Exclamation Marks Make for Bad Writing

One of my jobs as editor of www.roadjunky.com is to review submissions that come in and boy, are some of them bad. It's gotten to the point where I can sometimes tell if the writing is bad within a few seconds before I even know what the article is about. It's a form of pattern recognition.

The last line.

So, too, the overuse of exclamation marks is a dead giveaway of a writer who is yet to master the art. If you're in any doubt take a look at the number of exclamation marks used per 100 words in a quality newspaper as compared to a trashy tabloid. The exclamation mark is used to denote excitement! Shock! Horror! And even communicates a little of the writer's basic insecurity about what he's saying! That's why he needs to give it the dah-dah-dum at the end!

Exclamation marks exist to give emphasis to what you're writing. But in order to emphasise something there needs to be a good deal of unemphasised content or else it's all ketchup and no fries. All cymbals and no melody. All laughter and no joke.

The writer's alternative to using exclamation marks is usually the full stop. By not lighting up the Exclamation Mark! Time to Applaud! sign above the reader's head, you're making use of the time-honoured art of understatement and the point is doubly as effective.

Consider the first paragraph of Bozo and the Storyteller:

With the rising of the second crescent moon over the Kraggy Mountains, the Bloons realised that it was almost time for the Story to begin. Whether they were surfing the sand-dunes with their outrageously long feet, or simply engaged in a staring contest with a nearby star, they instantly forgot what they were doing and hurried over to the big rock where the Storyteller sat. The scarlet light of the three moons glistened on their blue skin as they skipped over the sandy ground, and their excited grins revealed beautiful, yellow teeth.

I could have ended it with beautiful yellow teeth! but by using a simple full stop the reader is instead intrigued: who could imagine yellow teeth to be beautiful? How can such an oxymoron be allowed to pass so quietly? And so they want to know more.

Okay! I think you got the idea now! So please go and read some more of my writing tips!!!