When I thought about the topics I wanted to cover in this series of blogs on writing and editing comics, ellipses (believe it or not!) were one of the first things that sprung to mind.
An ellipsis can completely change how we understand a sentence, a character’s intentions, a whole scene. But – especially in comics – I so often see them underused/overused/with two or four or even more dots!
So if you’ve ever been guilty of any of the above, or if you’re simply curious about how punctuation in comics can differ from standard fiction, this blog is for you!
What is an ellipsis?
An ellipsis is a symbol made up of three dots, commonly used to indicate a slowing down or omission of some sort.
When you type three dots into a program like Microsoft Word, you’ll notice that it will automatically turn them into an ellipsis symbol. In traditional fiction publishing, ellipses come in two formats:
- a formatted ellipsis symbol ( … ), or
- three dots separated by spaces ( . . . )
Either one works for standard fiction, as long as there are three (and only three!) dots.
When should you use an ellipsis?
In standard fiction, ellipses are normally used to indicate trailing off, zoning out, or a pause.
Trailing off
The most common scenario in which we see an ellipsis is at the end of a sentence that trails off. It shows us that the person speaking/thinking comes to a slow stop – perhaps they hesitate, or realise something as they’re talking.
- “I know I said I didn’t want to go, but…”
- What the…?
It shows us that the sentence is intentionally incomplete. Without an ellipsis, a reader might assume the writer simply missed a word or two off by mistake!
Zoning out
They might also be used where a speaker continues, but the listener is zoning out of what is being said.
- “Today, we’re going to be learning more about transportation spells. A wise man once said…” She soon lost track of the teacher’s words, distracted by a cat outside.
Pauses
Ellipses can also indicate pauses in speech or thoughts. Rather than describing a pause in the narrative, you can use an ellipsis to slow things down.
- Was that…? No, it couldn’t be… could it?
- She rang the bell on the counter for the second time, but still no one appeared. “Um… hello?”
What makes comics different?
(Thanks to pixelspeechbubble.com for helping me create these examples. They’re not perfect, but thankfully I’m not charging anyone for lettering!)
Format
While standard fiction uses two types of ellipsis, comics tends to stick to the ellipsis symbol (…) – mainly for space-saving reasons. Three dots with spaces can take up a lot of room inside a balloon/bubble and can easily make the text look unbalanced.
This trend toward saving space also extends to the spaces that would usually come before or after ellipses in standard fiction too. In comics, these spaces are also often removed, turning “Um… hello?” into:
Even more ellipses!
Yes, the world of comics has found another use for ellipses. Not just…
Trailing off
Zoning out
Pauses
But also…
Bridging ellipses
Comic book text often uses only capital letters (or should that be… COMIC BOOK TEXT OFTEN USES ONLY CAPITAL LETTERS?).
In some ways, this makes things easier for you and your editor – no need to agonise over whether things like job titles should be capitalised or not! But it also complicates one of the most basic rules of standard writing: A new sentence begins with a capital letter.
When every letter is a capital letter, and sentences are sometimes split across multiple balloons, how do we make sure readers know at a glance how to read them? Is this one long sentence in several pieces, or several shorter sentences with breathing space between them? (Yes, there’s probably end punctuation, but there may be situations where that isn’t clear on its own.)
This is where bridging ellipses really come in handy. These ellipses are used at the end of one balloon and at the start of another to indicate that the same sentence continues over both of them.
You might even have three or four balloons with bridging ellipses at the end of the first, beginning and end of the middle, and beginning of the last.
Who knew three little dots could be so interesting?
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