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If I Were Your Writing Coach, I’d Take Away Your Exclamation Point
Exclamation point abuse! It happens to far too many writers! It seems they just can’t help themselves!
Okay, look, you get one exclamation point per year or per book. That’s it. And I just used up my three-year allotment. Unless you are illustrating a point of a character who always seems to be in exclamatory mode, a character who is a joke and a punchline, then you might use more exclamation points to show what an idiot he is. Otherwise, just don’t. Exclamation points should be treated like saffron: Just a few bits go a very long way.
Published in Group Writing
“Gypsum stimulus”!
It works well for us.
You know, I had thought somebody had filched it out of the bike shed but there it was! Thanks!
Yes, I’m yanking Arahant’s chain with the exclamation points.
As long as you don’t abuse them in your books, I don’t care.
Tora. And then two more Toras.
A Film of the Unpleasantness at Pearl Harbor.
I like the way they look with 1s.
Flagged: Possible pornography.
Certainly obscene typography.
I seem to remember that @misthiocracy has some very strong feelings about the interrobang!
The other day my son (who doesn’t use exclamation points) was distraught to learn that an automatic reply that went out under his name (part of some Apple service, but I don’t remember the details) contained exclamation points. He was concerned about what that would do for his image at work.
I had to struggle to keep from placing an ! at the end of the previous sentence.