I edit a lot of different writers all of them highly skilled and no two wield the blade the same way. They're like lightsabers basically
Maria Bustillos
I will club a robot to death with an em-dash before I let the robot take it from me. I will wield an em-dash like Excalibur, granted me as a boon by the Lady of the Lake before the lake was consumed by a data center.
I wrote about this last year
Human writers have always used the em dash. In fact, it’s the most human punctuation mark there is.
Wait, em-dashes are now seen as an AI thing? I was using them before AI was a glimmer in Satan's eye and I'm not stopping now. I love them; they can represent a shift in tone, a raised eyebrow, a leaning-forward, a tiny jolt of midsentence caffeine. It was all I could do not to use one in this post.
Mark Harris
About a half-dozen of the writers I work with have confessed to feeling paranoid about their use of em-dashes (the long ones: "—") because they fear people will believe their stuff was written by an AI.
To which I say: Pfffft. Use as many dang dashes as you want. And let your human voice sing out.
