The World's Tallest Writing Coach

I love that the Internet gives people who might never have considered writing a book the opportunity to do for a fairly low cost and fairly easily – it gives me plenty of extra work and occasionally a true diamond in the rough to be a part of.

But so many authors seem obsessed with the use of ellipses in their writing. They string them throughout paragraphs like so many Christmas lights, and clearly haven’t the faintest idea what they are doing.

In my journalism background, we only used them to express that words were being cut out either at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a sentence.

In other written works, particularly novels, they are used for dialogue that is trailing off, for surprise or for a change of pace in conversation. Unfortunately, they are over-used, often taking the place of my favorite punctuation friend, the comma, who is vastly more economical and enjoys letting people know when it’s time to pause.

But now I see the ellipses everywhere, bulling its way into places formerly reserved for commas, colons, and semicolons, and laying havoc to any sort of thought continuity in their path like a herd of beagle descending on a butcher’s shop after an earthquake.

Please, please, dear writers, use your ellipses sparingly and correctly. I’m asking you … nicely.