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How do I put a noise into a quote

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I am hoping someone on Lush will be able to help me with something. I am writing a story that has someone speaking while there is a sudden noise in the background.

For example, "Look out, he ..." BANG! "has a gun."

Is the ellipsis in the right place?
Should it be in there, at all?
How should it be written?

What ever I do, does just not look right.

Any help would be appreciated. I have hunted the internet without success.

Thank you!

Abi

Personally, I'd be tempted to move the 'bang' to its own line to really emphasise it.

"Look out, he..." 

BANG! 

"...has a gun."

I'd also use two sets of ellipses to show it happening in the middle of speech. Be interesting to hear what others would do though.

Quote by Jen

Personally, I'd be tempted to move the 'bang' to its own line to really emphasise it.

"Look out, he..." 

BANG! 

"...has a gun."

I'd also use two sets of ellipses to show it happening in the middle of speech. Be interesting to hear what others would do though.


I just checked a passage in a Heinlein novel (admittedly published in 1959 by G.P. Putnam's Sons) that I happen to remember as having this kind of intrusion into the text. It's not exactly the same, but it might be helpful.

Here's how they did it:

-----

I turned to see the speaker, flicked my eyes over his sleeves, saw that it was a small, slightly stoop-shouldered corporal, no doubt one of our—

"Father!"

Then the corporal had his arms around me.

-------

I haven't used quotations for this, um, quotation in order to keep it from getting too meta-. Instead, I've bolded the text that is a direct quote from the book. (Starship Troopers, if you care, pp.131-132 in my paperback edition).

Extrapolating to your example, I'd be tempted to do it like this:

-------

"Look out, he—"
BANG!
"...has a gun."

-------

Jen, you may have nailed it, but this is the closest parallel I can remember.

Hope that's useful and not just confusing.

An incredibly talented, but modest Polar Bear, often mischievous, but never malicious!

Thank you Jen and James. I did want to put ellipses on both part of the quote but just wasn't sure. I am not sure why you would put a hyphen in one part and a ellipses. I will have to see how the moderator sees it. Thanks again.

Quote by fantasylady69

Thank you Jen and James. I did want to put ellipses on both part of the quote but just wasn't sure. I am not sure why you would put a hyphen in one part and a ellipses. I will have to see how the moderator sees it. Thanks again.


It's not a hyphen, but an em-dash, described by a blog on Grammarly as "the em dash is named after its length—it’s about the same width as the capital letter M."  As distinct from the en-dash, which is the width of a capital N.

So: "—", not "–" or "-"

And it's purpose is different from a hyphen: "Em dashes can … signal an interruption or a sudden change in the direction a writer was heading with a particular sentence. This technique is best suited for creative or informal writing."

In your example, you are certainly signalling an interruption.

The em-dash is an obscure piece of punctuation, but it is the correct one.

That said, I doubt that very many people, even moderators, would object to using an elipsis the way Jen has indicated.

And at the end of the day, the point is not to fulfill some arcane bit of grammar, but to make it easy for the reader to read, to understand, and to enjoy. With that in mind, do what seems best – and read it out loud to see if it does, indeed, flow.

Good luck!

An incredibly talented, but modest Polar Bear, often mischievous, but never malicious!

Not so sure about the exact grammar (not being that good !)
But I think Jen nailed it in the first post..
You could also emphasise it by having the `BANG' in italics on the seperate line (I'm not sure how lush stories cope with HTML... <i> / </i> marks like Literotica ... Sexstories.com can't...

I just got dinged for this in critique group. Ellipses imply a gradual halt, an em dash (the long one) implies an abrupt halt. En dashes are for ranges and so they don't belong in the discussion (I actually use them mostly to make em dashes--I use two of them). 


So, IMO, the correct usage is:


"Look out, he—"

BANG!

"—has a gun."  


You CAN start a sentence with an em dash.  I don't consider them obscure punctuation at all.

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At first, I thought this thread was one started by Impurthoughts, asking for technical help.

A fascinating and intellectually stimulating discussion!  I had almost forgotten about em and en dashes.   Thanks to all involved.  This thread brings to mind problems I had a few decades ago, when I helped to computer-typeset a mathematics book; the problem I had to deal with concerned the distinction between a minus sign and a hyphen.

I'm with Ensorceled on this if that's how you want to go, but because I'm an asshole I'd encourage you to describe the bang to paint the scene better.  Anything can bang--pots falling on tile or each other, whatever, but it all sounds different.  A reader can infer, yeah, but great descriptions that bring an effortless, living scene to your reader are memorable.  

Feel free to ignore me though!  :P  I know every writer and every piece is different.  Do what feels right.

The next question that arises is how do you type an en-dash or an em-dash in the Lush story editor? Or even here in the forum. 

On some typesetting systems you just type two dashes together, like this -- or three dashes --- like this --- but you can see from the posts above by ensorceled and Katherine, where they have done that, that it doesn't work here. 

If the lush editor had an HTML source editor, like the old one did, you could just use the html code and write &ndash; or &mdash; but unfortunately the new editor doesn't have that (though we are promised an upgrade soon). 

I don't use either sort of dash in my stories, partly because I was always taught that it was lazy writing and partly because it's often not clear how to typeset it. 

Quote by NicolasBelvoir

The next question that arises is how do you type an en-dash or an em-dash in the Lush story editor? Or even here in the forum. 

On some typesetting systems you just type two dashes together, like this -- or three dashes --- like this --- but you can see from the posts above by ensorceled and Katherine, where they have done that, that it doesn't work here. 

If the lush editor had an HTML source editor, like the old one did, you could just use the html code and write &ndash; or &mdash; but unfortunately the new editor doesn't have that (though we are promised an upgrade soon). 

I don't use either sort of dash in my stories, partly because I was always taught that it was lazy writing and partly because it's often not clear how to typeset it. 

If you're using Windows and have a keyboard with a number pad (this only works with a number pad, not the numbers across the top of the keyboard) hold the ALT key and press 0151, release the ALT key and the EM dash appears where the cursor is. If you don't have a number pad you can do it by using the Character Map, search Windows for it and copy/paste the symbol. Also anyone can go to https://www.alt-codes.net/ find the wanted symbol and copy/paste it

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Hey, you can write a sentence or statement about the action followed by a word that has to do with.

BangBang

Bam

Pow

Crack

It's usually by it self in one line is the best and right way to put it. I hope this helps you. Happy writing!

Quote by NicolasBelvoir
I don't use either sort of dash in my stories, partly because I was always taught that it was lazy writing and partly because it's often not clear how to typeset it. 

They certainly can be lazy writing, like you just decided "fuck it" and started a new sentence inside the sentence you are currently writing, but I think they can be used to great effect as well. I use them to set apart a phrase to give it extra emphasis for the reader. It takes the current sentence--already kind of boring--and inserts something interesting inside of it--or at the end!

Here's Virginia Woolf, showing us all how it's done with a perfect monster of a sentence.

How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen; looking at the flowers, at the trees with the smoke winding off them and the rooks rising, falling; standing and looking until Peter Walsh said, “Musing among the vegetables?”—was that it?—“I prefer men to cauliflowers”—was that it?

—Virginia Woolf, from Mrs. Dalloway

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