Ellipsis in fiction

Question

Hello Teachers,I have two questions on ellipsis in fiction writing.1) Is it allowed in narrative or only in dialogue?2) In dialogue, they say it's used for pause. Example: This was very bad. I was ... shocked.But can it be used for hesitation/being stumped also? For example; 'He really did that? This is ... I don't even know what to say.'Thanks so much.

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

Anonymous1) Is it allowed in narrative or only in dialogue?

In fiction, you may do as you like. Try a little James Joyce or Gertrude Stein.

Anonymous2) In dialogue, they say it's used for pause. Example: This was very bad. I was ... shocked.But can it be used for hesitation/being stumped also? For example; 'He really did that? This is ... I don't even know what to say.'

Yes, you can do that. Wikipedia can sometimes be interesting:

In her book on the ellipsis, "Ellipsis in English Literature: Signs of Omission" (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Anne Toner suggests that the first use of the punctuation in the English language dates to a 1588 translation of Terence's Andria, by Maurice Kyffin. In this case, however, the ellipsis consists not of dots but of short dashes.[3] "Subpuncting" of medieval manuscripts also denotes omitted meaning and may be related.[4]

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, an ellipsis was often used when a writer intentionally omitted a specific proper noun, such as a location: "Jan was born on . . . Street in Warsaw."

As commonly used, this juxtaposition of characters is referred to as "dots of ellipsis" in the English language.[5]
Occasionally, it would be used in pulp fiction and other works of early 20th-century fiction to denote expletives that would otherwise have been censored.[6]

An ellipsis may also imply an unstated alternative indicated by context. For example, when Sue says "I never drink wine . . . ", the implication is that she does drink something else—such as vodka.

In reported speech, the ellipsis can be used to represent an intentional silence.

In poetry, an ellipsis is used as a thought-pause or line break at the caesura[7] or this is used to highlight sarcasm or make the reader think about the last points in the poem

In news reporting, often associated with brackets, it is used to indicate that a quotation has been condensed for space, brevity or relevance.

Herb Caen, Pulitzer-prize-winning columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, became famous for his "three-dot journalism".

Ellipsis in fiction

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