: Re: Are too many exclamations wrong? Exclamations, I feel, are a good way to describe tone without actually writing the tone. But most of the time I end up (as per reviewers) with too many of

On a sentence-by-sentence basis, exclamation points are almost never warranted. In many contexts - such as technical writing (with these exceptions), or any journalism barring op-eds - an exclamation point is all but unthinkable, if only because of the emotion invested in it.

Their use in prose has some amusing statistics. They're most viable in dialogue or a first-person narrative, but even then must be used very sparingly, for several reasons.

Firstly, every use weakens them further. Writers often say 1+1=1/2, and it's not hard to see why. Swearing is a great example: as Self Editing for Fiction Writers by Browne and King notes (and I've redacted one word inappropriate for SE), "think how much power a single expletive can have if it's the only one in the whole ******* book", which it was. Now, obviously exclamation points aren't objectionable for the same reasons, but when you're changing what punctuation symbol ends a sentence - something that's almost always the default - it will stand out... the first time. Too soon, it washes over people.

Secondly, you must learn as a writer how not to trick yourself into thinking you've avoided a pitfall when you haven't. You say:

Exclamations, I feel, are a good way to describe tone without actually writing the tone.

No, they're not. I get why you think they are; you've avoided this:

"Here's a statement," said Jack, feeling this way.

when you write this:

"Here's a statement!" said Jack.

Except you haven't; his anger or frustration or surprise or whatever is just abbreviated in an exclamation point. Ultimately, you're still telling me he feels much rather than showing it. True, I'll need something else to work out what he's feeling; but that something ought to also be how I know the extent of it. Ideally, that something else is just the context of the scene itself.

So, we've done prose and technical and journalistic non-fiction. That leaves... BuzzFeed articles, I guess. You can get away with more of them in that.

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: You'll see a good example to learn from when protagonist Ralph meets Vanellope in Wreck-It Ralph. She annoys him partly because of a short-lived immature aping of his words, but mainly because

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: Re: Are too many exclamations wrong? Exclamations, I feel, are a good way to describe tone without actually writing the tone. But most of the time I end up (as per reviewers) with too many of

More posts by @Phylliss352

: How to search for titles of novels that are or begin with a word or phrase previously used as the title of many nonfictional works? Say I have a possible title for a novel I am writing,

: Is there an official license type applied by copyright holder that allows a written work to be continued upon/derived by third-party writers? Say I create a copyrighted written work, is there

: You'll see a good example to learn from when protagonist Ralph meets Vanellope in Wreck-It Ralph. She annoys him partly because of a short-lived immature aping of his words, but mainly because

: There's a simple answer. Use a different word. Crept, snuck or slunk would be valid synonyms.

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