Help: Dialogue and Elipses

[P. B. Walker]

Okie... I tried finding the answer to this by going to the help section here on Literotica and by looking in this book I have on technical writing. Neither answered my question. Basically... how do you handle elipses in dialogue. Elipses are supposed to be used to represent an incomplete sentense, or thought and they replace a period. I hope that's correct. Here is a sentence:

“You’re a…” I could not continue, choked with anger.

Is that correct? MS Word keeps giving me an error with that sentence saying it should have two spaces between the " and I. But when I change it to two spaces it says it should only have one space. I'm stumped. I thought maybe it should go like this:

"You're a...," I could not continue, choked with anger.

But Word complains about that too. Maybe like this:

"You're a," I could not continue, choked with anger.


Thanks in advance for any help.

- PBW

 

[KillerMuffin]

"You're a--" I could not continue, choked with anger.

Don't listen to microsoft word, it doesn't always know.

A good rule of thumb, use ellipses when the dialogue "fades" and a dash when it's "cut off."

"Maybe, just maybe he...." Her words trailed off.

"That rat bastard, why I--" He was too angry to finish.

In ellipses it's four periods at the end of the quotation, that might by MS's problem.

 

[P. B. Walker]

Muffster to the rescue!

Thanks

- PBW

 

[Never]

Never's perked up at the sight of Killer's new avatar. "Wow hun, nice ass. You wouldn't happen to have any pictures of you nak--." Never didn't even see the backhand that caught her in mid-sentence but she certainly felt it. She shook her head and gingerly touched her sore cheek.

"Guess not..."