Do you use em dashes? Do you even know what one is? Loads of authors use the em dash—perhaps too much at times. Too many of them look unprofessional, create a sloppy look and really do nothing more than decrease effectiveness; despite that, you still see books littered with them.

To be fair, you could ditch every em dash in your book. They are not a necessary tool, something that you MUST use in your writing. Having said that, if you use them correctly, skillfully shall we say, they can add a voice, rhythm, and emphasis in ways that none of the other punctuation marks do.

What Are They?

That would probably be a good place to start, wouldn’t it! The em dash is a horizontal line between two words, positioned midpoint on a lowercase letter. The easy way to add one to your writing, if you are using MS Word, is to press the CTRL+ALT+- key on your keyboard. Go on, try it now — that’s what it should look like.

The name comes about because the line is roughly the same width as the lower-case letter m (em) and the best use for them is to signify a sudden change in thought or create surprise.

Do NOT mistake them for the en dash; these are about half the width, roughly the width of the lower-case n (en). Don’t mistake them for hyphens either or a pair of hyphens together; they are not the same things.

Comparison

Hyphens are used to connect two words that are related closely as one concept and to connect two or more words that function as joint modifiers or compound adjectives. It can also be used for connecting prefixes to words. Some examples:

Single Concept – compound words: free-for-all, 4-year-old, great-grandmother

Compound adjectives – run-down (house), red-hot (coals)

Prefix – ex-husband, re-covering (a chair or a sofa) pre-publication

The en dash (–) is used for connecting words that have some distance between their relationship. Not many authors use it but you will see it in professional publications and newspapers or in books where the author is very careful with usage. Some examples are:

Date – 1950-1999, February-September

Time – 9:15 am-12:30 pm

Regular occurrences or magazine issues – January-July – this would indicate each issue of a magazine encompassing January through (and including) July

Travel – Heathrow-New York flight, Milwaukee-Chicago train, Atlantic City-Philadelphia bus

Confused yet? Until you get to grips with the difference between the en dash, the em dash, and the hyphen, not to mention how to use them, you will find yourself doing one of two things – overusing them or using them incorrectly. Both create a mess that you don’t want your readers seeing – trust me when I say it will put them off for life if they see your book filled with hyphens and dashes!

In the next part of the series, we’ll look at the em dash, what it’s used for and how to use it in the right place at the right time – if at all.