How to ABRUPTLY interrupt a sentence?

[Ysoi]

Hi all!

Firstly, I apologise for yet another question.
(At the same time, I have one more planned...) ( - _ - ; )

Secondly, this is a "how do I do this correctly" not "what do you prefer" question - although preferences are always interesting.

When I write from a first person perspective, the narrator / hero / heroine 's thoughts are sometimes interrupted - often but not always by some dramatic event or realization. I have quoted two examples of what I am talking about on the lines below, with "( )" used to indicate the area where I would like to abruptly terminate the sentence.

An example of a break in continuous text :

They are as good a pair of kids ( ) No, at almost nineteen I guess that I have to call them adults, don't I?

(I could edit this to remove the break, but I wanted the realization to be sudden / ironic rather than an afterthought.)

An example of a break where the next sentence is within a different paragraph :

Enough to let me push down my boxer shorts and ease my ( )

No! I tell myself that I am vile, but just the thought of her

In the past I have used various combinations of hyphens and punctuation, but with what would you replace those brackets?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts / input! m(_ _)m

(And remember, the question is about how the brackets, not the stuff around them!)

Ysoi

 

[Stella_Omega]

I use an mdash which can be made by two dashes in succession -- and I use them all the time, because my mind is a busy little squirrel.

I believe they can be typed as option/shift/dash. Option/dash gives you an N-dash, and i don't know what to do with that...

 

[Tx Tall Tales]

Ditto

I use an mdash which can be made by two dashes in succession -- and I use them all the time, because my mind is a busy little squirrel.

I believe they can be typed as option/shift/dash. Option/dash gives you an N-dash, and i don't know what to do with that...

Ditto. I'd use an em dash there as well. Word will change it for you automatically if you put two dashes together. (As long as autocorrect is on). You can also enter an em dash by:

Press [Ctrl]+[Alt]+-. You must use the minus sign (-) on the numeric keypad; if you use the hyphen character on the alphanumeric keys, Word will change the cursor.

Hold down the [Alt] key and type 0151 on the numeric keypad.

Choose Symbol from the Insert menu, click the Special Characters tab, highlight the em dash, and click Insert.

If you're really lazy, a plain old dash works, and 90% of your readers won't know the difference.

 

[Ysoi]

I use an mdash which can be made by two dashes in succession -- and I use them all the time, because my mind is a busy little squirrel.

I believe they can be typed as option/shift/dash. Option/dash gives you an N-dash, and i don't know what to do with that...

An Apple user then?
For windows users that would be [alt]+[0151].
Nice n easy to remember. Not.

Anyway, looking thru http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mdash#Em_dash but no time at the moment... Thinking that without punctuation the dash might be a bit confusing... Is it a break in a continuous sentence, or a divider between two separate sentences?... Going to look it up later...

Ysoi

 

[Handley_Page]

I was recently advised about the M-dash; it seems to make sense to me.

 

[PennLady]

For abrupt breaks, it's definitely the em-dash. And I've never quite figured out the en-dash myself.

 

[sr71plt]

For abrupt breaks, it's definitely the em-dash. And I've never quite figured out the en-dash myself.

The en dash is almost exclusively used for given ranges in numbers:

"pages 1[en dash]268."

It's also used to connect nouns where one has more than one word:

"The New York[en dash]Philadelphia railroad."

 

[PennLady]

The en dash is almost exclusively used for given ranges in numbers:

"pages 1[en dash]268."

It's also used to connect nouns where one has more than one word:

"The New York[en dash]Philadelphia railroad."

Thanks.