[stylist] Exclamation points

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Donna,

Like the all caps, bolding and italics are to be used very sparingly
too, at least according to the school of thought I was trained in. I'm
not saying I agree or even follow exactly the way I was taught as I
believe much of this is a matter of preference opposed to a matter of
right or wrong. That being said though, I do like to try to experiment
and play with format and structure, but all things in moderation.

To be quite honest, nowadays the rules are meant to be broken, grin.
Hose Seramago is notorious for not using punctuation. He doesn't use
quotations for dialogue or separate paragraphs or use commas, and he's a
freaking Nobel literature prize winner. The couple of books I had to
read by him, I found distracting because of his non-use of punctuation.
He also focuses on plot as opposed to characters, which is another big
no-no they say these days, yet some people get away with it, as
case-in-point with this example.

Cormac McCarthy is another current author who plays with format and
structure. His book The Road is one long narrative with no para breaks.
I actually like how he does this. It's a visual representation of the
plot of the book, and in this case, I think it works.

Jamaica Kincaid played with format and structure. She has a short story
that like McCarthy has no para breaks.

The ellipsis was another punctuation we were told to not use. The same
instructor I've already mentioned absolutely despised ellipsis's and
would lecture you for using them. If you used it more than once in a
piece, she flipped out, grin. I'm not against the use of the ellipsis's,
but I do think it should be used sparingly. Visually, I think it's a bit
distracting.

Literary fiction and popular fiction seem to juxtapose one another most
the time. What most deem *bad writing,* often is what sells the best to
the public. You can't really say something is right or wrong these days
because even the so-called experts can't seem to agree.

My program at university was in the fine arts department and revolved
around the workshop. For electives, I had to take English classes, and
the writing classes I took in the English department were so greatly
different from my classes in my major over in the FA department. The way
in which they workshopped , taught, the school of thought, it was so
vastly different in many ways.

So at the end of the day, do whatever the hell you want, smile.

Bridgit
Message: 29
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:28:54 -0400
From: "Donna Hill" <penatwork at epix.net>
To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [stylist] Exclamation points
Message-ID: <7C59B7A0C0DA4DDB87688909E192D51F at OwnerHP>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

Bridgit,
Thanks for the explanation. It sounds like your professor was into
experimentation and using new ways of visually implicating emphasis ...
I
hope, in addition to and not totally in place of the occasional and
time-honored exclamation point. In terms of using the dash to connote a
slight passage of time, I prefer the ellipses, but I think every writer
must
come to some understanding of all of this as a matter of personal style.
I
believe it was Gertrude Stein who was famous for not using commas.
Personally, I don't want to go there. 

I still don't like all caps. The only time I can personally justify that
approach is when the word is itself a sound that happens outside of the
narrative. I think Rowling does this with "BAM." I've never used it,
however, in all of my years of writing.

In your earlier post, you also mentioned italics and boldface, both of
which
I believe should be used with the utmost of caution and never for
creating
the sense of emphasis. In my novel, I use italics twice, and in both
cases
it is for the title of a book mentioned in the text. Were I to then use
it
to connote emphasis, its rule in setting off titles would be
compromised.
Likewise, 

boldface is used in my book only for chapter titles. If the concept of
having the technique be unintrusive or unobtrusive is at all a part of
the
discussion, I am baffled at the use of boldface. In PR writing boldface
is
used specifically to distract the reader from reading from the top and
to
place prominent points of interest in the reader's mind. Though I often
think Madison Avenue is misinformed about the value and effect of
advertising and different techniques, they do still do this in print. I
am
assuming they think it really does work. If it does, then that impact
must
be considered when deciding whether or not to use it in other types of
writing.

I also think that dismissing something out of hand because of
exclamation
points is a bit much, but forewarned is forearmed, and I won't send you
anything with a point for Slate and Style. *grin*
Donna