Infernal Exclamation Points...!

-
Hi! I'm Julia! I'm writing a blog! I'm so excited! I want to bring awareness! It's not just for you and me! It's for the world! Here's why I write!

1. I want the world to know about how I can't cook donuts!

2. I want to teach the world what it means to lose a sunflower after months of hard work!

3. They have to know about all of my dead fish!

4. Don't pour your money into dating sites!

5. There's nothing we can't do!

If your writing looks like this, you sound like a chicken!


Banish those exclamation points to the abyss. They're like sugar. Please use sparingly. Nobody wants to catch writing diabetes. Exclamation points can render the most serious of writing pieces idiotic. Add the extra kick only when needed.


Example:

Kara skipped home from school. She couldn't wait to see her chicken. She and Mrs. Hopper were the greatest of friends. She forgot to feed Mrs. Hopper most of the time, but it was okay. Mrs. Hopper survived no matter what happened.

When Kara reached home, her mom stood at the door with arms folded across her stomach. A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth.

"What's the matter, Mom?" said Kara.

Mrs. Addison placed her hands on her daughter's shoulders. "I'm sorry, Kara, but Mrs. Hopper is dead."

Kara's muscles tensed. "What?"

"I found her..."

"No!" Kara shoved out of her mother's grasp and rushed to the backyard. Mrs. Addison tried to stop her, but failed.

There was Mrs. Hopper, walking around without her head.

Moral of the story: erase your exclamation points, or you too can sound like Mrs. Hopper penned your piece.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I left Twitter. Now I'm free!

-
Image
Twitter. Yuck. Bleah. The place has become a toxic mire. In 2012, I joined Twitter, because I was told it was a good place to promote myself. I gained over 10,000 followers and was heading for 11,000. The rules when I signed up said, "Always be kind and courteous." So I was. In the last few years, there have been droves of people being absolute trolls, jerks, and taking offense at every tiny thing, to the point that everyone had to mince their words. Twitter didn't kick these scumbags off. I began to realize that after every session on Twitter, I came off upset and frustrated. There is a writing community there who lauds itself as extremely supportive. It's filled with self-proclaimed authors who laugh at procrastinating their writing. They have memes stating, "If you're a writer, you're on Twitter right now and thinking you should be writing." Another one was, "If you SAY you're a writer, then you're a writer."...
Read more

One Star Reviews Usually Reflect The Reader

-
Image
One star reviews suck, but they reflect the reader more than anything else. One I got from a woman who said she would post her review on Amazon if she gave it a three or higher. She also promised to buy the book, too, after she picked out the books she wanted to read. She picked mine, but a few months later, she asked if I could send it to her for free. I should have listened to the red flag that went up, but I didn't. The woman was already untrustworthy. I sent her a PDF file. She went onto her YouTube and complained about my book in the most condescending way. After I got over the stings enough to think clearly, I began to realize she complained about things that weren't true. She said there weren't enough explanations for this or that. Guess what, those things had ample explanations. I realized she didn't even read the book, but skimmed over it. Some of what she said were outright lies. Luckily her YouTube views could be counted on one hand. The other review was most...
Read more

Me and My Dogs

-
Image
"Embers" is due out this year, not sure when, but start checking back for updates around July! It would be great if it could appear on July 4th, because that was when I was supposed to be born. Instead, I was born on July 1st, because the night before, my mom hit a dog on the road. She freaked out so bad that she went into labor. So, people, a dog gave its life so I could be born on July 1st. Maybe that's why dogs gyrate towards me. I went to visit my friend, who owns one of those annoying rat dogs. It raced into the room, jumped on my knee, and started barking at everybody, even at its owner. I used to visit another lady, who's now dead, and her dog always hopped in my lap and went to sleep. It snapped at everybody else. Someone had a whole theater inside his basement, so me and a bunch of other people went there to see "The Watcher In The Woods." I'd never seen it before. The guy owned a big, beautiful Golden Retriever. Everybody ra...
Read more