How to Write a Good Book

Part Four- Proper Punctuation

Punctuation is tricky when it comes to where to put commas, but these tips will definitely help. But first, I'll cover when to use question marks and exclamation marks.

Of course, a question mark is used for a question, and an exclamation mark is used for excitement or other sting feelings. But what about using them together? Using "?!" is perfectly fine, but doing "????!?!?!?!?!?!" is kind of... ridiculous. Look at these two examples below, and see which one looks more professional:
"What?!" Lily exclaimed.
"What?!??!?!?!?!?" Lily exclaimed.
To me, the choice is obvious, but you usually don't see "??!?!?!?!" in published books.

Now, the proper way to use ampersands (this sign: &). Ampersands are the "and" symbol, and isn't typically used very often in writing. To me, it takes more effort to type "&" than "and". It is also more professional to type the full word, and it seems distracting to have lots of symbols strewn about in a book, because "and" is a very common word. The only place to use "&" would be in some sort of business name, like "Anne & Bob's Ice Cream".

Now, semicolons and colons. A semicolon is ";" and a colon is a ":". Semicolons are typically used in place of a period, and colons are also used like that but slightly different. To find out more about colons and semicolons, here is a website that will help: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/colons

Commas are tricky in some sentences, but here are some ways you can use commas:
-Billy looked around, frightened by his surroundings.
-The baby kicked, screamed, and laughed at his favorite television show.
You can divide your sentences up in many ways using one or more commas, as shown above. An incorrect way of using a comma would be:
-I looked, at the dog who started to run away.
If you want more grammar lessons, comment or go to the website I recommended for colon help (it has other stuff than colons, trust me).