How To Use Dashes In Fiction
Em dash ctrl alt minus far top right on the number pad.
How to use dashes in fiction. Ap puts spaces on each side of em dashes. Ready for more than you ever wanted to know about the types of dashes and how publishers typically use them on both sides of the atlantic. In fiction the em dash almost always appears with no spaces around it. Cms uses no spaces around em dashes. And of course conventional usage depends on your location united states versus united kingdom and whether your.
Em dashes may set off a parenthetical element or interject an idea not in the sense of a grammatical interjection however in a sentence. Use an em dash to join independent clauses. This is in part because smf uses a courier font where every character is the same width so technically a hyphen is going to look the same as an em dash so you need to use two hyphens to indicate an em dash. Interjecting thoughts both non fiction and fiction writers will use em dashes in this case. The dash works somewhat like parentheses or commas but it is used where a stronger punctuation is needed.
There are four dashes you re most likely to use in fiction. En dashes are generally used to indicate ranges or to act as a substitute in word pairings for to and and. The em dash is particularly useful in dialogue there is a distressing tendency for some writers to overuse the em dash and i often notice this kind of overuse in amateurish fiction where there are also other problems. Dashes that set off text and replace alternative punctuation the en dash and the em dash can be used to set off an augmenting or explanatory word or phrase in a sentence that could stand alone without the insertion. En dash ctrl minus far top right on the number pad.
Most commonly a dash connects an independent clause with another with a related thought plus a conjunction like or but yet as for and after the second dash. Generally hyphens are used to link words to make other words or phrases. If you answered yes professional editor louise harnby has an entire post on hyphens en dashes and em dashes in fiction for you to enjoy. How to create em dashes and en dashes.