That Pesky Exclamation Point!!!

>I often get in trouble for using these tools when my editor gets my stories, but I prefer to make her cut them out How do you feel about italics for inner dialogue-thoughts and such?

>And how do you feel about the interrobang?
(OK, I'm being a tad flippant, but I love this punctuation mark and occasionally insert it into a blog post to see whether anyone notices…) (An interrobang is a hybrid exclamation point/question mark: ‽)

On a more serious note, I often wonder if I use ellipses too frequently. How many times is too often, do you think?

>Looking back over some of my older stories, I've noticed that I overused all of these. Thankfully, I've gotten better. I've noticed that quite a few books have all-caps in them, but they only seemed to work if it was once or twice throughout the book. I agree that most didn't need them though.

Just curious though: what about an exclamation point in narrative, not just dialogue? Is this okay? (Very sparingly used, of course. I've just read several different opinions on them.)

~ Chy

>Exclamation marks make me twitch. I think I used two in my manuscript. Not sure there's an appropriate time to use all caps unless someone's trying to devise their own style. Italics? I can deal with those in small doses.

>You've cheered me up as this is one mistake I don't make.

>I'm guilty of this too, but luckily usually only in first drafts. But I do serially abuse the ellipses. How many of these can you use in a book without it being overkill? I just can't think of any other way for characters to trail off when they're talking, or have their speech interrupted by another character. Suggestions?

>I now have the strong urge to read my manuscript and see how many of those pesky things I have. Thank you for this post.

>WHAT!!! CAN'T YOU SEE THAT IT IS SO MUCH EASIER TO READ WHEN WE TYPE LIKE THIS?! YOU JUST WANT TO SILENCE OUR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION! SHAME ON YOU!!!!

>Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

>Thanks Rachelle.

>I like what you said…."Your writing should be so effective by itself that the emphasis isn’t necessary." Good advice…

>I SOOOO don't get this!!!!

Thank you SOOOO much for the freedom to EXCLAIM and CAP LIKE CRAZY in my BLOG POST!!!

Love you!,
p

>I've noticed many business books tend to use more variety in fonts, bold, italics, etc. Why is this? Is it more acceptable in that genre?

>I immediately went back and am doing a global search and to my embarrassment have too many exclamation points … replace, replace, replace.kristi

>I’ve been anti-exclamation point for years. I think I used one in the manuscript I just finished. But I am still unsettled about whether it will make the cut.

>Love your last comment about only using exclamation points when someone is actually exclaiming.Love your blog,Many thanks from an over-user of all types of artificial emphasis.Sarah

>As a composition teacher, I have seen all of these put into regular practice by my students, and it drives me up the wall. I’ve actually eased up on the exclamation points as long as they can reduce their usage down to one per sentence. The use of multiple exclamations to denote the level of excitement gives me a headache.Of course, worse than the artificial emphases are the prolific ellipses used to separate sentences, used to denote a change of topic (what should really be a new paragraph) and the belief that more periods indicates a longer pause.Oh, and can someone please tell me when the apostrophe became so difficult to use? I have seen them used to indicate plurals, but most confusingly they end up tacked onto verbs.

>Amen. Smiley/winky faces are cool though, right?

>Suzanne Collins is not my mentor. I am happy for her success, though.

>So I won’t get in trouble for naming a specific person, there is a very famous author with the initials of J.P. who lost me as a reader because of his incessant use of the exclamation point. I mean, it got so that an innocuous statement such as “I ate dinner.” turned into a major accomplishment (as in “I ate dinner!!!”). ‘Nuff said.

>Fun post, Rachelle. As a “writer-in-learning” I hear the fun, but also take heed of the points you make. I’m going to have to go back through my wip and look at exclamation points, and more closely at the italicized words. Thanks for the challenge to make my writing good enough that I won’t need them.

>The formatting in this post made me laugh so hard.I agree exclamation points should be rare, only used when a character is making a very loud or sudden or excited exclamation. In line to line prose, I can’t imagine it ever being completely necessary. (Well, at least in third person. If the story’s in first, see the first line of this paragraph.)I tend to use italics to show a character’s thoughts. Old manuscript guides I’ve seen say to underline these passages so they’ll be more visible to the copyeditor, and they’ll be converted to italics in the final print, but the newer ones seem to think that since everything is electronic these days, using just the italics is fine. What are your thoughts on this? Which would you prefer to see in a manuscript.

>This post reminded me of the “Seinfeld” episode when Elaine gets bent out of shape because her boyfriend did not use an exclamation point at the end of a note, and broke up with him because of it!

>As an editor, I thank you, thank you, thank you for this post. (I used repetition to emphasize my thanks instead of an exclamation point or italics or bold or all caps.Won’t do it again.)My pet peeve is ALL CAPS because it equals yelling–and who wants to be yelled at? (Unless, of course, your character is yelling for some reason. Like maybe they’re falling off a cliff.)

>Punctuation is so much fun. I laugh out loud when I read EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES. It helps that she has a British sense of humor.Good punctuation coversation here would be fun, I am sure. Especially the comma. I’m with Mr. Mabry. I over-use or under-use the comma so much. And dashes. Heck, I would put poor Emily Dickinson to shame. I am having my manuscript edited before I send it out and I am dreading all the red.

>Thank God for find and replace. I have identified two of my favorite (and over used) words. I have used that function to eliminate most of them form may manuscript. My two favorites seem to be “just” and “even” I will now go back and do a search for “!”

>What is your suggestion for differentiating inner dialogue since italics are losing favor?

>So true! And I love !!!! Sad, but you’re right.

>OH DARN !!!!!!Guess it’s back to dry prose Still, wonder in a first person novel how does one handle inner dialogue without italics?Thanks.Heather

>I’ve improved dramatically concerning use of !!! And when I go back and re-read my MS and hit upon places where I used italics, I generally remove them for of a number of reasons. The main one is that no matter what I was thinking at the time of writing, I’m not thinking with that same intensity anymore and the written novel is now guiding me through the story as a reader, not the writer.One question I have, because I’ve seen it done often (and therefore considered it fit to copy and have to admit I like it when I see it) is very minor use of sentence-case bold italics to show the voice of God. The instances in which it is used conveys ‘conversation’ between the character and God. It made perfect sense as I read it. Do you (personally) see using this method acceptable when conveying a character’s thoughts and the voice of God? I’m talking like three lines at best, not humungous, great big diatribes on every page in every chapter.I also see plenty of instances where a character’s internal thoughts are italicised and love it. I love knowing the person I’m following through anybody’s story has a brain constantly at work and those often cheeky moments can be hard to beat sometimes. For me, a character’s thoughts in italics are show not tell.

>I always question the use of exclamation points when writing and try not to use them. That being said, I still find too many in my manuscript every time I go back over it.

After I finish my most recent edit (I can't seem to stop going back to it) I'll do a find and remove some of them, even though they're sparse.

As I continue on with my writing journey, I deem that I will use less as time goes on. It's one of those learn as you go processes.

>In my day job, I see way too much of all the devices you mentioned — and it does look amateurish. In one severe instance, a press release contained more caps, bold, and italics then "normal" text.

I need to put forth extra effort with submissions containing these irritants, so they are more likely to be summarily deleted — especially if I am near a deadline.

>This is tangibly helpful to me. Thank you.

>I'm not a big fan of exclamation marks either, but I do use them sparingly. Italics I like to use for dream scenes mainly. I think it helps the reader to understand that they are reading an aside from the main story line. One thing I hate more than anything as a reader myself is to not know when I'm in a dream sequence. So I make sure it is obvious in my writing.

*******

What about the use of a bunch of asterisks across the page to separate thoughts or transitions from one character to another? They are like a page breaks or internal chapters. I've seen them used to show simultaneous events, or opposing movements of the protagonist vs antagonist.

>So what you are saying is the people should sound in writing the way a boring professor sounds during a lecture on a moth. Never emphasize a point, never raise your inflection, never do anything but drone on, and on. Boring.

>I'm with Lance: these punctuation forms are there for a reason and used intelligently are useful.

People do exclaim, and they do emphasise; and I might use CAPS for something like a loud speaker announcement or an urgent, screamed warning.

Readers should not always have to decide what these emphases might be for themselves, no matter how expert the writing. Clarity sometimes works.

Rather than a rant like this (sure, it gets us going), a better approach would be to describe where they can be useful and in what context.

BTW, as well as Hunger Games, take another read of Harry Potter. Doesn't bother these authors or their editors and publishers it seems. Depends on whether you want to sell hundreds of millions of books I guess.

I have just finished a manuscript myself and had plenty ALL CAPS!!! Bold italics and boring dreadful double spaces.
I thought I got rid of it all when my colleague said “check for triple spaces, with this author, you never know”!
I thought – ah, no, nobody would do that! Right?
Wrong.
I searched for triple spaces and found 68. I then went for quadruple spaces and found 19. I thought surely nobody uses 5? I found 5. And there even was one 6 spaces thing in the manuscript!!!
Why ?!!!