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I’m a writing geek. I write for a living, and while I don’t pretend to be perfect at following all the rules, there are many that I do know. Some of those style rules I figured were inherent, but apparently not. There is a habit I’m seeing in a lot of writing lately — including writing that has been vetted by an editor before making it into book format — that includes the overuse of exclamation points.

Art always imitates life and writing is no different. We’re an extreme culture. We don’t want anything little or subtle, we want the biggest, best, most scrumdidliumtious things out there. So when some people start writing, they want to let you know what they have to say is important, so they add exclamation points everywhere! Seriously! And those are just the subpoints! When they want to make even bigger points, there’s only one direction to go!! That’s right, more exclamation points!!! Because now I’m really getting to the important stuff!!!! Those exclamation points I used before where just to get your attention, now I want to hit you with the stuff you really must pay attention too!!!!!

Like profanity, when used sparingly, an exclamation point can be effective in writing. When either is overused, we become desensitized to the power of the words and phrases. The fear, of course, is that INTERNET CULTURE WILL FURTHER SPILL INTO WRITING AND IN ADDITION TO COPIOUS EXCLAMATION POINTS, PEOPLE WILL START ALL-CAPPING (the equivalent to yelling in an online chat context) AND THE PRINTED WORD WILL GET EVEN UGLIER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Often the loudest person in the room has the least to say and we start to tune him out. But when the normally quiet person in the room raises her voice, everyone stops to listen because she must have quite a profound point to make.

Thanks for reading!!!!!!!!