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

[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