Writer’s Tip #29: No Exclamation Points! Please!
When you read your story, does it sound off, maybe you can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know you’ve done something wrong? Sometimes–maybe even lots of times–there are simple fixes. These writer’s tips will come at you once a week, giving you plenty of time to go through your story and make the adjustments.
Today’s tip: No exclamation points!
Few published novels use exclamation points. It seems like they should, doesn’t it? We-all exclaim a lot in life and drama seems to require heightened emotion.
No. Don’t fall for it. Google this if you don’t believe me (which, I didn’t the first time I ran across it). If you use exclamation points, you look like an amateur.
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Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com , Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog,Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. In her free time, she is editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, creator of two technology training books for middle school and six ebooks on technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: grammar and spelling, writers resources, writers tips Tagged: Exclamation mark, grammar, writers resources, writers tips
