Back in my early days of learning how to write I used a lot of exclamation marks to show excitement, fear, anger, but a wise friend of mine told me to use action to show these emotions not punctuation.
I saw this on Raising Hope and thought it illustrated my point perfectly.
For those who don't watch the show, I'll set the scene. Jimmy is trying to get his daughter into a fancy preschool and on his application form has used a lot of exclamation marks.
I'm sure there's lots, but what's one thing you learned early on your road to becoming a writer.
19 comments:
Hahahaaaa! That is absolutely hilarious. Thanks for sharing it. :-)
That's funny. I always feel that way about caps and too many exclamation points. I feel so...yelled at.
heh heh!!! <--look at my exclamation points!!!!!
Ha! I REALLY use exclamation points to an excess when I'm writing comments on people's blogs. I TRY to cut down on them within my novels though. Ahem. ;o)
The same with dashes and ellipses. I used to overuse those too.
Hey I just found your blog through Shallee's. I used to use exclamation marks a lot too! Funny stuff.
Loved the video!
(And I used that exclamation point without even realizing I did that, lol.)
I used them in my mss a lot, too! Now I only use them on Twitter, Blog and emails!!! :D
I hardly ever used them until I started blogging, tweeting and Facebooked. I'm still not sure when to really use them at all times.
Have a great week Patti!
I've noticed some people have done this in their ms: What the?!?!?!?
Yeah, no.
But this rule doesn't count in blog comments. Then we can use all the !!!!!! and ????? we want. :D
LOL!! I love exclamations in my personal life!! They are so fun!! But in my writing... barely a one. :(
Early on I learned not to try to be too unique and cutesy with my dialogue tags. And avoid adverbs like the plague. Not that that's worked yet...
Hilarious! I used to overuse exclamation points. I still do sometimes. But blog posts? I totally use them all the time!!! :D
Really, how could we say Congratulations! Or Happy Birthday! without the use of exclamation points.
In blog world, I use them all the time. In writing world, I use them only sparingly, and only in dialogue when the speaker is trying to make a point. However, never do I write --
"Stop that!" he exclaimed.
Thankfully there is texting and blog commenting where I can exclaim even with cutesy smiley faces or frowns. But when it comes to other writing, I rarely use them. I learned early to be careful with dialogue tags, even eliminate if you can, keeping the action/thought flowing.
Ba ha! Love it!
Oops. Now I'm yelling at you. Hope you don't think I'm weird. :)
I have a lot of exclamation points in my first drafts and have to weed them out.
A crit partner pointed out early in my first WiP that I used exclamation points too much. I rarely use them in my WiP now, but I abuse them on Twitter and my blog. :D
There are a lot of little things that we all slowly learn as we write. This is definitely one of them.
Uh, er, I learned that you don't use a comma after every pause! DUH. And I am still learning that very thing! Oh and, the exclamation points thing too! xoxoxoxo
I overused ellipses and italicized words (my first three manuscripts were littered with both). Then I learned that they are to be used veeerrrry sparingly while writing.
And I'm still a fan of the exclamation point in emails and on Facebook!!!
argh, my silly computer's not working right, but I think I know what this one's about... and yep. Early lessons. :D <3
Haha! That's such a great way to illustrate a point! I hardly ever use exclamation points in my writing. No, really. I save them all for comments! :)
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