What do exclamation points mean to YOU:part two of my beta bitchfest
Part One
I'm going to go straight to the point.
Exclamation points, what are they needed for? One would clearly say that they are used to show excitement, anger, or frustration. But overuse of exclamation points is bad. It becomes redundant and whatever point you were trying to make becomes weakened.
Dialogue in stories is very important. Like in my previous post I talked about how dialogue must be made as real as possible, and errors take away from that.
Another thing people trip up on are commas. Too many commas is never a good thing, and not using enough is also bad. Let's use an example: Jimmy liked fruit, especially apples. Jimmy also liked strawberries, bananas, and pineapple.
The commas were used correctly. The example above is correct. But sometimes commas can be tricky little sons of bitches because we sometimes forget to put them where they need to be, like after a pause. An example: Joey walked up to me and said, "Hey Jimmy, ready for the game?"
Notice the comma after the word said. The comma is placed correctly. See how these things can be avoided?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I really need for people to fix these common mistakes and if not, at least get a beta. Seriously.