Okay, I don't know if they're called elipses or not--elipses may be referring
to journalistic dots to signify words being removed from quoted text or
dialogue. What I'm talking about is in fiction, when there are dots in the
narrative. I ask one of you sighted folk here to help me settle an issue once
and for all that's been bugging me for quite some time. Here's a fake
paragraph illustrating what I'm talking about:
John walked into the bar ...
... and found himself staring into the eyes of his beloved.
"John..." she breathed.
"Susan...?" he responded.
"... You're ... looking well," she stammered.
Anyway, you get the idea. I'm overusing them, just to make sure there's no
doubt about what I'm referring to.
My question is this: I don't know how to fix these dots. Many times, instead
of being clumped together there are spaces between them. (instead of "..." you
get ". . ."). Sometimes, when someone is speaking, there's a space between the
last word of dialogue ("John..." instead of "John ..."), and when the dots
occur at the beginning or end of a narrative paragraph, I never know whether to
put spaces between the last word and the dots or not, or, as the case may be,
the first word of the new paragraph and its dots. OCR isn't consistent as to
how to deal with this, and I'd just like to know how to fix them when they're
wrongly recognized. Yes, it's petty, and doesn't interfere with legibility ...
but I'm a perfectionist in my own editing, and would like to know this for my
own writing as well; I may not be putting spaces where there should be spaces
and such. What's the "right" way to use these? How's it done in print books?
Thanks.
