View source for The Law of Conservation of Excitement

{{Useful Notes}}
{{quote|'''''(The number of exclamation points in a story)''' times '''(how much impact each one has)''' equals a constant.''}}

In other words, the more exclamation points a writer uses in his text, the less each one means to the reader. Use too many, and they all mean ''nothing''.  The reader will then ignore any excitement or tension that the author wants the points to convey.

As a result, a writer should use them sparingly, and then only in dialogue.  ''One'', and only ''one'', exclamation point should end any excited speech—more than one looks amateurish.  (Similarly, try to avoid compound punctuation like "?!", aka the "interrobang".  It's nonstandard and isn't used in proper writing, the title of the second ''[[Negima Magister Negi Magi|Negima]]'' anime notwithstanding.)

Further, the classic third-person narrative voice should not use exclamation points ''at all''.  An obvious exception can be made if the [[Narrator]] is an actual character within the story who is relating the events thereof, but even then the author should avoid them whenever possible.

Finally, the author should ''never'' [[Emphasize Everything|end ''every'' sentence in an exclamation point]]—not only will it dilute the impact of ''all'' the exclamation points in the story, nobody's ''ever'' that excited, and the dialogue will end up looking like it came out of a [[The Silver Age of Comic Books|Silver Age]] comic book.  (Of course, if the author is ''deliberately'' crafting a character whose schtick is to sound like he's from a Silver Age comic book, then go for it.)

(Text adapted from ''[http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/guide/fwg.txt A Fanfic Writer's Guide To Writing]'' by Robert M. Schroeck, with the permission of the author.)

{{reflist}}
[[Category:The Law of Conservation of Excitement]]
[[Category:Mechanics of Writing]]
[[Category:Laws and Formulas]]
[[Category:Pages Original to All The Tropes]]
[[Category:Bad Writing Index]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Law of Conservation of Excitement, The}}