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exclamation points are controversial. writers can\u2019t be blamed if they\u2019re confused!<\/p>\n
exclamation has always announced straightforward shouting, alarm, surprise, excitement, amazement, disbelief, exasperation, or even just helpless flustering. in the eighteenth century, readers could expect melodrama:<\/p>\n
and those were some of her last words! o how my eyes overflow! don\u2019t wonder to see the paper so blotted! (samuel richardson, pamela<\/em>, 43)<\/p>\n exclamation points still serve in all those ways. but somewhere in the last century, the shouty little mark fell out of fashion in literary prose. editors today frown on excessive exclaiming even in mainstream fiction, outside of books for young children and comic books. plenty of passages worthy of alarm make do with commas, periods, or nothing:<\/p>\n \u201cour council is committed to protecting the lake and the lakefront,\u201d she screamed. (sara paretsky, dead land<\/em>, 8)<\/p>\n i\u2019d be screaming \u201che\u2019s hurting me\u201d<\/em> out into the world and the world would keep on going. (sabaa tahir, all my rage<\/em>, 242)<\/p>\n however, in similar passages in the same book, the writer (or editor) might opt for the extra oomph:<\/p>\n \u201cdo it because you\u2019re human!\u201d i screamed. (paretsky, dead land<\/em>, 100)<\/p>\n change her mind!<\/em> i wanted to scream. tell her i\u2019m not ready.<\/em> (sabaa tahir, all my rage<\/em>, 3)*<\/p>\n what\u2019s going on? how is a writer to choose?<\/p>\n twenty-first-century exclamation points have tasks their ancestors were spared.<\/p>\n let\u2019s blame social media. (it\u2019s so easy.) exclamations abound!! it\u2019s not that life holds more excitement these days. it\u2019s more that email, texting, and team apps encourage brevity at the expense of context, and punctuation steps up to communicate tone of voice. exclamation points still signal excitement, but the number required has inflated (yes!!!). a single exclamation point merely shows genial agreement (will do!), while an absence of exclamation has come to denote flatness of tone, lack of enthusiasm, stony acceptance, or outright sarcasm.<\/p>\n fine.<\/p>\n and maybe it is<\/em> fine. maybe all the fuss over \u201ctexting these days\u201d has done us a favor in pointing up limitations in\u00a0the way we punctuate. maybe it\u2019s time to popularize more kinds of punctuation<\/a> and find new ways to communicate tone and intent in writing<\/a>.<\/p>\n meanwhile, we can at least get straight how and when to use the marks we have. in creative writing, exclamation points have power, but not as much as you might think.<\/p>\n before we decide when<\/em> to use exclamation points, here\u2019s a quick reminder on the mechanics of how<\/em> to use them, from cmos <\/em>6.71\u201374<\/a>.<\/p>\n an exclamation point takes the place of a period at the end of a sentence. (it speaks!) in dialogue or other direct discourse, it can take the place of a comma. (\u201cyes!\u201d she cried.) it can be repeated for emphasis. (no way!!) sometimes it\u2019s used in place of or in addition to a question mark. (how could you!)<\/p>\n cmos <\/em>6.74<\/a> takes special care with an issue that flummoxes many writers: how to position the mark when it bumps against parentheses or quotation marks. place the exclamation point inside (before) a closing quotation mark or parenthesis if the exclamation occurs within the quoted or parenthetical matter.<\/p>\n if you see smoke, yell \u201cfire!\u201d<\/p>\n there are odors (garlic!) that some people react to strongly.<\/p>\n but if the exclamation belongs to the text surrounding the quote or parenthesis, the exclamation point goes outside (after) the closing quotation mark or parenthesis.<\/p>\n omg, you just have to read \u201ca treatise on the eradication of rhamnus cathartica<\/em>\u201d!<\/p>\n if an exclamation could apply to both a quotation (or parenthesis) and the surrounding text, a single exclamation usually suffices. put the mark wherever it makes the most sense\u2014or consider rewriting.<\/p>\n i can\u2019t believe she yelled \u201cfree burritos!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cfor the last time, i am not your \u2018girlfriend\u2019!\u201d she screamed.<\/p>\n don\u2019t wait (you\u2019ll regret it)! or, better,<\/em> don\u2019t wait! you\u2019ll regret it.<\/p>\n sometimes you need both marks:<\/p>\n who yelled \u201cpizza!\u201d?<\/p>\n and in casual writing, sometimes both marks appear together for even more emphasis, although in many cases an exclamation point would suffice:<\/p>\n how could you?! or <\/em>how could you!?<\/p>\n two good reasons to reach for an exclamation point are to show heightened emotion (hurry!) (they\u2019re alive!) and to show loudness (i\u2019m over here!).<\/p>\n nonetheless, punctuational restraint is common in fiction even in passages of intense thought and action. take a\u00a0look at the opening pages of the war of two queens<\/em>, by jennifer l. armentrout: not an exclamation in sight although the narrator\u00a0is literally being eaten alive<\/em>.\u00a0armentrout frequently goes for a stolid full stop even where a\u00a0little alarm might be warranted:<\/p>\n i was losing too much blood. (20)<\/p>\n if only i could get these damn chains to loosen. (22)<\/p>\n one way or another, i would get free and make sure she felt everything she had ever<\/em> inflicted upon poppy. tenfold. (23)<\/p>\n we see similar restraint in sabaa tahir\u2019s all my rage.<\/em> granted, exclamation points are sprinkled into her teens\u2019 banter:<\/p>\n \u201ci gotta eat too, bro!\u201d (9)<\/p>\n \u201chey\u2014noor!\u201d (20)<\/p>\n but elsewhere tahir holds back for a flattening effect:<\/p>\n if noor was here instead of ashlee, she\u2019d have side-eyed me and handed me her phone. not everyone has a dad, jerk. call him and eat crow. awk, awk.<\/em> (7)<\/p>\n in social media and texting, exclamations are powerful in the way they project tone of voice in a sparse context. in creative writing, however, context is there, crafted, intentional, and so powerful on its own that punctuation becomes secondary, and it easily becomes excessive.<\/p>\n exclamation points\u2014and their absence\u2014make a difference in tone of voice, but as we saw in several of the passages above, the real difference is determined by context. in this excerpt from a short story, leah lederman creates a sense of horror without resorting to exclamation:<\/p>\n tell me i didn\u2019t leave the window open. she hurried to her classroom and, sure enough, the worksheets she\u2019d piled on her desk were strewn all over the floor. the worst part was that graded and ungraded papers had mixed together. tammy exhaled and kneeled down to sort them.<\/p>\n that\u2019s when she realized the window wasn\u2019t open.<\/p>\n and she wasn\u2019t alone. (\u201cif the shoe fits,\u201d in caf\u00e9 macabre ii<\/em>)<\/p>\n it\u2019s my guess that in fiction, exclamation points appear more often in dialogue than in third-person narration. but in dialogue, too, context is everything. the exact same exclamation can sound furious, playful, or resigned, depending on how the speech is framed.<\/p>\n \u201cdinner\u2019s burnt again!\u201d her grin looked only slightly guilty. \u201clet\u2019s go out.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cdinner\u2019s burnt again!\u201d she sighed. \u201clet\u2019s go out.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cdinner\u2019s burnt again!\u201d she screamed. the saucepan went flying across the kitchen.<\/p>\n that\u2019s why it\u2019s always worth asking if an exclamation point is even necessary. without one, the tone is inevitably quieter and more intimate, sometimes pleading or even threatening. a lack of exclamation might also signal that speaker and addressee are physically nearer each other than if they shouted.<\/p>\n there\u2019s a bit of grammatical ambiguity when an exclamation point appears at the end of a quotation and the next word begins with a capital letter. normally a capital letter means \u201cnew sentence,\u201d but sometimes it\u2019s just a dialogue tag.<\/p>\n \u201cit\u2019s mine,\u201d ivan said. [clearly one sentence, with a dialogue tag]\n \u201cit\u2019s mine!\u201d ivan grabbed the phone. [clearly two sentences, no tag]\n \u201cit\u2019s mine!\u201d ivan shouted. [not clear: one or two sentences? is the exclamation point taking the place of a comma?]\n to help the reader, either reword so a lowercase letter follows the quotation or don\u2019t use a dialogue tag.<\/p>\n \u201cit\u2019s mine!\u201d shouted ivan as he grabbed the phone. [one sentence, with a tag]\n \u201cit\u2019s mine!\u201d ivan grabbed the phone. [two sentences, no tag]\n<\/div><\/div>\n as always, exclamation points are appropriate for conveying urgency, enthusiasm, and loudness. when it comes to drama and alarm, however, context is arguably more important than punctuation for conveying the right vibe.<\/p>\n with the right scene-setting, a writer can hold back on exclamation points. it pays to experiment as you compose. try a sentence with and without an exclamation point. try taking out all <\/em>your exclamation points and putting back only the ones that are essential.<\/p>\n armentrout, jennifer l. the war of two queens: a blood and ash novel<\/em>. blue box press, 2022.<\/p>\n lederman, leah mcnaughton. \u201cif the shoe fits.\u201d in caf\u00e9 macabre ii: a collection of horror stories and art by women<\/em>, edited by leah mcnaughton lederman. indianapolis, 2021. kindle.<\/p>\n paretsky, sara. dead land<\/em>. new york: william morrow, 2021.<\/p>\n richardson, samuel. pamela; or, virtue rewarded<\/em>. london: penguin classics, 1981. first published 1740.<\/p>\n tahir, sabaa. all my rage<\/em>. new york: razorbill, 2022.<\/p>\n * this excerpt from all my rage<\/em> is from an extended passage in italics wherein emphasis is in regular roman type. i\u2019ve rendered it here in reverse to ease comparison.<\/p>\n cat photo from pxfuel<\/a>.<\/p>\n fiction+ posts at shop talk<\/em> reflect the opinions of its authors and not necessarily those of the chicago manual of style<\/em> or the university of chicago press.<\/span><\/p>\n ~ ~ ~<\/span><\/p>\nwhat\u2019s going on<\/span><\/h2>\n
the chicago way<\/span><\/h2>\n
tip<\/div>don\u2019t add a period immediately after an exclamation point, even if you\u2019re tempted by circumstance. (it was a vinyl copy of help!<\/em>) a rare exception is when a period is part of an ellipsis that follows an exclamation. (she was alive! .\u00a0.\u00a0. or so it seemed.) but even then, chicago style puts a space after the exclamation point.<\/div><\/div><\/span><\/p>\ncreative license<\/span><\/h2>\n
the truth about exclamation points<\/span><\/h2>\n
tip<\/div>\ntakeaway<\/span><\/h2>\n
sources<\/span><\/h2>\n
\n![\"carol](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ad2buzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/cfs-sideways-glance_cropped.png?resize=136%2c150\")
![\"carol](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ad2buzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/sce2-thumbnail-with-border.jpg?resize=92%2c150\")
<\/a>carol saller<\/strong>\u2019s books include the subversive copy editor<\/a><\/em> and the young adult novel eddie\u2019s war<\/em><\/a>. you can find carol online at twitter (@subvcopyed<\/a>) and at writer, editor, helper<\/em><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n