Working with a dash can be a little tricky. The dash is meant to be longer than the hyphen, but standard keyboards usually only provide the option for a hyphen. British and European publications have traditionally used hyphens with a space either side to signify a pair of bracketing or parenthetical dashes that indicate an aside comment (part sentence - interruption - continued sentence). American publications sometimes use a double hyphen with a space before and after (part sentence -- interruption -- continued sentence), but double hyphens “typeset closed” (with no spaces) are also popular (part sentence--interruption--continued sentence). This closed style is used almost exclusively in Canadian publications. As with bracketing commas , the second dash falls away if the interruption ends the sentence. The dash used in dialogue to indicate an abrupt interruption or stop to a character’s speech is also traditionally typeset closed and either a true em-dash or a double hyphen is re...

Interruption can add needed conflict to a scene; many authors have an intuitive sense of this. Your character is in a cozy restaurant booth with her beloved, wrapped up in the moment, leaning forward to hear words he can only manage to whisper. Tension is building toward that question that will change her life forever— —when the waiter comes to take her order. He’s a chatty friend from her high school days who dredges up old conflict. Try as they might, once the waiter leaves the couple cannot re-establish the mood. The question will have to be delayed for another time, and the reader can’t wait for it to happen. A few technical problems can ruin the reader’s experience, however, so authors take note. A common mistake is to use an ellipsis (…) interchangeably with an em-dash (—). These punctuation marks have different functions. Use an ellipsis if you want your character to drift off in thought. Interruption is better suited to the em-dash, as its slash rips your character from h...