How to make a statement formulated like an exclamation, but even-toned?
In writing, particularly writing dialogue or speech-like prose, it is custom to use the punctuation to indicate the tone of the speech.
As such, one often uses an exclamation point on a standard statement which would make it a statement made with an exclamatory tone, i.e. an exclamatory statement.
Now, what about an exclamation punctuated with a full stop? Instead of shouting
"Boy, was I wrong!", hands in the air
you say
"Boy, was I wrong.", even-toned
or with an ellipsis
"Boy, was I wrong...", lowering your tone and shaking your head.
I have an inkling that all those are grammatically correct, but let's say I am writing an article, trying to engage my reader as if I would be talking directly to him. Are there cases where it would be frowned upon using something like that? Should I prefer using an exclamation point in every case, or try to reformulate the statement?
Clarification:
There seems to have some confusion on my intent. I don't want to sound exclamative, but the way I structure my sentence, with an interrogative word at the beginning and the sentence not being a question would point to the sentence being an exclamation, which by definition comes with an exclamation point. That's what prompted me to ask in the first place.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/31300. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
3 answers
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Stop trying to save characters typed. You can characterize the tone of the sentence with another entire sentence even longer than the uttered words.
Bill closed his eyes for a moment, his lips tightly compressed. "Boy, was I wrong."
Bill looked to Cindy, his eyes wide and lips parted in elation, transforming into a wide grin as he realized the full implications of what had just happened. "Boy, was I wrong."
Don't try to make punctuation do so much work for you. If you can describe or indicate what the character speaking is feeling, the reader will do the work of imparting the correct matching tone and volume to their spoken words.
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are there cases where it would be frowned upon using something like that?
Not that I'm aware of. If you are talking directly to your reader, there is a big chance you are already using a colloquial tone. "Boy, was I wrong!" isn't much more informal than "Boy, was I wrong."; there is barely a difference.
Should I prefer using an exclamation point in every case, or try to reformulate the statement?
It's up to you to decide the style. I wouldn't use them in a formal or scientific article, but otherwise they are fine. If you feel that exclamations are a good fit to get your point across, you probably should use them.
Personally I'd rather avoid them, but it's a matter of taste. There may be cases where you may want your reader to read the sentence with an higher tone, but on a more general basis I'd use italics to emphasize the test. So, "Boy, was I wrong." works for me more than "Boy, was I wrong!" and doesn't risk seeming too childish while staying colloquial.
But then again, this is just me.
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On the old typewriters, there was no ! key. To create an exclamation mark you had to type a single quote, backspace, and type a period. That was a good system. Exclamation marks should be hard to type. There is a good argument to be made for breaking them off your keyboard altogether.
There is a longstanding debate about whether or not writing is recorded speech. Speech came before writing, so it is reasonable to ask if writing is just writing down speech, and should therefore try to capture not only the spoken words, but the tone in which they are spoken.
To shortcut this debate, record some literal speech and make a literal transcript. If this does not convince you that writing is not recorded speech, nothing will.
So, writing is not recorded speech and you should not try to use punctuation to indicate tone of voice in writing. If you want to convey tone in writing, you do it by the tone of the writing itself, not by imitating the tones of speech.
Speech and writing are different media, just as movies and novels are different media. The operate differently and achieve their effects in different ways. Nor are their effects equivalent. There are things you can achieve in a novel that you cannot achieve in a movie, and vice versa; and there are things you can achieve in writing that you cannot achieve in speech, and vice versa.
This is as much true, indeed, probably nowhere more true, than when you are creating putatively spoken dialogue in a work of fiction. The first rule of dialogue is that dialogue is not speech. It is a specific literary form with its own rules and conventions. It is not how people actually talk. Writing down how people actually talk would be both tedious and confusing. Good written dialogue achieves it effectiveness and its convincing character from what they characters say, not how they say it.
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