Yet Another Question

[rosalinda-143.livejournal.com]

Well, more like "questions". Because I have two.

One: how would you write pm? Is is PM, P.M., p.m., or pm. Or do I just avoid using that in my writing?

Two: I'm not sure about hyphens ( - ). It's kind of hard to explain, but I'll try my best...

Here's a sample of a sentence from one of my short stories: I kept my bag in my lap. It kept all my belongings including two pairs of clothes–not including the ones I was wearing–and my wallet with my I.D. and the money I had made previously.

When I had my short story read by a beta they told me that I should have spaces between my hyphens, like so: I kept my beg in my lap. It kept all my belongings including two pairs of clothes - not including the ones I was wearing - and my wallet with my I.D. and the money I had made perviously.

My question is, what's the difference? I started doing that as I write, but when I read I see the the hyphens don't have any spaces in between? How do I know when to put spaces between the sentences and the hyphens?

Thanks to all in advanced!

~ J

Comments

[henyad.livejournal.com]

TAKEN OUT OF PURDUE OWL:

1.Use a hyphen to join two or more words serving as a single adjective before a noun:
a one-way street

2.Use a hyphen with compound numbers:
forty-six

3.Use a hyphen to avoid confusion or an awkward combination of letters:
re-sign a petition (vs. resign from a job)
4.Use a hyphen with the prefixes ex- (meaning former), self-, all-; with the suffix -elect; between a prefix and a capitalized word; and with figures or letters:
ex-husband
self-assured
mid-September
all-inclusive
mayor-elect
anti-American
T-shirt
pre-Civil War
mid-1980s
______________________________________________________________________

I think both the a.m. and AM convention are acceptable.
But are probably more of a stylistic issue.

[mari-mac1109.livejournal.com]

In the case of the sentence you posted, you want an em dash, not a hyphen. It's commonly represented by two hyphens like this -- and a lot of word processors (including Microsoft Word) will convert it into a dash for you. You do NOT need spaces on either side of the dash.

A hyphen is not appropriate for this usage.

An em dash can be used in the place of commas or parentheses. For example, you could also write that sentence:

I kept my beg in my lap. It kept all my belongings including two pairs of clothes (not including the ones I was wearing) and my wallet with my I.D. and the money I had made previously.

or

I kept my beg in my lap. It kept all my belongings including two pairs of clothes, not including the ones I was wearing, and my wallet with my I.D. and the money I had made previously.

All three are technically grammatically correct, so it comes to what punctuation is more effective stylistically. Each punctuation mark makes the sentence come across just a bit differently. In this case, I think you'd be right to go with the em dash! But be careful with the dash. A lot of writers will start to use it as a crutch and really end up overusing it. Be mindful and open to changing things around so you can get a nice variety in sentence structures and convey what you're writing about as best as possible! I find I write my first drafts with a lot of dashes when I'm writing quickly. When I'm editing and moving things around, most of the dashes get cut.

Here's a link with more info!

http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/dashes.asp

[mystical-chickn.livejournal.com]

For your example, you would actually use a dash, or double hyphen:

I kept my bag in my lap. It kept all my belongings including two pairs of clothes–-not including the ones I was wearing–-and my wallet with my I.D. and the money I had made previously.

I think there's actually an ALT code that you can use to make a dash (which is just basically a longer hyphen, just not called that) but I can't remember what it is and 99% of people just use double hyphens anyway.

[mystical-chickn.livejournal.com]

Whoops, the person above already said that. I should really learn to reload pages before commenting :p

[lenaf007.livejournal.com]

As far as the am/pm choice, I've been reminded over and over again by publication specialists at work that it's a.m. and p.m. if you want the accurate method. Though really in writing there's less focus on that being completely accurate, so AM or PM would probably be fine too.