Some Things I've Learned

So while I"m waiting for the ARC of KILLER OF KILLERS to be sent to me, I've gone back to THE VASE. It's what I wanted to do, anyway. All the things I've learned I can apply to another round of revisions with THE VASE, and, like always, improve the prose while I'm at it.

I've already eliminated the all caps thing. Replaced them with italics, too. So this time around, I'm reducing exclamation points, reducing the em dashes, and reducing the ellipses. Except where I think they are absolutely necessary.

In KILLER OF KILLERS, the amount of ellipses and em dashes are very few now. Exclamation points, too. But there are some that remain. We'll see how many remain in THE VASE. And the POV thing? I've found a couple places where they change in a scene. So if I do submit it to my current publisher, Melange Books, I'll have to fix those.

But first things first. Lets get those em dashes, ellipses and exclamation points under control. And there is one more thing about which I always wondered, and I finally found the answer.

I'm talking about whether ellipses and em dashes should have a space on either side of them, or even on one side. I have researched it, and different sources have different answers.

Take ellipses for instance. Some people say to have a space on both sides, like this: word ... next word. But some sources say to have a space only after the ellipsis, like this: word... next word. And some sources say to have no space on either side, like this: word...next word.

So my editor at Melange says to go the third way...no spaces on either side of the ellipsis. So that's what I'm doing. There is one exception. During dialogue, which is really the only times I use ellipses anyway, I use an ellipsis to denote a pause in a statement, but if that statement is not finished, and another independent statement begins after that, THEN I will put the space after the ellipsis, and follow it with a capital letter denoting the next statement.

Like this: "How... Never mind."

In that example, the question, "How did you get that?" was stopped after the "How" thus, "How..."
But the next statement, "Never mind" is an independent statement, therefore, the space and the capital letter for the next word, which is the first word in the new statement: "Never mind." But if you want to denote the speaker pausing in the midst of the same sentence, then no spaces before or after the ellipsis.

Like this: "How...did you get that?"

And for em dashes, which I don't usually use during dialogue but I do during prose, there are also different answers from different sources about spaces on either side of them. Like ellipses, some sources say a space on both sides, some sources say a space after the dash, and some sources say no spaces on either side.

I'm going with no spaces on either side. That's the Chicago Manual of Style, and it's consistent with the ellipses rule, too. Some sources say to use an em dash to denote a statement that is cut off or interrupted. I've seen that in books before, but ellipses can be used for that, too, without it being incorrect, and that's the way Melange wants it. So that's how I'm doing it.

All right. Back to work.  Oh, that's another one. It's not alright. It's all right. Alright is not all right.
These different sources with different styles can be confusing. The bottom line is go with your publishing house rules. Find out what your editor wants, and that's the way you do it.

If you don't have a publisher yet, then my suggestion is go with the Chicago Manual of Style. There's some 15 editions, maybe 16 by now. so go with the latest one. That's all.