Exclamation marks scream. If you're not careful, though, what they scream about your book is, "Amateur!"
Exclamation marks really have no place in the narrative of stories written for adults and should be used sparingly in dialogue. The hero you've described as Manly Man will lose major hero points if he goes around yelling all the time.
Save yells for when they're truly needed and, when possible, reveal a yell through a show of intensity or volume rather than hitting the reader over the head with it through use of exclamation marks. If an adult must yell with the aid of an exclamation mark, one ! is sufficient.
Exceptions?
1) Stories for little kids. They LOVE exclamation marks. And most parents will gladly read those exclaimed parts with extra volume and intensity.
2) Stories for tween and teen girls. Most girls in the 9-15 age group love exclamation marks, overusing them at every available opportunity. So if you're writing to appeal to this demographic, you'll probably want to throw in a few exclamation marks so as not to appear dull.
3) Throw a few exclamation marks in if you're trying to show realistic electronic communication, such as chat. People tend to use exclamation marks in interpersonal text-based exchanges to help compensate for the loss of visual cues such as facial expression and body language.
Aside from those exceptions, the best advice for using exclamation points is: just don't.
No comments:
Post a Comment