A Few Instructions--merely offered up

It has come to mah attention that someone is teaching, "Never use ellipses in fiction except to indicate that you are leaving part of the sentence out." **SIGH** Who do these posers think they are, changing the rules of punctuation at whim? This is total bullcorn (as Daddy would say if he knew I was in the room.)

They're talking about when you leave out part of a quotation or summary. You write, "Washington said he chopped down the [...] tree." This indicates you have left out "cherry." (Although I can't figure out why.) You use the brackets with the ellipsis points. This has to be what confused them.

But it's perfectly fine to use ellipsis points when a character is trailing off or stopping for a moment. {Perhaps your perp just realized he was about to give himself away, and has stopped himself to reverse the sentence. "Sure, I was right there when Henry brought the . . . I mean, that silly man! Yeah, that's the ticket! The silly man brought the lunches.") How else would you indicate that your character is trailing off at the end of the dialogue? "I don't know what I think about Henry. . . ."

(Implying that your character needs to think about this, or has more to say but knows it's imprudent to state it.)

Note that it's THREE ellipsis points when you have a pause or a "gasp" sort of stop-and-continue. It's FOUR when you are trailing off, because one of those dots ends the sentence. NEVER is there a proper reason in "real" writing to use more than four points. They must be separated by a space as shown. I don't CARE what Word auto-"corrects" that to. They are wrong. Your manuscript should not have those weird squashed points.

Dashes mean that your character broke off. It isn't like ellipses.
"What are you--stop!"
"Why is he--" "Shut up, everyone!"

See the Harbrace College Handbook, eleventh edition. That one won't steer you wrong.

In other news, are you passionate about something today? What's important to you today? Don't be obnoxious (you'll turn your listeners/readers off, possibly forever.) Don't be mean (in other words, if you are mad at Elaine today, you shouldn't post something nasty about her--that's unjust.) But be bold and speak up if you feel the need. Be nice! But firm. Preach it, sister and brother!

"In Germany, they came first for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak for me." (Martin Niemöller)

"The tongue has the power of life and death" (Proverbs 18:21)

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)

"The Lord has set apart the Redeemed for Himself. Therefore He will listen to me and answer when I call to Him." (Ps. 4:3)

"If you don't SAY anything, you may be polite, but you're missing the opportunity to correct a wrong." (Shalanna Collins, today)

That is all.