Opinion on "!"

Sunshine13 · Oct 1, 2008

Alright, so I'm just going through because I'm a perfectionist, and checking my exclamation points because I hear they weren't the fondest punctuation marks in the market.

I'm working on finding ways to get rid of most of them, but it's hard. Especially in action sequences, and more especially when my MC is yelling out spells. The urgency just seems blah when it's "Freeze." versus "Freeze!" (ok that isn't a line from my book but you get my point).

On some I changed, "Stop!" to "Stop," she shouted. But I hate always using dialogue tags.

Suggestions? I read somewhere there is some kind of limit of !'s you should have in a novel. Mine is 104K, so what should my average be? Because this is a big adventure with lots of crap going on, I can't just NOT have any.

MelodyO · Oct 1, 2008

I have the same quandary. My characters are in life or death situations, screaming bloody murder at each other. I mean, "Cut off the zombie's head before he gets us!" just isn't the same without the exclamation point, you know what I mean?

My solution: If it's in dialogue, the !s stay. And I try to use them only in panicked dialogue rather than overexcited dialogue. Not perfect, but it's better than too much...or not enough.

Garpy · Oct 1, 2008

Personally I'm okay with exclamation in dialog, but only with, yaknow, shouted/barked/exclaimed dialog.

But never...never...the narrator. Never. Period. NoSiree. It's incredibly naff imho, and JK Rowling needs a smacked bottom for all the times her narrator's voice has chipped in over-enthusiastically with a "!"

SPMiller · Oct 1, 2008

Garpy said:
But never...never...the narrator. Never. Period. NoSiree. It's incredibly naff imho, and JK Rowling needs a smacked bottom for all the times her narrator's voice has chipped in over-enthusiastically with a "!"

And you're just the man to do it, ain't ya?

I haven't used exclamation marks in narrative since I was in my early teens, but I do occasionally use them in dialog. Sometimes, the absence of the mark weakens the dialog when the tension is high.

Gillhoughly · Oct 1, 2008

:Editor's hat on:

Acceptable dialogue tag so you know who's shouting:

"Stop!" But Jane didn't hear me. (Or-- I waved my arms frantically.)

or

Stop! I screamed in my head.

Unacceptable with me, though this made it into a book I read, and I stopped reading that writer:

The wall fell with a crash!

Narrative is rarely made more exciting with over the top punctuation. The following is a better alternative to flat description.

Something heavy shifted above me. The wall, solid a moment ago, swayed like a ship's sail. It belled outward in the same way, making grinding, cracking sounds. Heart in my throat, I bolted. It crashed into the space where I'd been; dust billowed up in choking, blinding clouds. I'd missed death by inches, but kept on running, certain there was more to come.

regdog · Oct 1, 2008

I'm fine with exclamation marks in dialgoue. It sound express how the person is talking and there are times when what is being said deserves an exclamation

IceCreamEmpress · Oct 1, 2008

I think that the exclamation point is fine in dialogue when used sparingly (and I'd say you have between 5 and 10 exclamation points per 100 pages of book, depending on how likely people would be to be exclaiming in the situation--more for the Zombie Apocalypse, less for the Jane Austen pastiche).

In narrative, I don't think it EVER works unless you're writing for kids or in a very foregrounded, jokey narrative voice a la Terry Pratchett.

Grrarrgh · Oct 1, 2008

I'm alright with it in dialogue where it belongs, but it really disrupts my reading groove when I see it in narration. I have a tendency to over do it myself, so I undertstand the impulse. I just let myself go nuts with it until the revision stage, then I usually end up cutting at least half of them.

Spiny Norman · Oct 1, 2008

Yeah, in dialogue it's fine. (Sparingly, even so.)

For the narrator it really diminishes your authority and makes you harder to take seriously. You think, "Why is this guy shouting at me?"

Garpy · Oct 1, 2008

SPMiller said:
And you're just the man to do it, ain't ya?

I haven't used exclamation marks in narrative since I was in my early teens, but I do occasionally use them in dialog. Sometimes, the absence of the mark weakens the dialog when the tension is high.

ahem...yup. JKR is a fox.

RainbowDragon · Oct 1, 2008

Sound effects are part of the narrative. Would you prefer

Boom.

or

BOOM!

I think there are exceptions to every rule. Do what it takes to tell your story the way you think it should be told. There will be plenty of people to challenge anything that doesn't work before it comes close to getting published! (<-- That one's gratuitous)

Sunshine13 · Oct 1, 2008

Ooooh, narrative vs dialog ok ok ok. I get it now.

What about sounds? Like Crack! Should it just be Crack. ?

Devil Ledbetter · Oct 1, 2008

While "!" is considered acceptable in dialog, it can be easily overdone. There are better ways to rachet up tension and drama than by having characters exclaiming all the time.

Sunshine13 · Oct 1, 2008

RainbowDragon said:
Sound effects are part of the narrative. Would you prefer

Boom.

or

BOOM!

I think there are exceptions to every rule. Do what it takes to tell your story the way you think it should be told. There will be plenty of people to challenge anything that doesn't work before it comes close to getting published, so if something doesn't work you'll have time to change it.

Ok are you a psychic or WHAT?

RainbowDragon · Oct 1, 2008

Hehe that is quite the coincidence, isn't it?

Willowmound · Oct 1, 2008

RainbowDragon said:
Sound effects are part of the narrative. Would you prefer

Boom.

or

BOOM!

I would advice against sound effects. Unless you're trying to be funny.

In answer to your question, I would prefer, "there was a bang."

MumblingSage · Oct 1, 2008

I think they're fine in dialog the way you're using them.

Otherwise, they don't make the reader feel excited, they make you sound sugar-high.

RJK · Oct 1, 2008

Gillhoughly said:
:Editor's hat on:

Unacceptable with me, though this made it into a book I read, and I stopped reading that writer:

The wall fell with a crash!

This is what I had in the second paragraph of my book until I read the above:

Bam! A three-inch leather cannonball soared over everyone’s head...

This is what I have now:

Bam, a three-inch leather cannonball soared over everyone’s head...

Did I make the right decision?

ETA; with the deletion of that exclamation mark, I now have 3 left in 83K words.

RainbowDragon · Oct 1, 2008

I think sound effect !'s may depend on the genre. For YA/children's, imagine reading the story out loud. Kids love an animated narrator and sound effects. Well, at least some of them do. For action/adventure, it might work. For serious literary fiction, probably not so much.

**I could be wrong** (goes without saying, but why not say it anyway?)

RainbowDragon · Oct 1, 2008

RJK in my opinion if you're taking out the ! the Bam has to go, too. But then you'd have to replace it with some narrative indication of the explosion that preceded the cannonball.

RJK · Oct 1, 2008

We're talking about a little league baseball game at the opening of a crime thriller. The home run ball land over the fence near the body. The young boy finds the body while looking for the ball.

I liked the exclamation mark when I wrote it. It seemed very visual to me. What I'm concerned about is an agent or publisher seeing it in the third line of the manuscript and saying amateur, and stopping right there.

Here's the first two paragraphs, to put it in context.

“Get back,” the coach yelled. “Get way back, this guy can hit.”
Bam, a three-inch leather cannonball soared over everyone’s head, over the fence and into the weeds next to the Little Niagara River. The automatic home run drove in the two players on base and won the game for the other team.

Liosse de Velishaf · Oct 1, 2008

RJK said:
We're talking about a little league baseball game at the opening of a crime thriller. The home run ball land over the fence near the body. The young boy finds the body while looking for the ball.

I liked the exclamation mark when I wrote it. It seemed very visual to me. What I'm concerned about is an agent or publisher seeing it in the third line of the manuscript and saying amature, and stopping right there.

Here's the first two paragraphs, to put it in context.

First, no offense, but I think you meant "amateur", though I wouldn't have brought it up without the bolding.

Second, you either need to drop the word, or keep the exclamation. Personally, I don't see an issue with the exclamation in such a situation, but opinions differ.

rugcat · Oct 1, 2008

Gillhoughly said:
:Editor's hat on:

Acceptable dialogue tag so you know who's shouting:

"Stop!" But Jane didn't hear me. (Or-- I waved my arms frantically.)

or

Stop! I screamed in my head.

Unacceptable with me, though this made it into a book I read, and I stopped reading that writer:

The wall fell with a crash!

Narrative is rarely made more exciting with over the top punctuation. The following is a better alternative to flat description.

Something heavy shifted above me. The wall, solid a moment ago, swayed like a ship's sail. It belled outward in the same way, making grinding, cracking sounds. Heart in my throat, I bolted. It crashed into the space where I'd been; dust billowed up in choking, blinding clouds. I'd missed death by inches, but kept on running, certain there was more to come.

Excellent example!

Susan Breen · Oct 1, 2008

I don't think I ever used an exclamation mark in my life until my first novel was sold and then I noticed that editors and agents and publicists and so on use them all the time. So now I do too!!!

scheherazade · Oct 1, 2008

I took a writing workshop where the teacher would read aloud paragraphs from the workshop pieces. Any time he encountered a sentence ending in an exclamation point, he would read it in an upward-lilting shout. It became clearer which exclamation points did not belong. For instance, if the narrative read, "She tasted the wine. It was wonderful!" it would be obvious, after hearing the sentence shouted, that the exclamation point was out of place.

Dialogue, on the other hand, can use a lot of exclamation points if your characters are always running around shouting at one another. As a reader, I'd rather see frequent exclamation points than shouted dialogue written in ALL CAPS. Just as long as you never, never use the multi-exclamation point punctuation!!!!, unless ironically (eg, in an "email" that one character sends to another).

Opinion on "!"

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