The em-dash (called this because it takes up the width of an “m,” as opposed to the “n-dash,” and it’s lesser cousin, the hyphen) is the dramatic pause. It can be used to set off parenthetical material; an em-dash can also be used to introduce a list—for examples—apples, pears, cherries, or to introduce a restatementement, or a dramatic shift in tone or thought.
No one loves the m-dash so much as the poets, though. “Don’t take that, it’s my emotional support em-dash,” you can practically hear the poet writing an essay thinking. Why do poets love the em-dash? It allows us a break—mid-thought, mid-description, mid-line. It offers us one more element of play when it comes to something that runs counterpoint to the function of the line’s shape in poetry—the em-dash is the music of disruption. Ask Emily Dickinson, who used lots of different shapes and lengths of dashes, writing her poems in long-hand, and stitching them together in little books known as fascicles.
One of the backhanded gifts of increased ChatGPT usage is that I am having more students than ever asking me what the em-dash and the semicolon are for, and how they work. Another thing I find myself pointing out lately is that if you find yourself writing run-on sentences and comma splices, it means you are writing complex sentences that need more interesting punctuation, which is a great thing—and the em-dash and the semicolon are here to help! Not that the period isn’t also here to help; who doesn’t love to rest with a full-stop and a period?
Like the semicolon, the em-dash gets you out of the comma-splice bind, and can also set apart parenthetical statements (we have all met the professor or editor who disdains parentheses for whatever reason, but who seems oddly fine with dashes). Go forth and live life with your best flourish!
Writing prompt: Use an em-dash today. Bonus points for writing a poem with an em-dash (or maybe an em-dash on every line! why be modest when you can BE BOLD!). Bonus points for using an em-dash in a text to a friend, leaving them hanging in dramatic suspense for a minute—
remember, two hyphens and a space will usually autoformat an em-dash for you! otherwise you can easily find an em-dash in the internet wilds; go to the em-dash fields, my writer friend, harvest an em-dash.
The Line Break 