Exclamation Points!!!!!!!!!!

[Teresa Edgerton]

A few decades ago, writers were liberal in their use of exclamation points. I was browsing through The Fellowship of the Ring the other day, and was surprised to see how many of them Tolkien used in dialogue.

Not that we would be wise to model our punctuation on books published in the 1950's ... still, I thought it was interesting.

 

[Mouse]

I have 345 of them in TBM but I've had a look and a lot of them are things like: Ha! or As if! and Bloody hell! and also a lot of them occur when my MC is being hysterical.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Oh, oh, oh, I can be a rebel, too... I have 84 of them in Abendau's Child at 100000 words, 112 in Sunset at 90000 and 122 in Inish at 80000 words. I think, given Inish's venacular, they might be linked to swear words. But 122... I will need to do a cull.

 

[Mouse]

I'm not culling any of mine. Nobody's picked them out and said I overuse them. Also, probably 80-90% of mine are from Ambrose - he's highly strung so fits his character.

So, you can overuse them, of course you can, but if you're using them properly and they actually change/add to a sentence or character, then why change it? Seriously, nobody noticed mine and I've had five betas, one friend and one professional critique/editor read the thing.

I think, as with anything, do what you feel is right.

 

[alchemist]

I've got 234 in 100k words, but I blame the Chrons. I had almost none until my first critique when I was told I should have one in a particular sentence. That was all the encouragement I needed!

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I usually feel that if I am counting that sort of thing in a book, it's because I've already disengaged from the story. If I can't wait to read what happens next, I probably won't notice.

Unless the writer is totally overdoing it -- in which case they're probably doing other things wrong, too.

 

[Glen]

He swears a lot too!!

Using multiple at the end of a sentence very unprofessional.

Oh dear!

There are 709 in Joseph Sin - I expect nearly every one of them used by Eduardo. Except the ones where other people have been influenced to speak like Eduardo! Could I be overdoing it?

Unless the writer is totally overdoing it -- in which case they're probably doing other things wrong, too.

Oh dear...I'm probablly not cut out for this writing lark!

I hope no-one objects to overuse of the interrobang. Surely we all have hundreds of these in each of our works.

 

[J Riff]

Was flipping through some EC Science Fiction comics from the fifties, and every sentence is all capital letters and almost every sentence has an exclamation point. Not only that- the exclamation points are often separated from the text by a good margin, and they are italicized. From there, they achieve emphasis by using bold, italics and quotation marks on the text itself. Makes it all very exciting and after a few paragraphs you don't notice it anymore.
A random example:

ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF! I AM EMIL HINDE, M.D, M.S, PHD !
WHAT I AM ABOUT TO TELL YOU CONCERNS MY DAUGHTER TERRY! IT BEGAN ABOUT A YEAR AGO!
"WHY, YOU'RE ALL DRESSED UP! GOING SOMEWHERE?
YES, I'M GOING OUT, WITH LEE !

NO WONDER IT ALL SEEMED SO EXCITING !!!

 

[Erin99]

So, you can overuse them, of course you can, but if you're using them properly and they actually change/add to a sentence or character, then why change it? Seriously, nobody noticed mine and I've had five betas, one friend and one professional critique/editor read the thing.

I think, as with anything, do what you feel is right.

Mouse, I went looking for the "Like" button! Great post. People obsess too much over the "rules", to the detriment of creativity and story. It's like those people who go looking for all the "was"es in their work. Not every "was" is passive voice; some are just continuous past ("was going") - apparently, even Strunk and White's first edition of their famous book misidentified three of the four examples as passive voice!

And if the "no wases" advice gets into the wrong hands, the hands of an inexperienced writer, they might go removing every instance of was/were/is, etc.

 

[Hex]

And if the "no wases" advice gets into the wrong hands, the hands of an inexperienced writer, they might go removing every instance of was/were/is, etc.

But doing stuff like that is how we turn into butterfl-- uh experienced writers.

I hope.

 

[Erin99]

Oh no, you didn't, did you?

(Uh... I might have started down that path about 6 years ago, too, until I realised what passive actually was... ^_^)

As long a you learn to spot what works and what doesn't, and, more importantly, why something doesn't work in your writing (like passive voice, most times), you'll improve. As Teresa always says, in time you learn to trust your instincts and see what works and what doesn't.


You'll make a lovely butterfly!

 

[Hex]

Gosh no. Nothing so sophisticated yet. I ought to, though (although maybe not all of them).

 

[Mouse]

Mouse, I went looking for the "Like" button! Great post. People obsess too much over the "rules", to the detriment of creativity and story. It's like those people who go looking for all the "was"es in their work. Not every "was" is passive voice; some are just continuous past ("was going") - apparently, even Strunk and White's first edition of their famous book misidentified three of the four examples as passive voice!

And if the "no wases" advice gets into the wrong hands, the hands of an inexperienced writer, they might go removing every instance of was/were/is, etc.

Ta! And with the passive thing, sometimes you want a passive voice anyway.

 

[Erin99]

"I was being hunted" -- waaaay more intriguing than "A three foot dwarf with a pencil chased me".

Or, now that I think about it, maybe not. ;p





Hex, come on! You can't be a great writer if you haven't made some embarrassing errors in your time.


Oh, and so I'm on topic: Ha! (see, that exclamation mark was needed. Can't have a ha without an !.)

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

And if the "no wases" advice gets into the wrong hands, the hands of an inexperienced writer, they might go removing every instance of was/were/is, etc.

Like the people who get (and pass on) the idea that there should be no adverbs in their work, and that adjectives are almost as bad.

I was once critiqued by a woman who said I used too many colons. I probably do, though I do try to get rid of some of the excess ones, but I had the impression that was something she was poised at the ready to say to someone at the least chance.

Maybe I misjudged her there. I tend to think in lists when I describe things, but that's no excuse. I could break the habit if I tried harder.

For a while, I almost never used exclamation points in my writing, but they're creeping back in, perhaps because I use more internal dialogue.

 

[SciFrac]

ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF! I AM EMIL HINDE, M.D, M.S, PHD !
WHAT I AM ABOUT TO TELL YOU CONCERNS MY DAUGHTER TERRY! IT BEGAN ABOUT A YEAR AGO!
"WHY, YOU'RE ALL DRESSED UP! GOING SOMEWHERE?
YES, I'M GOING OUT, WITH LEE !

NO WONDER IT ALL SEEMED SO EXCITING !!!

Ugh, gross. I don't want to read any more of that.

So now people are bragging about how many !s they use. Ha! All rebels, the lot of you.

Thanks for the insights. Pretty much how I feel too, and right about adverbs/adjectives use as well.

 

[hopewrites]

I was told that ! is an emotive demarcation, a way to show what one would normally hear in a voice. Passion. Aggression. Fear. Agony.

If our characters are feeling and expressing that, should we not be proud of it!?

Naturally, like swear words, they are more effective when used sparingly. Lord knows people sit up and listen (often in horror) when I start swearing because its like watching a kitten vomit up a rhino.

Utterly unexpected and somewhat disturbing.

 

[Warren_Paul]

Oh, oh, oh, I can be a rebel, too... I have 84 of them in Abendau's Child at 100000 words, 112 in Sunset at 90000 and 122 in Inish at 80000 words. I think, given Inish's venacular, they might be linked to swear words. But 122... I will need to do a cull.

Mouse is right. It's not about how many are in your MS, but how you use them. You don't necessarily have to cut them if they are used properly. It all depends on the scene and other dialogue around it. I've never once seen you abusing exclamation marks, Springs.

But say you have five lines of dialogue in a row, and they all end with an exclamation mark, you've likely lost the effect of the mark before you even get to the fifth one, and the reader has probably also noticed it as well, and it will have become a distraction.

If you need to take it a step up from exclamation mark and give it more emphasis, then italicise the word and mark for added emphasis, or you could take the capitals route - but I still find that painful to read, although it is professionally acceptable.






BTW: When I said multiple in one sentence, I meant this: I never said that!!! People tend to use that in casual speech on forums and messaging, facebook etc. But in novels... don't do it! Just thought I should mention that, because I wasn't sure my point was understood (or maybe it's just me ). Don't do this either: Do you think he said that!? Use the question mark instead of the exclamation mark.

 

[hopewrites]

People tend to use that in casual speech on forums and messaging, facebook etc. But in novels... don't do it!

do you think that this is a hold over from when reading was a pastime?

I mean, forums and such are like talking to someone, so more casual punctuation is generally accepted.

But reading is still a formal kind of thing. When I read out to friends or family I do voices not only for characters but for the narrative as well. Kid books are especially fun to read out to their intended demographic. Audiences gasp and interrupt with questions for the good ones.

 

[Warren_Paul]

do you think that this is a hold over from when reading was a pastime?

No idea to be honest, but I'd always assumed it stemmed from people trying to write a book like how they talk on facebook and forums.