Is it acceptable to use two ellipses in a row over a page turn? For example:
He jumped ...
(Page turn)
... and landed.
By the way, this is in the context of a children's picture book.
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2I don't see any harm in it, providing it's done for a specific reason. I use the device in ordinary text. Punctuation is largely a matter of style, anyway.– MickCommented Dec 23, 2016 at 15:42
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2However, I would take pains to avoid widows and orphans in children's books.– MickCommented Dec 23, 2016 at 15:48
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1Try to put it on facing pages, that would be better. But not twice: He jumped...[one page]; [facing page] and landed. Otherwise, it is not grammatically correct. He jumped... ...and landed (that is not right).– LambieCommented Dec 23, 2016 at 16:11
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3@Mick Eliminating widows and orphans would leave out a lot of children's stories. ;)– SpencerCommented Dec 23, 2016 at 17:29
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Widows and orphans are lines at the beginning or end of a paragraph. The OP is not describing that. The OP is asking about ellipsis, i.e. three periods or full-stops at the end of a phrase.– LambieCommented Dec 23, 2016 at 17:47
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2 Answers
In informal writing an ellipsis is often used to indicate a pause in the flow of the sentence, as in this case.
The question raised is whether to repeat the (valid) use of ellipsis when the first use is no longer on page in order to carry over the effect to the next page or to simply use a sentence fragment on the second page.
I have not found any style guide that addresses this question, but I would say yes, repeat the ellipsis. I would liken it to using a hyphen - if you unavoidably had to hyphenate across a page-break you would hyphenate both halves to make it immediately obvious what is going on.
This is a common concern in children's books where the strategy of progressive discovery (page-level cliffhangers) often necessitate breaking a single sentence into two pages for an exciting reveal or for prompting child participation.
Given the ubiquity of this issue, review of professionally published children's books should yield real-world editor's decisions on this, but I have written and self-published a children's book, and I used two ellipses when facing this question.
If I find examples in professionally published examples, I will add them to this answer.
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I'm not sure about the etiquette around self-promotion in this context, so I'm relegating this to a comment, but since I mentioned it in my answer: If you're curious, my book is available at ChewItOverBook.com. If this is a no-no I'll be happy to delete this comment upon notification– GetzelRCommented Dec 26, 2016 at 19:13
What word or words are you omitting? Ellipsis is mainly used to indicate omitted words. If you are trying to indicate a pause in the action then see this ESO post.
@Lambie has it right; don't repeat the ellipsis across a page break. I would break the page prior to "He jumped".
