EXCLAIMING!

!

We who write e-mail attempt to infuse a little emotion using exclamation marks! At the end of every sentence we seem so excited! For those who communicate from their computer, exclamation points are the most overused form of punctuation! After seeing just a few, exclamation points lose all impact for readers! Mentally they become commonplace, equivalent to periods, and are boring! See what I mean! Is that annoying, or what!

Then there is the opposite mistake.

Stephen King wrote a book called On Writing. In it, he advises to never use exclamation points. Deborah Collins-Smith, a co-contributor in the Light at the Edge of Darkness anthology (Fumbleblot's Task and The Rider), edited a book for an English as a second language author who took this advice. In it there was a scene wherein a mother gave birth. As she cried out in the delivery room, everything ended in a period! Can you imagine? "Ow. That hurts so bad. Shut up Dr., I am pushing. Oh, there's my baby. What a beautiful child."

This is a fine line to walk, and one that requires a sense of propriety! I cut the number of sentences ending in exclamation points in half in my many edits of Flashpoint: Book One of the Underground!

Exercise much caution in using exclamation points!
Don't wear out their welcome.