What is the preferred way to type out ellipses?
I have seen ellipses written out both with ("Well . . . gosh . . .") and without spaces ("Well...gosh...") between the dots. I've also looked at several different online writing style sites, and found no consensus.
Which way do editors of fiction prefer? Or is it more a matter of consistency?
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1 answer
Speaking as a writer, editor, and typesetter: use three dots, no spaces.
The spaces are unattractive and potentially allow the line to break mid-ellipsis. As far as the "high ASCII" character, those occasionally get chewed up in file translation (I just got a file from a client where all the smart double quotes had turned into random accented characters). Three periods together (or four, at the end of a sentence) will never be broken or changed into anything else.
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