Are you absolutely sure about ?! I would probably not accept ??? but I would accept ?!. Someone went to the trouble of inventing a character to represent a question-exclamation, after all.


Well, I guess what I'm getting at is, does violating those rules really cause a problem?

My general understanding of grammar, punctuation, and the third one (I forget what it's called - whatever spelling is really called) is that it's for consistency and understanding.

I don't think using an ellipsis is necessarily bad in narration, especially if a person is actually narrating as opposed to an omniscient narrator for third-person.

The editing books I've read have said even exclamation points should be used rarely and only when it is the most appropriate. Overusing exclamations removes the punch of the exclamation. The example that was given was:

The elevator John rode inside stopped at the third floor. As the doors opened, a tiger pounced him.

"Ahhh!"

Any case where you would pair an exclamation point with a question mark, the exclamation is likely unnecessary to get it apart. "Who do you think you are?" sounds indignant and forceful to begin with, we can imagine the character is saying it with strong emotion, we don't need the exclamation point.

If all that mattered were consistency and understanding, then we wouldn't need to spell correctly. After all, if you're mostly right, your reader will understand it, right?

Writing, in the form of a story (especially one intended to be published), is formal. It's not informal, not casual, it's set with a specific standard. No one cares if you write incorrectly in your journals or on the internet, but there's a particular standard that's expected in published work.

But more than just being "correct", there's another important element to why you shouldn't do these things: because it pulls the reader out. Any time the reader has to stop because of a typo, an error, or any other thing that makes them pause and go "Wait, that isn't right," then you've done some damage. The trick is to hypnotize them, and when that spell is broken it damages the rhythm of their reading. Not a whole lot of people are going to get upset about a !? but even so, it's better to not do it. It weakens the writing.

And it's one less thing your editor has to say "Remove this please". :)

That's a very good point. :)

I often write stream-of-consciousness so I'm not sure how to handle proper grammar/punctuation in those cases. I'll probably have to figure it out someday...

Dammnit!

Interrobang, although amusing, is a gimmick.

On occasion, I use italics to represent unverbalized direct thoughts from a first-person perspective, so the reader can understand the character's viewpoint more clearly. Using quotes makes it look like he is speaking, even when he isn't, and many readers will miss the part where it says specifically 'he thought to himself'.

However, the number of times I've used bold print can be counted on one hand. With fingers to spare. I have, on occasion, also all-caps'd a word in dialogue to make the emphasis clear, but that's about the extent of it.

and many readers will miss the part where it says specifically 'he thought to himself'.

Of course, as was pointed out to me once, you really don't need "to himself." Unless your characters are telepathic, they're always going to be thinking to themselves. >^_^<

Actually, I think an ellipsis can be used in narrative to good effect if you're writing from either a third person limited or first person POV, which would allow a character's thoughts/perceptions to be presented as narrative.

But yeah, I hate seeing people apparently trying to indicate intensity by putting more exclamation points or more question marks at the end of a sentence. >_<

I detest all caps. "Italicize, not capitalize!"

There's nothing wrong with using bold or italics when you have good reason to. A lot of writers tend to see writing in black-and-white, right-or-wrong format, often having specifics lists of dos-and-don'ts that when violated, void a story's worth because you used a bookism here or an adverb there, or your prose was passived that one time. There are some things in writing that require great discretion to use correctly, and they're wrong so often that editors often just say "Don't use these!" when referring to them.

Methinks bolding, italics, and ellipses fall into that category. I don't think bold should be used to emphasize narration or dialogue, as it's more of a distraction than a helper there, but I've found little uses for it before, where the distraction is the point. I think ellipses can be okay, no matter what view you're writing from--but again, it's situational, and you have to use discretion.

One thing that you really shouldn't do is underline, as italics have replaced underlines. And for "EXIT" and "STOP," use small caps if it's available. Often, it's not. :/