Don’t you just love using exclamation marks!?!
If you agree with the above statement and find no problem with its punctuation, this post is for you. Hopefully it will help change your mind on both counts.
You’re probably thinking that I’m going to give you a grammatical lowdown. That’s coming. For now I’m going to talk about the TV show “The Voice.”
I’ve admitted that I’m a fan in one of my Grammar Outs posts, but I didn’t explain why. So here goes (and yes, this does tie back into exclamation marks).
For starters, I love that talented singers on “The Voice” have a chance to hone their craft and break out with the help of their coaches. I love that their performances are heralded even as mistakes are pointed out. And I love that a lot of advice the superstars offer applies just as much to writing as it does to singing.
Over the last couple of weeks, two contestants were told that their performances weren’t modulated enough. Instead of opening their songs in a way that offered the singers the ability to build power and lead the audience to a climactic point, the singers started—and stayed—strong the whole way through.
That one-note pitch reminds me of Hillary Clinton.
“I’m going to vote for her, but I can’t listen to her yell anymore,” a friend of mine announced a couple of weeks ago.
The next time I heard Hillary on the stump, I realized that she roars through her speeches from beginning to end. She can’t build emotion because she’s started so strong that she has nowhere to go.
Using exclamation marks in writing is a lot like roaring at your readers. Exclamation marks are meant to convey a raised voice or a command (“Stop,” he yelled) or exclamations (“Ouch!). Hence the name exclamation marks. In short, they’re for emphasis. Use them all the time—or even worse two or three at a time—and not only will you reveal yourself as an amateur writer, you’ll actually strip your writing of the very power and emotion you’re hoping that your exclamation marks will convey.
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