Prose checks › Punctuation habits Pro
Prose check: punctuation habitsThe door opened! Nobody was there!
Every writer has a favourite mark. For some it’s the exclamation mark, for some the ellipsis, for some the dash. Falcontext counts your exclamation marks and ellipses in the narration, and your dashes.
What it counts
Exclamation marks, ellipses and dashes in the narration, per 1,000 words. In dialogue they’re the character’s voice, so they aren’t counted.
How many is normal?
In the 38 published books I measured, the middle one had 0.9 exclamation marks and 0.1 ellipses per 1,000 words of narration. Older books used more exclamation marks than today’s.
Where these numbers come from.
How Falcontext checks punctuation habits
Guidelines, not rules. Everyone leans on one mark. This makes you aware of yours.
- Finds
- Exclamation marks, ellipses and dashes in the narration. Dashes are shown, not rated.
- Traffic light
- Up to 2 per 1,000 words each
- Up to 5
- More than 5
Exclamation marks and ellipses change how a passage sounds, so they’re in the sentences pass of the self-editing guide: read the stretch aloud before you touch it.
Exclamation marks, ellipses or dashes: which is your weakness?
Questions about punctuation habits.
How many exclamation marks are too many in a novel?
Published fiction has about one per 1,000 words of narration. Falcontext goes orange above 2 and red above 5. Dialogue isn’t counted.
Are ellipses and dashes in dialogue counted?
No. In dialogue they’re how a character talks, so only the narration is counted.
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