I am talking about using elipses "..." and/or hyphens "--" midsentence. I know they are very important in dialogue but how about in narration? I have observed the same habit in JK Rowling who seems to us "..." and "---" several times a page, and, well, she's relatively successful...
My other question is when do you think it is more appropriate to use a "---" instead of a "..." or visa versa?
As for your pauses, they're probably needed as you can't have one major plot point after plot point after plot point. You need some filler just to make it seem more... readable, I guess is a word I'm trying to say as a normal reader.
As for your narration parts, I see them used in the current novel I'm reading, "Lady of the Sorrow's" by Cecilia Dart Thornton. She uses "-" when she explains past events.
For example:
Today Greg was going to the beach - he spoke to his friend Tom yesterday about meeting him there - and he was going to buy an ice cream.
Not all people use "-", I use our good old comma.
Well, when I am writing I am trying to express the narration in strict terms completely relative to a single character during a scene. A fantastic example of the pauses I throw in is something your actually said,
quote:
You need some filler just to make it seem more... readable
I have paused like that all the time.
"Bob held the clipboard in his hand. The evidence... it was all there. It was only a matter of time before they'd find him--days perhaps."
I might write something like that using both tactics "..." and "---" in the same paragraph.
To pause your action have your character actually pause.
Joe paused;
(notice the semicolon leading into the following action.)
For a pause in dailog, break the dialog at that spot with the tag, or with narrative (Action).
Other than a comma, there is no punctuation to properly pause text.
"Go get the boat," John said, "it's in the boathouse."
Placing the tag in mid-sentence like that forces the reader to pause, and it's pretty much invisible.
I can't recall being confused by reading speech like that---but, offhand, I can't recall reading speech like that. Maybe it just doesn't make any difference to me.
(I'd try to make it a little smoother than I've written things down here, though. Chat room and message board talk tends to be, well, disjointed at times.)
I certainly wouldn't take a dash as a pause. For me it indicates a sudden switch - to provide some moment of revelation - and frequently hints that you're going to switch back again.
Yes, that is the best way. But what if the character speaking talks like William Shatner? You can't keep throwing tags in there.
"Spock," Bill said, "I need," Bill continued saying, "to go," Bill continued saying, "to," Bill continued saying, "the store."
No really what if you encounter a need for more than one pause? You can't just rely on tags.
Ok, if you do really feel the need to write in melodrama,
"Spock," James said, "I need..." His voice paused as he stepped towards his science officer. "...to go..." He took a deep breath and extended his finger dramatically at Spock. "...to the store."
Or you could just say.
James gestured spastically towards his science officer, then said, pausing every other word, "Spock, I need to go to the store."
I'd reccomend the later.
[This message has been edited by pantros (edited August 08, 2006).]
Kirk only gets two pauses in my stories. One gets a period, the other, a tag.
"Spock. I need to go," Kirk said, "to the store."
Anything more than that, I'd probably use ellipses no matter what the punctuation police say.
So I had to think about why. Why does it read ok without all those pauses, when normal people speak with a lot of pauses? The only reason I could come up with is that written dialogue is not an attempt to recreate an actual conversation. No one wants to read a transcript of a conversation. Dialogue is just another tool to advance a plot, or flesh out a character, or capture a reader's interest. I was approaching it from the wrong perspective. I still may not be right, but I think I'm closer than I was before this thread came along.
As for the original question, using pauses in narration, I'm not sure about that. I mostly pepper my dialogue with hesitant stops and statements that trail off at the end... I don't use them much mid-text, but I can see where these things might want to sneak in, if you are aiming for your narration to sound like it would if it were spoken aloud.
The question is, do you want your narration to read like it is being spoken aloud?
I try to deal with it when I revise, but some of it persists to the bitter end...
"I haven't interrogated the chicken yet," he said, gesturing. "It has this pitiful stare..."
Of course, in real life, you use an actual gesture. It could be anything, depending on context.
"I haven't interrogated the chicken yet," he said, waving his gun absendmindedly at the Iron Maiden. "It has this pitiful stare..."
"I haven't interrogated the chicken yet," he said, finishing with a graceful gancho and head snap. "It has this pitiful stare..."
"I haven't interrogated the chicken yet," he said, falling asleep and waking twelve hours later. "It has this pitiful stare..."
Also, book dialog is not the same as tv/movie dialog.