Punctuation problem

[Arthur_Connelly]

A character is overhearing a shouting match in another room. If bits of dialogue are omitted at the beginning of sentence, should the words following the ellipsis be capitalized?

For example:

"...any more Cookie-Crisp?"

or

"...Any more Cookie-Crisp?"

Thank you.

 

[Boneman]

The former, I think... it denotes that words have been missed, whereas starting with a capital means the beginning of a sentence, and no words missed.

 

[The Judge]

I agree, definitely lower case for ordinary words. I'd put a gap between the ellipsis and the first letter, as well, but that could just be me.

 

[Arthur_Connelly]

Thank you both.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

The Judge and Boneman are right about the capitalization, but Judge is actually wrong about the ellipse. You do NOT space ellipses and words, because spacing an ellipse would entail a pause in the speech that isn't actually there and then you would have to start an actual new sentence. Don't space at those points.

 

[mosaix]

I agree with Boneman on this.

 

[HareBrain]

You do NOT space ellipses and words, because spacing an ellipse would entail a pause in the speech that isn't actually there and then you would have to start an actual new sentence. Don't space at those points.

This got me checking several published novels, and you're right, there's no space between the word and following (or preceding) ellipsis. Or rather, there's the same gap between the word and the ellipsis as there is between each dot of the ellipsis -- about half a normal space. But word processing programs (Word, at least) aren't so clever at typesetting, and I think it looks better, and less cramped, to insert a space.

There's also the issue, again with Word at least, that it treats two words joined by an ellipsis (without spaces) as all one word, which can play havoc with the right-hand edge of the text.

Anyone know if inserting spaces is likely to incur the wrath of an agent or editor?