If every sentence you write ends with an exclamation point, the mark loses all meaning! Please stop! This isn’t a good way to write! It is almost as bad as SHOUTING IN YOUR TEXT MESSAGES FOR NO REASON!!!!!

I have two big pet peeves when it comes to writing these days, whether it’s professional or just random people blogging on the internet: excessive use of exclamation points and the word chuckle. One is just burn out from over use, the other is because NOBODY KNOWS WHAT A FUCKING CHUCKLE IS!!!! Seriously, WTF is a chuckle? Oh, well, it’s a laugh, Matt, what else could it be? Well, that’s fine then, why didn’t you just say laugh then? Sorry, my bad. I thought chuckling was a specific kind of laugh. And if it is, I’d like to hear one, because I never have. And yet, every fucking author under the sun uses the word over and over and over again until my eyes bleed!

The exclamation point thing is just as bad, but for different reasons. We know why a ! exists. It is to add shocking emphasis to a sentence that needs to stand out from all the rest. It fails this job when you use it over and over again in a 500-1000 word blog post, or hundreds of times in your novel.

Maybe my problem is that my life isn’t exciting enough for exclamation points. If I wrote “I went and had a coffee today!” it’d seem very silly. Because everyone does that, and my adventure to Starbucks isn’t something that really stands out even in my boring ass life. Also, I don’t drink coffee, so what the hell was I doing there?

So save your chuckles and your exclamation points for when you really need them. Like telling me the building is on FIRE! See, that’s a proper use of an exclamation point.

I still have no fucking clue what a chuckle is, though.