almighty-dash/
I'd love to hear what people think about this style, even though I know some will hate it.
Some style guides say so, but others don't. The Associated Press Stylebook says to put proper sentence-ending punctuation (period, exclamation point, question mark) before the ellipsis, with a space in between. ie Will you come? ...ElHawk said:
For formatting purposes, make sure you're using an actual ellipsis (one character) and not just three periods. Three periods can result in the periods being broken up on two lines, which is awkward, ugly, and unprofesh.
ETA: For myself, I always put a space after an ellipsis, unless it's the end of a sentence, in which case, yes, an ellipsis is followed directly by a period.
ETA: For myself, I always put a space after an ellipsis, unless it's the end of a sentence, in which case, yes, an ellipsis is followed directly by a period.
I never thought about this, but I don't think it is true. I exported this into a mobi and viewed it with several hardware viewers:Ronny K said:
-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-....-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-......-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-.........-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-.............-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-............................-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-..............................-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...
And each line always ended in a dash. This means MOBI files don't break up periods. What software do you see that does?
I actually have an article on my website about ellipses: http://victoryediting.com/ellipses-how-to-torture-a-writer-with-three-tiny-dots/
A summary:
A summary:
You always want a space on ellipses. Technically, it's space, period, space, period, space, period, space with whatever punctuation you'd normally have. Unfortunately, that spacing tends to play havoc with eBooks, as does three periods (...).
Best fix I've found is to let Word do its single character ellipsis (type three dots in a row to get this - you'll know it "took" because the kerning will shift a bit and if you use the arrow cursor keys, one tap of the key will go to the beginning or end of the entire ellipsis). You want to "attach" the ellipsis to the word preceding it so that it remains on the same line, and then space after the ellipsis if there's another word following - no space if punctuation.
Doing it that way ensures that you won't have lines that display on the Kindle like this:
"So much of our lives together is what you wanted. Not me. I felt . .
. superfluous a lot of the time."
Or
"So much of our lives together is what you wanted. Not me. I felt
… superfluous a lot of the time."
and also that there's not a huge hunk of white space at the end of a line.
The joys of variable fonts
Also, make sure there's a comma if there's a dialog tag: "Where are…," she asked.
If it's NOT a complete sentence, it does not take a period. Sometimes, however, you do have a complete sentence, in which case punctuate as normal.
You actually don't need a period if it's an incomplete sentence, which is often the case with ellipses.ElHawk said:
Hmm. Interesting. I haven't actually seen it, but I have it (or thought I had it) on very good authority. It could be an obscure scenario, or it could be false. I still use the ellipsis entity, just in case.Domino Finn said:
Domino, mobi files absolutely do break up three periods across lines, though not the ellipsis character.
![Image]()
Cherise, punctuating that way implies that Will you come? is complete and that there is then missing text after that question, not that the person trailed off. Context is important when deciding how to punctuate, especially since ellipses can be used for multiple purposes.Cherise Kelley said:
To answer the original question, I would not put a space if the stutter is the same word:
I d...d...don't know.
BUT
I really don't... Never mind.
Chicago would say to do it this way:
I d...d...don't know.
BUT
I really don't . . . Never mind.
But see my above posts as to why that causes problems with ebooks. Hope that helped
I use the ellipsis character, and a space after. No period. I think it's overkill, ugly, and wrong as the sentence doesn't actually end but sort of tapers off. Maybe makes more sense if you call the period by its British name, full stop.
That's true but the AP was never intended for fiction, but for newspapers. In newspapers, an ellipsis is normally used to show an omission in a quote, not to show faltering speech as in fiction.Cherise Kelley said:
CMoS distinguishes between an ellipsis for omitting something from a quote and what they refer to as 'suspension points' which is when an ellipsis is used to show faltering speech. A full stop before an ellipsis (or suspension points if you like) that shows faltering speech wouldn't be logical, and CMoS does not suggest that.
ETA: CMoS also says to put a space between the suspension points, but not after. Whether one chooses to follow this or not, many people do consider it the 'standard' way to do it. Being indy, it is up to us whether or not to follow the standard. See CMoS Section 13.39 (16th edition) for specifics.
Anne, I agree with your blog post. You more or less came to the same conclusions as I did. It's nice to see other writers doing the same thing, because my editor was REALLY against it!Anne Victory said:Domino, mobi files absolutely do break up three periods across lines, though not the ellipsis character.
![Image]()
As far as that picture... I think that might be [period][space][period][space][period], which would absolutely be split up (another reason never to use that method). I don't think MOBI splits up consecutuve periods, unless there was a flaw in my test that I haven't thought about.
The stylebook used by my Big 6 publisher was what I describe.  Check the others. I'm pretty sure they are all that way, as well. What!... Really?... Why, yes, really....
 Check the others. I'm pretty sure they are all that way, as well. What!... Really?... Why, yes, really....I did a lot of research on this not too long ago, including speaking to university professors and language experts:
There are a few stated "rules" you'll find, Chicago Manual recommends "word . . . word", (and if you check major publishers, this seems to be the go to). However! The majority of Lit Profs I spoke with agreed that when you're dealing with DIALOGUE (where ellipses usually live), you can essentially throw those rules out the window. Just as you can spell words strangely to denote accents or lisps or just bad grammar, so too can you mess around with punctuation style and technically not be "wrong".
So, fear not if you like "word...word", or "word... word", or whatever. As long as you use three dots (unless ending a sentence), you're pretty much good to go.
Your publisher may have a preference, and it should go without saying that you choose one style and stick with it, but that's just what it is, a choice of style. At least, that's the noise I heard from some college folks.
Cheers.
There are a few stated "rules" you'll find, Chicago Manual recommends "word . . . word", (and if you check major publishers, this seems to be the go to). However! The majority of Lit Profs I spoke with agreed that when you're dealing with DIALOGUE (where ellipses usually live), you can essentially throw those rules out the window. Just as you can spell words strangely to denote accents or lisps or just bad grammar, so too can you mess around with punctuation style and technically not be "wrong".
So, fear not if you like "word...word", or "word... word", or whatever. As long as you use three dots (unless ending a sentence), you're pretty much good to go.
Your publisher may have a preference, and it should go without saying that you choose one style and stick with it, but that's just what it is, a choice of style. At least, that's the noise I heard from some college folks.
Cheers.
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