Question About Naration Punctuation

[Cinisajoy]

Sounds like your teacher knew more than your friend.
Does your friend have any writing credentials?

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

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!!"

This sounds like maybe middle grade or emerging-reader fiction, where things can be a bit 'looser'; and tight third person, where the MC's emotions can bleed into the narration.

Personally I'd lose the double exclamation points, but that's a question of style.

[gmw]

I've never used an interrobang (!? or ?!) in my writing - or not intentionally . I have considered it a few times but just can't make myself do it. If it's a question it gets a question mark and emphasis is applied through italics if appropriate.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

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.

Double punctuation is both unnecessary and distracting. Three exclamation points in your example is three too many, unless you're writing a comic book. Italicizing that doesn't offend my editorial sensibilities, unless you were to italicize frequently. Punctuation and typography aren't supposed to call attention to themselves; they support the message.

Perhaps your teacher cared more about creativity than punctuation. That doesn't mean it's okay to scatter exclamation points everywhere.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by meeera

This sounds like maybe middle grade or emerging-reader fiction, where things can be a bit 'looser'; and tight third person, where the MC's emotions can bleed into the narration.

Personally I'd lose the double exclamation points, but that's a question of style.

I share your opinion.

I only use an interrobang or double exclamation points when writing for children or posting on my favorite ebook site!!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by gmw

I've never used an interrobang (!? or ?!) in my writing - or not intentionally . I have considered it a few times but just can't make myself do it. If it's a question it gets a question mark and emphasis is applied through italics if appropriate.

Quite. I consider it "Twitter punctuation" that has no place in professional writing.

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by gmw

I've never used an interrobang (!? or ?!) in my writing - or not intentionally . I have considered it a few times but just can't make myself do it. If it's a question it gets a question mark and emphasis is applied through italics if appropriate.

Well, again, I reserve !? for dialog only. The single and double exclamations are used very rarely and are more an effort to pump up the reader's adrenalin during high intensity scenes. Sorta how a story teller adds a little verbal punch to the story they're reading so it's more exciting. That's the only reason I do it, and again it's only used sparingly where most useful.

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I share your opinion.

I only use an interrobang or double exclamation points when writing for children or posting on my favorite ebook site!!

HAHAHAHA!

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Sounds like your teacher knew more than your friend.
Does your friend have any writing credentials?

Yeah, she's a published author like myself, although with less millage than me.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Well, again, I reserve !? for dialog only. The single and double exclamations are used very rarely and are more an effort to pump up the reader's adrenalin during high intensity scenes. Sorta how a story teller adds a little verbal punch to the story they're reading so it's more exciting. That's the only reason I do it, and again it's only used sparingly where most useful. [...]

I'm not quite as tightly strung as Harry regarding this stuff (as you've probably noticed from our recent conversation regarding "done good" ), but funny things stick out for each of us. Interrobangs are something I've never gotten comfortable with. ... I was going to try arguing that since it has its own Unicode codepoint these days there should be nothing wrong with it, but then there are an awful lot of Unicode characters I'd never put into narrative text:-

I'm very unlikely to use Tibetan, although I probably shouldn't rule it out, you never know. But I was actually thinking about the Emoticons block that got added to the Unicode standard in v6. Just think how expressive we can be when we start adding smiley faces to our stories - to tell people when they should be laughing ... just like we do on forums

[JSWolf]

Here's how to read with punctuations.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Well, again, I reserve !? for dialog only. The single and double exclamations are used very rarely and are more an effort to pump up the reader's adrenalin during high intensity scenes. Sorta how a story teller adds a little verbal punch to the story they're reading so it's more exciting. That's the only reason I do it, and again it's only used sparingly where most useful.

HAHAHAHA!


Yeah, she's a published author like myself, although with less millage than me.

Steven,
I have to say this, but published author means absolutely nothing to me. I know several "published authors" that couldn't put a decent sentence together. So is she a professional author?

As to the !?, that word just looks so wrong. Couldn't spell it so didn't even try.

Personally I would have to see the writing to know if the punctuation is right or wrong in context. Just please don't ever do this next thing for dialog.

"S said

-blah blah-

C said

-blah blah-

-oh really-

-yes, I am sure-"

Did you get lost reading that? I actually saw that in a published book. Not those words but that exact punctuation and spacing.

Oh and one other favor, if you have a person traveling from point A to point B, make the route somewhat logical. Example from Amarillo to El Paso, but avoiding New Mexico. (Actually easy to do if you can read the map.) This author had the guy Hitch hiking on county and farm roads. His reasoning, the numbers were bigger so the roads must have been bigger. Sorry but Snyder, Abilene and San Angelo will not get you to El Paso in any kind of hurry.
I didn't finish the book.

[Catlady]

Too many exclamation points!!!

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Too many exclamation points!!!

Loved it! Really I did!!!

I also like the serious explanation behind it. In forum and text messages we (well, some of us, myself not so much) try to be brief, and we have all run into the problem of people not understanding our humour or sarcasm or whatever, so we litter our texts with emphasis so that no one could possibly misunderstand us (but, of course, some still manage it).

The mistake is to think that narrative text needs the same thing. It shouldn't. The urgency or surprise or whatever should be apparent in the narrative itself. (If we're not writing flash-fiction,) We have room to move and develop the reader's state of excitement, so if we've done our job properly, any additional emphasis provided by punctuation need only be subtle ... or that's the theory.

Still, in another 20 years maybe the latest bestsellers will abound with emoticons and interrobangs and links to the Wikipedia page showing that the author researched the facts in great detail. (Do I need to put a smiley here?)

[cromag]

On the original question of narration, as in nearly everything I think it depends. If the narrator of the story was a witness or participant who is now relating the story, then I think it's okay for that narrator to get excited and an exclamation point would be appropriate.

On the other hand, for an omniscient third party narrator, I don't think it would work.

On "interrobangs" and other "compound punctuation" marks, I reserve them for informal writing -- which could still include some stories. Especially stories with a young first person narrator.

[Dr. Drib]

"What?!!!??" Bob exclaimed and then further expostulated: "Did you say 'naration' or 'narration'!!!!!!?????"

Jose and Mary looked at Bob and then both burst out laughing. "Hah! Hah! Hah!!" they roared.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

"What?!!!??" Bob exclaimed and then further expostulated: "Did you say 'naration' or 'narration'!!!!!!?????"

Jose and Mary looked at Bob and then both burst out laughing. "Hah! Hah! Hah!!" they roared.

I'm sorry, Dr. Drib, but your work needs modernising:

"" exclaimed and then further , "Did you say '' or '' ?"

and at and then both * out . " " they


Now there's some expressive prose.

* sorry, couldn't find a bursting balloon