Editing Your Punctuation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal & Tom Lichtenheld

While talking about what needed done to THE CHAOS SHELTER for it to go on submission, my agent mentioned that there may be too many exclamation points.

WHAT?!?!?!

Before I sent out my first query I did a search for all of those silly, do nothing, unnecessary filler words I use in abundance when I’m writing and edited them out. Like walk (69 times), stand (47 times), sit (81 times), just (163 times – YIKES!), or run (76 times). I got them all down to under 30 instances. I was sure that’s all I needed. Well, until the word “exclamation point” escaped my agent’s mouth.

At first I thought, “It’s a middle grade action book. Aren’t exclamation points kind of a given?” But I did a search tonight because I’m in the business of making my agent happy. 🙂

199.
(spits water out on keyboard)
Microsoft Word wouldn’t even list them because there were too many.
Tonight I combed through each and every one of those pesky little exclamation points to weed the unnecessary ones out. What did I find?
I found one word (can’t remember which one…) with one of these after it — word!!!!!!!!! Got rid of 8 of those little bad boys with just one word. And in another instance I found one of these funny little suckers — What?!
So not only was it a question, it was a very strong question?

Don’t make my mistake — edit your punctuation as well as your filler words. Your (future) agent or editor will thank you for it.