The exclamation point gets a bad rap
My editor told me her high school English teacher taught her that a writer only gets ten exclamation points to use throughout their whole career.
But we don’t question the question mark.
I use a question mark when I want my reader to read the end of a sentence with a questioning tone.
Why can’t I use an exclamation point when I want my reader to read the end of a sentence with an exclaiming tone?
When a character is shouting in dialogue, for example.
Or when I want my reader to imagine that I am shouting the sentence as the writer.
It doesn’t make any sense!
Like that.
I go by the Outback Steakhouse rules of writing: "No rules. Just right"(or write.)
I've always found this to be an interesting topic, especially because a lot of people tend to speak in exclamation points, as they talk in a very animated way. It's also apt because I just watched the Explained series on Netflix (mini documentaries on random topics), including the "!" episode. It talked all about this topic and introduced me to the fact that this "?!" is called the Interrobang apparently, so you guys might want to give it a watch too!
As always, happy to see your emails in my inbox! :)