Dialog, ellipses versus dashes.

Disrupter

Hey all, quick question that I can not seem to Google a solid answer on. Or at the very least can't interpret the answer well enough.

So lets say we have a piece of dialog where the speaker is sort of stumbling, trying to respond.

Bad example incoming:

Speaker 1: "So did you tell your mom you were gay?"

Speaker 2: "I...wait...no...I am not...who told you I was gay?"

OR

Speaker 2:"I-wait-no-I am not-who told you I was gay?"

The rule I read is that ellipses are meant to pause a train of thought that is intended to be picked back up. Where as dashes imply an abrupt change in tone or thought. So, it would lead me to believe the latter would be dashes since its switches on how the speaker intends to respond. But it looks horrible. Perhaps a more specific use of a combination of both works?

Speaker 2: "I-wait...no..I am not-who told you I was gay?"

Which of these is most correct? Or is there another method of approaching this I am not considering. In some cases, I could just end the sentence where they can be technically completed.

Speaker 2: "I-wait. No...I am not. Who told you I was gay?"

But it sort of loses the sense of stumbling for words a bit. Giving definite end to the sentences causes a pause that reflects well on the pacing but not really on the actual speakers intent. They are not remotely done with the sentence, they are struggling to find where to go next.

Blah, this confuses me and I don't know which is best. Any help?

Cincitucky

Wiki for Ellipses and Dash. There are several sections that should explain - what was I thinking about - oh yeah... talking about the reasons for dashes or ellipses.

Wouldn't a better example for Speaker 2 be: "What? I've never - wait... who told you I was gay?!"

Disrupter

Yeah, I just tossed together a quick sentence that was poorly constructed. Changing the actual sentence to flow better would solve the issues, but wouldn't answer the question. Your example does help illustrate the rule that I read, where you use a dash to show a change of thought process and ellipsis to show a pause in thought. The problem I have is in particularly choppy dialogue where the speaker is REALLY stumbling and flying all over the place. Which was what I was trying to accomplish with the first, crappy sentence.

For example, in theory, lets say the speaker is cutting himself off from saying the following sentences:

1) "I don't know what you are talking about"

2) "Wait, what did you hear?"

3) "No, I did not tell my mom."

4) "I am not gay."

5) "Who told you I was gay?"

So you end up with

"I (1) wait (2) no(3) I am not (4) who told you I was gay (5)."

Due to the fact each of these is its own thought and the speaker is quickly changing it, I THINK that the rules would imply a dash for every one, but that is very ugly and does not come across as intended to the reader.

Admittedly its a poor sentence that probably just should be changed completely. But I am just using it to try and hammer down when to use each punctuation.

However, I'll check out wiki on the subject. I fear it's a bit subjective rather then objective in the sense you have to determine what the speaker's thought process is and depending on that, either one is acceptable but mean different things. Hopefully wiki will help set some rules for me.

spool32

Cincitucky has a good solution. You have the general idea, but it'd be more effective to make the sentence words come mis-ordered. Start with a "What?" if the person is lying... that's a standard tactic for liars to buy themselves a second or two for constructing a lie. Then stumbling around sounds even more convincing in its un-convincing tone. Do you- wait. You're- yes, you follow, right?

What? Of course I- wait. Who said... look, I have a degree in this! Of course I know what I'm talking about.

Drez

My rule is:

Dash for interrupted thought/speech.
Ellipsis for trailing thought/speech.

However, dialogue with a ton of either ellipses or dashes would probably turn me off from the book/story completely.

The style Cincitucky is much cleaner and better.

Disrupter

Yeah. I think I follow and will just make sure to construct better sentences to make sure it doesn't ever get that ugly. But the end of your post brought up a question for me.

"Who said... look, I have a degree in this!"

You start off with a question and cut into a statement, so you end with an exclamation. Is it always what you end with, ignoring what you begin with?

"Look, I have a...who said I wasn't qualified?"

Definitely looks and feels that way, just want to confirm.

However, dialogue with a ton of either ellipses or dashes would probably turn me off from the book/story completely.

The sentence was constructed specifically to illustrate the problem. However, I do use some incredibly stumbling dialogue sometimes. But, the dialogue is actually for a script. If I was writing a book meant to be consumed by the reader, I would avoid such stumbling dialogue to that extent because it is incredibly ugly and painful to digest. But in a script, the end audience won't ever see that, they will just hear the actor. So while I will still avoid any monstrosity to the extent that the initial sentence was, I am not going to be as strict as I would be for a piece of literature.

SammyF

Is it literary dialogue, or dramatic dialog?

If you're writing a play, you can use such punctuation on occasion, but any actor who reads it will probably hate it because you're locking them into a single reading of the lines instead of allowing them to come at it in a way that feels natural to them. If you do use them, follow what Drez said, generally.

If you're writing a book or short story, you don't have to make any concessions which allows the actor his own creative input into how the lines are read. However, using that punctuation excessively can make the piece hard to read, so be aware of that. Ellipses can be atrocious in particular because you can very easily circumvent that with a comma and some narration:

"So," Jerry stammered as he struggled to find a way to phrase the question that wouldn't sound like a tacit admission, "who told you I was gay?"

Breaking up a sentence with narration rather than using dashes or ellipses not only reads cleaner, but it provides a lot more insight into your character than dashes and dots.

Disrupter

I edited my post while you replied. It is a script, which is why I would even think to include a sentence anything like that. As for locking them in, moving forward I will take that to heart. However this project will likely have a decent amount of improvisation despite how the line is written. My intent is to show the actor the intent of the line via this punctuation. I really don't care if they end up stumbling using completely different words, but I want to show the stumbling so they at least know that the character is supposed to be doing so.

spool32

In that case you might want to go with stage direction instead. Something like:

Speaker: *stumbles over his words, then* "... who told you I was gay?"

----

I do think how you end the line is what matters most, and it feels more strongly like stumbling around if you begin to speak a question, and end with a declaration, or vice versa.

Disrupter

Yes, how I end the line is really all I actually care about as far as what is delivered. Switching from question to statement or vice versa is also something that is done often when I have a line like this.

I think what I will do is tone down the actual stumbling (still leaving some, but more akin to Cincitucky's example) in the dialog and add stage direction to specify further.

The actual question of ellipses versus dash has been solved. And we've actually gone further into suggestions on how to obtain proper dialog in a script, so I thank you all very much.

wonderpug

When you use a dash for interrupted speech, be sure to use the longer em dash (—) rather than an en dash (-).

Drez

spool32 wrote:

In that case you might want to go with stage direction instead. Something like:

Speaker: *stumbles over his words, then* "... who told you I was gay?"

----

I do think how you end the line is what matters most, and it feels more strongly like stumbling around if you begin to speak a question, and end with a declaration, or vice versa.

^seconding this

At the end of the day, unless you are also directing the play, you are two steps away from the actor. There's you, the scriptor's dialogue and directions, then the director's interpretation, and then the actor's interpretation. I admit I have never done more than played around with scriptwriting, but I have done a lot of acting and I think the correct method of guiding an actor/director in saying a line a certain way would be use a stage direction before the particular bit of dialogue you want emoted a certain way. You could even write something like this, perhaps:

JOHN
*awkwardly, stumbling* "I - wait - no - I'm not--" *quickly, embarassed* "who told you I was gay?"

That's probably what I would do. I wouldn't worry about the punctuation too much, and like I said you can only guide the director and the actor to a limited degree. For a staccato stumbling in the speech I would probably use space dash space and then a double dash (or long dash) for the break between "I'm not" and "who told you I was gay?" (In other words, use space-dash-space to indicate short verbal breaks and then a long dash or double dash to indicate a sudden tonal shift). I would only use an ellipsis for trailing thought and I don't believe JOHN (or whoever your character is) would trail off in that situation.

Also, I know this is just an example, but I would avoid writing "I am not" because nobody talks that way, at least not within the diction implied by your examples. But that's just a small gripe.

edit: I wrote the above with respect to a play, but I think it would apply to a film script as well. Out of curiosity, which is it?

SammyF

Drez wrote:

spool32 wrote:

In that case you might want to go with stage direction instead. Something like:

Speaker: *stumbles over his words, then* "... who told you I was gay?"

----

I do think how you end the line is what matters most, and it feels more strongly like stumbling around if you begin to speak a question, and end with a declaration, or vice versa.

^seconding this

At the end of the day, unless you are also directing the play, you are two steps away from the actor. There's you, the scriptor's dialogue and directions, then the director's interpretation, and then the actor's interpretation. I admit I have never done more than played around with scriptwriting, but I have done a lot of acting and I think the correct method of guiding an actor/director in saying a line a certain way would be use a stage direction before the particular bit of dialogue you want emoted a certain way. You could even write something like this, perhaps:

JOHN
*awkwardly, stumbling* "I - wait - no - I'm not--" *quickly, embarassed* "who told you I was gay?"

That's probably what I would do. I wouldn't worry about the punctuation too much, and like I said you can only guide the director and the actor to a limited degree. For a staccato stumbling in the speech I would probably use space dash space and then a double dash (or long dash) for the break between "I'm not" and "who told you I was gay?"

Also, I know this is just an example, but I would avoid writing "I am not" because nobody talks that way, at least not within the diction implied by your examples. But that's just a small gripe.

I've always heard the italicized parts referred to as "wrylies" because that's the description they're most often (over)used for. If you think how the line is delivered is important enough to stress the punctuation, you're probably better off with a wryly like embarrassed or anxious because in the same way narration reveals a little bit more about a character to the reader, script cues like that can reveal a little bit more about the character to the actor portraying him.

Best of luck with your piece!

Drez

SammyF wrote:

Drez wrote:

spool32 wrote:

In that case you might want to go with stage direction instead. Something like:

Speaker: *stumbles over his words, then* "... who told you I was gay?"

----

I do think how you end the line is what matters most, and it feels more strongly like stumbling around if you begin to speak a question, and end with a declaration, or vice versa.

^seconding this

At the end of the day, unless you are also directing the play, you are two steps away from the actor. There's you, the scriptor's dialogue and directions, then the director's interpretation, and then the actor's interpretation. I admit I have never done more than played around with scriptwriting, but I have done a lot of acting and I think the correct method of guiding an actor/director in saying a line a certain way would be use a stage direction before the particular bit of dialogue you want emoted a certain way. You could even write something like this, perhaps:

JOHN
*awkwardly, stumbling* "I - wait - no - I'm not--" *quickly, embarassed* "who told you I was gay?"

That's probably what I would do. I wouldn't worry about the punctuation too much, and like I said you can only guide the director and the actor to a limited degree. For a staccato stumbling in the speech I would probably use space dash space and then a double dash (or long dash) for the break between "I'm not" and "who told you I was gay?"

Also, I know this is just an example, but I would avoid writing "I am not" because nobody talks that way, at least not within the diction implied by your examples. But that's just a small gripe.

I've always heard the italicized parts referred to as "wrylies" because that's the description they're most often (over)used for. If you think how the line is delivered is important enough to stress the punctuation, you're probably better off with a wryly like embarrassed or anxious because in the same way narration reveals a little bit more about a character to the reader, script cues like that can reveal a little bit more about the character to the actor portraying him.

Best of luck with your piece!

Yeah, exactly. The writer can only control the portrayal so far. It's good to communicate to the director and the actor how you, as the writer, think the character should be approaching the line or scene, but you shouldn't mangle the dialogue up to the point where the director and actor have only one way to read the line.

However, at the same time, you can't just write "I wait no I'm not" without some kind of indication of where to pause or break up the dialogue.

I edited the post above to go into more detail but basically, this is what I would do: For a staccato stumbling in the speech I would probably use space-dash-space for each minor pause and then a double dash (or long dash) for the break between "I'm not" and "who told you I was gay?" (In other words, use space-dash-space to indicate short verbal breaks and then a long dash or double dash to indicate a sudden tonal shift). I would only use an ellipsis for trailing thought and I don't believe JOHN (or whoever your character is) would trail off in that situation.

edit: And I've never heard the term "wrylies" but I like it. Thanks.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

If you're writing for performance (speech, play, scriptwriting, whatever) you should keep the text as straight as possible and include direction. Your readers are smart enough to communicate hesitation or nervousness without needing punctuation in the text.

In creative writing ellipses are generally not used for the kind of abrupt pause you seem to be going for. I would probably use a dash (but use a dash, not a hyphen as you're using in your post.) But overusing them will just make the dialogue choppy to read (also don't use more than one per sentence.) You're better off limiting your usage of weird punctuation and just communicating the awkwardness with shorter sentences (or exposition.) Ex:

1) "So did you tell your mom that you're gay?"

2) "I'm not—wait. Who told you I was gay?"