In 1919 essayist Christopher Morley published a collection of essays titled “Mince Pie: Adventures on the Sunny Side of Grub Street”. One piece commented satirically on an overwrought style:2 A letter should, if possible, be written on rose or lemon colored paper of a rough and flannely texture, with scalloped edges and initials embossed in gilt. It should be written with great rapidity, containing not less than ten exclamation points per page and three underlined adjectives per paragraph.

In his book 10 Rules of Writing, Elmore Leonard offered a rule about exclamation points. He stated, “You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.” Leonard was prolific. He wrote more than 40 novels in his career, totaling 3.4 million words. If he had followed his own advice, he would have used only 102 exclamation points in his entire career. In practice, he used 1,651. That’s 16 times as many as he recommended!

“Multiple exclamation marks,' he went on, shaking his head, 'are a sure sign of a diseased mind.” ― Terry Pratchett, Eric