Question About Naration Punctuation

[Steven Lake]

Okay, I have a question that a friend of mine brought up involving the punctuation used on narration. Her comment was, "the only two punctuation points you can use in narration is the period and the question mark. No exclamation marks, shock points or anything else, period. Those should be reserved strictly for dialog." What's your thoughts on this? Myself, I kinda enjoy adding a bit of excitement into my narration with ! and !? and even italics on certain words to add some fire to the narrative. To me, anything less is too boring. I mean, when I read narration without some kind of periodical heart pumping exclamation points, and shock points (ie, !?) at the very least, and some italics'ed words as well, seems almost necessary. What do you think?

[Cinisajoy]

I think you are right.

[HarryT]

I totally disagree with your friend. If your friend is seriously suggesting that narrative text shouldn't contain the usual punctuation such as commas, semicolons, dashes, etc - well, that's just idiotic.

[Dr. Drib]

That's a very ridiculous and limiting statement, to think that a narrator (or narration) should be limited in such a way as to avoid the use of exclamation points.

She needs to go back to school. Or she needs to do more reading. Or both.

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I totally disagree with your friend. If your friend is seriously suggesting that narrative text shouldn't contain the usual punctuation such as commas, semicolons, dashes, etc - well, that's just idiotic.

Well, she wasn't talking about the stuff in the middle of the sentence like commas, colons, etc. Just the stuff at the end. The only "in the middle" stuff she disapproved of was anything that added bang to it, like italics. She saw narration as just flat text. IE, sorta like, "Tom went to town, saw a cat and bought a soda." But she disapproved of things like "Tom got run over!?" or "Not on my watch!"

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Well, she wasn't talking about the stuff in the middle of the sentence like commas, colons, etc. Just the stuff at the end. The only "in the middle" stuff she disapproved of was anything that added bang to it, like italics. She saw narration as just flat text. IE, sorta like, "Tom went to town, saw a cat and bought a soda." But she disapproved of things like "Tom got run over!?" or "Not on my watch!"

Both of those sentences sound like dialogue to me.

It depends on the narrator and the intended style and effect. Guidelines (because there are few rules, in this area) will vary depending on whether you're writing a children's picture book, a first-person YA adventure, a third-person literary novel, or etc.

I will, however, vigorously disgree with the implication that narration without exclamation points is inherently boring. That's down to the quality of the writing and the skill of the writer. If your writing is boring without exclamation points, it will be just as boring with them (though possibly a little more irritating).

[dwig]

Originally Posted by meeera

Both of those sentences sound like dialogue to me.

It depends on the narrator and the intended style and effect. ....

I agree.

Simple descriptive narration should be just that, simple and without inflection. When a narrator is a "character" who is breaking the 4th wall, the narration is actually conversation with the reader and pretty much anything goes.

[Catlady]

Are you talking about first-person narration or third-person narration? If the former, that's equivalent to dialog, and punctuation can be used for effect and to illuminate character, though one shouldn't overdo it. But if it's third-person narration, I would tend to agree with your friend that exclamation points should not be used.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Are you talking about first-person narration or third-person narration? If the former, that's equivalent to dialog, and punctuation can be used for effect and to illuminate character, though one shouldn't overdo it. But if it's third-person narration, I would tend to agree with your friend that exclamation points should not be used.

I disagree. If the punctuation is in the book, then it should be read that way.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I disagree. If the punctuation is in the book, then it should be read that way.

That's what we're discussing - whether or not it should be in the book.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's what we're discussing - whether or not it should be in the book.

The OP started this thread with...

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Okay, I have a question that a friend of mine brought up involving the punctuation used on narration.

And that means punctuation in the narration and not the punctuation in the book. So my opinion still stands as on-topic.

[HarryT]

"Narration" as in "narrative text", not as in "reading the book out loud" .

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Well, she wasn't talking about the stuff in the middle of the sentence like commas, colons, etc. Just the stuff at the end. The only "in the middle" stuff she disapproved of was anything that added bang to it, like italics. She saw narration as just flat text. IE, sorta like, "Tom went to town, saw a cat and bought a soda." But she disapproved of things like "Tom got run over!?" or "Not on my watch!"

Actually, I sort of like the way some writers used to use exclamation and question marks in the middle of sentences. Wilkie Collins, I remember particularly, had some very interesting punctuation in sentences; the sort of thing that would be severely frowned upon now. (Of course, Wilkie Collins was also very keen on exclamation marks ... to fault at times, perhaps.)

But on topic: Much of my third person stuff still tends to be written from the perspective of a particular character, rather than omniscient. As such I would be lost without the person being able swear or exclaim to themselves. Like all emphasis it must be used sparingly (or it is no longer emphasis), but I still like to have it available when I want it.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by meeera

I will, however, vigorously disgree with the implication that narration without exclamation points is inherently boring. That's down to the quality of the writing and the skill of the writer. If your writing is boring without exclamation points, it will be just as boring with them (though possibly a little more irritating).

I agree with this. And call me stodgy, but anything more than one punctuation mark at the end of a sentence looks unprofessional to me. Please, no !! and especially no ?! I think it will just lead to proliferation. Soon !! won't be enough and it'll have to be !!! Then what? Emoticons?

The writing should be sufficient.

[Steven Lake]

arjaybe: AHAHAHAHAHA! :P ^_^

To everyone else, as far as my use of extra sentence punctuation, I typically don't ever use shock points (ie, !?) in anything but dialog. However, I do occasionally like to use ! and itallics to add a little bit of bang to the narration, but nothing exhaustive. For me it'd usually be something like this:

"Then Tom and his gang turned the corner and ran into a bear! Now that was definitely something new!!"

I typically only ever use it when I want to add a bit more punch and emotion to the scene. But her belief was that you should never use anything but period and question mark to end a sentence, and God forbid you should ever consider using italics on anything that was narration as those should be reserved only for dialog. As I said above, I tend to disagree and it sounds like most of the rest of you do too. In fact, I was kinda surprised at her statement as my college creative writing teacher never nicked me for doing that, nor have any of my reviewers.