"Hi ... my name . . . is Baekhyun. . .I'm...Grey"

"Nice to meet you. I'm Chanyeol, and you just paused way too many times in that sentence."

ThE ellipsis, or the three dots, or the dot dot dot—however you wanna call it—is a mysterious punctuation form that I get confused with 8/10 times.

I'm always wondering: which version is correct?

Three dots with no spaces?
"Hi..."

Three dots with spaces at the beginning and the end?
"I'm ..." (but because it's by the quotation mark it must have no space so if it was in a sentence without a quotation mark it would have a space ((hi ... how ya doin)))

Three dots with spaces in between?
"Secretly. . ."

Three dots with spaces evERYWHERE?
"A . . . "

fOur DOTS??
"Dog...."

(and repeat the cycle but with four)

WELL JokEs on EVERYOnE DUMB LIKE ME

All of them work :^)

It really depends on your writing style for this one, or which essay style you're writing in.

For example the chicago manual style says that using three spaced dots (. . .) is the "real" way to make an ellipsis, but rlly none of them are grammatically wrong.

As fanfiction writers who are definitely not writing essays (I mean I certainly hope you're not writing essays for ur fanfics uhm) it would generally be better to just use three consecutive dots with spaces only at the beginning and end, as the line may sometimes break into a new one if you put spaces, and then your format looks a little wonky.

"You're kind of... pink."

or

"You're kind of...blue."

The way I personally do it is three dots without spaces in between. One space at the end if the next thought/sentence is new and no space at the end if it is just the finish of the trail of words.

Example:

"You're... Never mind, let's just go."

"You're...kind of stupid."

Yeah that's how I do it.

But legit this is just personal style. Whatever looks aesthetic and makes sense in your mind, do it.

One rule in essay writing tho is that you shouldn't put ellipsis before a phrase/thought.

"... No."

That is only for essay and formal stuff though. It is, again, just a stylistic choice when doing creative writing.

Something to keep in mind is how many times you use the ellipsis.

It may seem like a cool and fun punctuation mark (because it can literally look however you want it to) but overuse is definitely going to ruin the fun.

Just like other punctuation marks, using it too much gives your writing a tacky feel and you seem like you don't even know what you're doing most of the time—and the ellipsis is famous for doing that to people.

It's because your character stutters a lot or pauses a lot. I totally get that

But whew does it get tedious when there are four hundred and thirty-six thousand eight hundred and fifty-two dots on the page!

"I... I'm... You're... this is... uh... not what it... looks like... it was just... laying there... and I... I uh... picked it up..." –Sehun to Baekhyun after he stole his dildo

Pls give your readers a break let them live

There are other ways to indicate a pause! For example, stOp the dialogue and mention that they paused or stuttered between the words. Or don't make them speak that long in the first place. If I spoke like that irl I would've given up on the third word.

Let urself live. Let me live

#StopEllipsisAbuse2018

Moral of the story: literally use any ellipsis you want as it is a stylistic choice, and don't overuse it.

Mostly all in one go.

"Uh........................................"

That's like 10 times the amount that you need do you expect your reader to sit there for two minutes straight............................

Stop

Get some help

ur -10 writer is oot.