{"id":236,"date":"2013-01-22T16:12:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-22T16:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/blog\/2013\/01\/22\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing-18\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:22:18","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:22:18","slug":"tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\nStop! Back Away from the
\nExclamation Point! Yes, it\u2019s a point of contention with me. I get aggravated
\nover exclamation points. I never much liked this punctuation mark. I think it\u2019s
\nmy least favorite unless you count an improper use of the semicolons. Now,
\nproperly used semicolons are a great form of style; they must be used correctly, though.<\/div>\n
\nThe same is true with the
\nexclamation point.<\/div>\n
\nWhy, you might ask, do I have a
\nproblem with a seemingly harmless line with a dot at the bottom? Very simply:
\nthe exclamation point is a mark of punctuation that indicates your character is
\nyelling, screaming, squealing, angry, scared to death, and a few other
\ninstances where talking loudly might be the norm. For example, if I\u2019m in a car
\non a two-lane highway, and a semi-truck has crossed the line over into my lane,
\nI\u2019m not going to whisper, \u201cLook out.\u201d No, extreme fear is going to take over,
\nand the scream will come from the brain, traveling through my nervous system
\nand explode from my mouth. \u201cLook out!\u201d<\/div>\n
\nUnless my character is a hyped-up
\nannoying teenager, conversations, no matter how exciting, do not contain
\nscreaming or yelling. If my character is excited about something, they aren\u2019t
\ngoing to be screaming, \u201cI can\u2019t believe it! We\u2019re going to the mall!\u201d Likewise,
\nit is a very rare occasion when I have an inner thought that makes me scream at
\nmyself. An exception to this rule might be when I hit my thumb with a hammer.
\nYeah, then I might be screaming a little at my stupidity.<\/div>\n
\nWhen exclamations are peppered
\nthroughout a manuscript, the story wears out the reader. They might feel as if
\nthey\u2019ve been called into the boss\u2019s office for something akin to blowing up the
\nchemical lab at work. All the yelling and screaming gives your readers headaches.<\/div>\n
\nWhen self-editing your work, look
\nfor areas where exclamation points are unnecessary. With very few exceptions,
\none or two exclamation points in a manuscript will do. I will admit that as an
\nauthor, I did have an editor argue with me over a scene in one of my works. She
\nclaimed that a mother cheering her son on during his Little League game did
\ncall for an exclamation mark. Of course, she was right.<\/div>\n
\nThere are other circumstances
\nwhere a character may be prone to yelling what they say. I\u2019ve encountered that
\nsituation in a recently edited book. The child was autistic and sometimes
\nexcitable. Not to include exclamation points in most of his conversations would
\ntake away from the character.<\/div>\n
\nThe point<\/i> that is being made here is to use exclamations sparingly and
\nfor emphasis. By the way, using all such punctuation (semicolons, colons, em
\ndashes, and ellipses) sparingly and for emphasis is the mark of style. Overuse
\nof any of the above, a mark of rejection.<\/div>\n
\nHappy editing.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stop! Back Away from the Exclamation Point! Yes, it\u2019s a point of contention with me. I get aggravated over exclamation points. I never much liked this punctuation mark. I think it\u2019s my least favorite unless you count an improper use of the semicolons. Now, properly used semicolons are a great form of style; they must […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[504],"tags":[67,135,73,3],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing-writing-advice","tag-editing","tag-editors-tips","tag-punctuation","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}