Punctuation Em-dash before question mark

While reading Stephen King’s The Shining I encountered the following sentence:

And if his son and his wife had willfully set themselves against his wishes, against the things he knew were best for them, then didn’t he have a certain duty—?​

Note the placement of the em-dash. What do you feel it’s contributing? Do you think it’s a good choice? And finally, have you used this exact punctuation in your writing.

Personally speaking, the look of it strikes me as inelegant.

 

An em-dash can be used for a hard cutoff midway through a sentence, like this: 'Could he be—?' (as if the speaker or thinker is afraid to even say the word dead). If it's a statment rather than a question it wouldn't be followed by any punctuation, but if it's a question you need to get the question mark in there. A declarative sentence would be done like this: 'Then that would mean—' It's just a harder cutoff than an ellipse, which indicates more of a slow fade. 'Then that would mean...'

 

Of course. But I read King’s example sentence as completed, not cutoff.

 

This seems like maybe an ellipsis would be better as it indicates a trailing off or pause to think rather than a cutoff. But I'm not Stephen King and I don't know the context.

It seems to me that he's having a realization that he has an obligation to do bad things to his wife and kids but the sane part of him is unsure or reluctant.

 

Without further context, I assume it's meant to convey an abrupt cut off thought. It doesn't read like a full sentence to me because it doesn't say what certain duty he has to fulfill, just cuts off beforehand as the implications either horrify the narrator enough that he can't or doesn't want to finish his thought. I think it's a perfectly fine choice. A rather bad quirk of mine is constantly cutting character's thoughts off so yeah, I use this kind of punctuation all the time.

I also find I tend to see this kind of punctuation in certain kind of comics and manga where the story is more reliant on character expression and dialogue. People cutting themselves off because of an interruption or an overwhelming emotion just leads the reader to follow the panels more closely to see what's going on.

 

So sentences with ambiguity don’t read as complete to you?

 

Yeah, it could be seen as completed, but in that case the em-dash adds a bit of expression that wouldn't be there without it. Imagine someone saying the line, rather than it being inner monologue. The em-dash would indicate something like raising the eyebrows right at the end, or tilting the head down and looking up from under the eyebrows. It's almost like a slight pause right there, which could indicate a less settled meaning, as opposed to a fully composed meaning. There's a little beat left there in the timing.

 

Eh, these oddities happen. But I used to use the em-dash like this:

"Did you... kill my cat?"
"No, I—!"
"How could you!"

My thought was that this adds a tone of surprise to the speaker. Without the mark, he'd sound more reserved and submissive to the accusation before he is cut off. But this way, there isn't such an element, there is fight and agitation in the voice.

Never tested it on stuff people read, though. And I stopped doing it because I wasn't sure it was correct.

You scared me there for a second, I thought King died and the news of that somehow completely flew past me.

 

That’s precisely how it struck me. That the em-dash was attempting to add a certain amount of emphasis and inflection. And imo that’s an inelegant way to communicate that.

 

I can read a sentence with ambiguity and find it complete, but the way this sentence is written it wouldn't just make sense to read it as complete because it isn't. By using a em-dash and a question mark he is explicitly saying the sentence isn't complete. That's what the em-dash is meant to convey.

I mean, if the sentence didn't have the em-dash:

And if his son and his wife had willfully set themselves against his wishes, against the things he knew were best for them, then didn’t he have a certain duty?
​

It would be fine but the interpretation, in my opinion, would be entirely different. I would interpret it less of someone who's slowly creeping to the edge of a dark path, horrified of where their own thought process is going, and more of someone who's barrelling down the dark path, uncaring of who he hurts along the way. Basically horrified thoughts versus determined thoughts.

 

I honestly don’t see why not.

The question mark at the end communicates that the character is unsure, and not at all determined to take any course of action.

 

If you think it's inelegant, then so be it. That's a matter of opinion. Personally it doesn't feel that way to me, but I've been seeing it for a long time. It's not new to me, and I'm surprized it is for anyone who reads a lot honestly.

 

Quite right. I never intended to suggest otherwise.

Good to hear. I’m delighted to have surprised a forum member.

 

And I misspelled surprised again. I think I always expect it to be spelled like 'prize'. Why doesn't my spell ehcekce cath these issues? See, it missed those too.

 

It seems to be the spellchecker in Safari. I'm using DuckDuckGo and it underlines misspelled words with a dotted red line the way I expect. Sorry for off topic.

 

It makes sense to me to use the em-dash here. It's a cut-off thought, as if he is stopping himself from thinking what his duty is to deal with his wife and son. A duty to—what? What did he stop himself from thinking?