The Short Of It

Do exclamation points even need defending? They are just bringers of joy, aren’t they? But compare them to the humble but reliable period, or the inquisitive, curly question mark… exclamation points are definitely the least used of the three end-of-sentence marks.

Furthermore, they are not considered formal writing. You would never find them in an academic paper. We only pepper them in our work emails so that the person on the receiving end knows we’re not mad. But we’re often warned against their overuse.

But in the realm of creative writing, in fiction, we should be free to use exclamation points whenever we want, right?… Right?

Quotable quotes

It turns out that exclamation marks have been maligned by many prominent voices in the literary community over the decades.

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said, “An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.” Mark Twain is also often attributed to this quote, but it seems to be a misattribution. But he had his own disdain for exclamation marks, saying something similar in his 1897 essay “How To Tell A Story.”

Elmore Leonard said, “Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.”

And Lewis Thomas ranted: “Exclamation points are the most irritating of all. Look!” they say, look at what I just said! How amazing is my thought! It is like being forced to watch someone else’s small child jumping up and down crazily in the center of the living room shouting to attract attention.”

And Henry Miller said simply: “Keep your exclamation marks under control.”

I can see the points of the above writers. Exclamation points, of all punctuation marks, are the ones that most tell you — the reader — how to feel. The tell, not show, of the grammar world. I can see how it…