Jul 31, 2016

If you’re still getting my mail, you’ll have noticed I sent you Chapter Two, today, and Chapter One a few days ago. As the hand-off to my beta readers looms, I’d like to emerge from the writing cocoon in which I’ve been for seemingly ever.

J-F. Dubeau imparted advice to me about how to succeed at this racket and I need to follow it. If you look at how he’s doing, you have to agree he’s onto something. He’s the author of The Life Engineered and A God in the Shed, the latter of which may become a television series or movie! How he finds the time to do his podcast, his writing, and any and everything else in his life is astounding to me, and really admirable. He’s a tough act to follow, but also proof of how winning a contest and being backed by a syndicate can really catapult a title, on Inkshares. Getting exposure and the endorsement of other authors, or the CEO, or Nerdist / Sword and Laser / Geek and Sundry ... that’ll definitely build momentum.

In tangential news, just for the heck of it, I decided to look for an article anyone may have written about emphatic punctuation. I couldn’t find anything. (I guess I may need to do it myself).

Sue Ranscht, one of the authors of the amazing YA book Enhanced, was an early champion of my book, Disintegration and, in her reading of my manuscript, she brought up my use of double question marks and other joint punctuation (consider this article about unconventional punctuation, not all of which I love, but some of which could be useful).

I like using "??" when someone is especially confused. I don’t think a single question mark drives it home as clearly. As well, I think "?!" really conveys the "Are you @#$%ing kidding me?!" behind certain questions, while "!?" indicates panicked incredulity "What the @#$% is that!?" ... I think an interrobang is a bad idea because the mark itself doesn’t *visually* indicate (yes, the name does) which comes first and (as the name says), if it is "?!," what about "!?"?! ( :P ) I haven’t employed any "?!?!" but I’m not against it ... but, man, just imagine how piqued that person would have to be.

How do you feel about singular punctuation marks? I think they’re woefully inadequate at expressing a wide range of emotion. I think reading comic books is how I came to appreciate more emphatic punctuation. Those "surprise lines" that shot from a character’s head were handy, too, but that tactic doesn’t quite work in prose. :D