Ode to the “Em Dash”

I’m working on the second draft of my newest novel. I love working on second drafts almost as much as writing the first draft. (The less said about how much I love working on the subsequent ones, the better.) As I edit, I’m struck by a detail that should never have become a problem. It is a punctuation mark.

I’m not sure when I first discovered that I had a favourite punctuation mark. However, it was a revelation when em dashes began appearing in my writing decades ago, if I recall correctly.

Most people aren’t aware, but the em dash first appeared in the fifteenth century as a mark indicating the width of the letter “M.” It was, in fact, not even an invention created by grammarians to assist us in expressing our precise meaning, as most punctuation does. Rather, a printer gave us this handy little mark, which lets us replace parentheses, commas and colons. In my view, it also gives the sentence a different feel and, therefore, a different meaning.

I even did a YouTube video on this handy, well-loved little mark back in 2022 (when I still did that kind of thing), giving tips on my personal favourite punctuation marks. FYI, I’ve added it at the bottom in case you’re into these things.

So, you can imagine my horror at discovering that the em dash is now one of the ways editors and readers think they can spot writing created by artificial intelligence. How utterly simplistic. This horrific discovery then sent me on a mad chase to find my em dashes in my second drafts. I examine where I have used them and try to figure out whether parentheses or commas would be better. In almost every case, they would not. So, I’ve succumbed, like so many other writers these days, to incorporating the dreaded sentence fragment. Probably even worse. If you get my meaning.

Then, common sense dawns. I step back and realize that if anyone thinks any piece of writing wasn’t created by a human just because there are em dashes, then I believe we have a serious literacy problem. If, on the other hand, you love a story that also might have the odd em dash, used correctly, effectively and by design, then read it and love it.

I am not apologizing for my em dashes. I love them.