Classic Being a Better Writer: The Ellipses and the Em-dash, Odd Forms of Punctuation · 7:46pm Dec 21st, 2020
Hello readers! Welcome to this week’s Being a Better Writer! If this post looks a little familiar to you, well that’s likely because you’ve seen it before! That’s right, I’m on vacation for Christmas (barring that there’s no way I’ll be taking a break tomorrow when Axtara – Banking and Finance releases) so for the next few weeks we’ll be seeing some older, classic Being a Better Writer posts showing up some of you may have missed. This week? Well, this post on ellipses and the em-dash isn’t too old (about a year and a half) … but it was a fun post that came with a neat follow-up and some odd tidbits of knowledge.
Now, before we dive into it, I do want to remind you all that Axtara – Banking and Finance releases tomorrow, and is available for pre-order now. In fact, you can order it (if you’re in the US) just by clicking the cover to the left there, or by searching for “Axtara Banking and Finance” on whatever Amazon you use if international. Axtara is a charming Young Adult Fantasy novel about a young dragon setting out to open her own bank and … Well, I won’t spoil anything past that, but come on. That premise is solid enough as is.
As I said, it comes out tomorrow, and it’s $4.99. Pre-orders and day one sales help it earn momentum and find new eyeballs, so grab it when it you can. It also, I would note, is a fantastic Christmas gift if you’re looking for a stocking stuffer for the reader in your life. Especially if they at all enjoy YA Fantasy or female protagonists.
So, go ahead and order that! Then come back here and get ready to read about the ellipses. That form of punctuation that you see used a lot, but many teachers never discuss. They’ll talk all about a period, or a comma, or a question mark …
Merry Christmas, readers!
Aight, guess I know what I want for Christmas
I don't know if you've covered it in one of these blogs, but an old discussion I stumbled across while rereading a story reminded me of this topic. That topic being about overuse of the "tragedy" tag in fanfictions for shock value or simply to be "edgy". And by extension senselessly killing off a canon character in a fanfiction for those same reasons. New writers really need some instruction on how to properly handle what should be an immensely powerful and well thought out moment in a story, rather than using it as a cheap cry of "look how edgy and controversial I can be!".
Merry Christmas, Max!
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I have, actually! Melodrama! Bleh! It's terrible! Looks like I know what post to make next week's classic!
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Thank you! Merry Christmas to you!
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I look forward to the repost then. Especially since melodrama can also cover another "story killer" problem I've seen run rampant in not just fanfiction, but professional works as well. That problem being love turning people into idiots in the worst possible ways. That one is the reason the Christmas season causes me such pain. My family keeps their TV set on Hallmark channel from the day they start showing those trash "Christmas romance" movies sometime around Halloween, to the day they stop in January (They've got them going as I try to write this post in fact). Sorry if I went off on a little rant there, but that problem is one that gets very old VERY fast.
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Ouch, and here's the obligatory AI writes a hallmark Christmas movie!