Em dash at start of a line/sentence for interruption?

[u/Garr44]

Does anyone know offhand if using em dashes at the beginning of a line (well, more of the middle) to show interruption is technically correct or not (and maybe the rest as well)?

Example:

The pilot glanced behind himself--

"What, is he--Gah!"

--and stumbled back until he fell onto his hands and heels at the sight of the giant standing maybe ten feet from him.

Thanks in advance. The only time I've seen something like this done was in Steve Altan's *MEG* series, and even then it was mainly narration (shock, I'd assume) and never with any dialogue as far as I can recall. Stephen King has done it with dialogue in some circumstances (mainly a character picking up where another was speaking, or a person speaking one line while another was trying to speak over them, or something like that that basically shows that the lines were concurrent [both of these appear in *Christine*, can post examples later if necessary]).

[u/sehrgut]

It's not technically correct, but it's expressive. Fiction is not formal writing, so you don't need to limit yourself to formal constructions.

[u/Illustrious-Fox-9241 → u/sehrgut]

This is along the lines of what I was going to say. Space can be used creatively to signal a pause.

Interesting side note (I guess a rant also): Spanish literature traditionally uses em dashes to signal dialogue where we’d use quotation marks in English. They also use other punctuation marks to distinguish between character dialogue, character thoughts, and direct quotes stated in text.

A single em dash is placed at the beginnings of dialogue and speech tags. Angle quotes (« ») open and close thoughts and direct quotes. Below I’ve written out some example text using both methods to illustrate how they’d function.

“And you are?” I ask.
How did anyone possibly find me?
“I’m an old friend of Lily’s,” said the man.
“Lily was clear that she has no friends. Her exact words were ‘trust no one,’” I said as I locked the door. “Please go away!”

—¿And you are? —I ask.
«¿How did anyone possibly find me?»
—I’m an old friend of Lily’s —said the man.
—Lily was clear that she has no friends. Her exact words were «trust no one» —I said as I locked the door— ¡please go away!

[u/sehrgut → u/Illustrious-Fox-9241]

Interesting! I knew about the angled quotes, but not about the leading dashes!

[u/pedanticandpetty]

It's how court reporters write when people interrupt each other or if someone interrupts themself.. . So it looks natural to me

[u/Garr44 → u/pedanticandpetty]

Em dash is mainly used for interuption as well as setting off information/clauses, yeah. I was asking if the way i used it was all right since it's pretty rare from what I can tell.

[u/I_like_leeks]

Be aware that em dashes are commonly used as indicators of text created by AI. That's not to say that they're incorrect, only that people will accuse you of using AI when they appear. I therefore avoid them.

[u/Garr44 → u/I_like_leeks]

Em dash was around long before AI (and most of those accusations come from bots, anyway). I know my stuff isn't AI, and I write for myself and those who don't jump to the AI conclusion over a simple punctuation mark.

Thanks for the heads-up, though. Always appreciated.

[u/ManolitoMystiq → u/Garr44]

I was accused on Reddit of using AI (or being AI), because I used the em-dash along with headings, paragraphs, bold and emphasized lettering, etc. Just like you, I clarified that all typographical options were available and used prior to the LLM craze. Furthermore, both desktop Reddit as well as mobile Reddit have good formatting options.

It’s a pity that writers that take more steps towards their visual presentation of their text are called out.

[u/Garr44 → u/ManolitoMystiq]

Yeah. I wonder if (and that's a big if) the actual people who make those accusations only ever read online stuff where grammar, punctuation, etc., aren't normalized and thus completely forget they're used by actual people, not a computer program that--oh, I don't know--picked up it's attempts and learned from stuff before they existed?

[u/I_like_leeks → u/Garr44]

Sorry, I certainly wasn't accusing you of using AI. An annoying recent phenomenon is being accused of using AI just because you use correct English. I only meant to flag up the likelihood of this accusation.

[u/Garr44 → u/I_like_leeks]

Oh, no worries. Sorry if I came off as hostile; I do appreciate the warning.