Surprisingly a LOT of people showed up looking to just buy books which was awesome to see. Some customers were going booth to booth, like: "Hello. I am collecting all the books. Please give me your finest book, thank you."
More of my thoughts on the event (for fellow authors) below the "Keep Reading" line!
This was my first Author-Focused book booth event. I've had booths before as an artist/craftsman, but not as an author.
Since I've only got one book released, I figured I'd bring some additional things to sell to make my booth look more lively.
I brought some of my jewelry from my eternally-on-hiatus Etsy shop. Also a few fun gift items, kinda like the gift shop section of Barnes & Noble. And then some mugs and pins I designed and heat-pressed myself. (Collectively, I'll call these "Gifty" items going forward.)
So what sold the best? What sold the worst?
Due to the fact that this event was directly advertised as a BOOK FESTIVAL with author signings...
...my books sold the best! Which I was NOT expecting.
Generally at festivals / conventions / local-booth events, books are one of the HARDEST things to sell. (People are usually at a fair to get food and small little souvenirs. Not books.)
But due to this being a Book Festival, a LOT of the people were there JUST for books and nothing else.
In general, people who came to my booth either:
* Bought a cute gift item and didn't look at the books, OR
* Bought a book and didn't look at anything else.
I barely got any cross-sales. People were either there for Books, or for Gifty things, but not both.
Not sure if this behavior was exclusive to this event, but it was interesting to see.
Of my non-book items: Pins and Bookmarks sold the best. These were one of the cheapest items at my booth, and they were very bookish-themed. People seemed to buy ones that had sayings or drawings that related to them the most. More generic stuff didn't sell as well.
Of my non-book items: Jewelry sold the worst. Which was surprising. Usually at craft fairs, my jewelry sells really well. I got quite a few people looking at it and saying they were cute, but no sales.
The jewelry still brought people over to my booth, however. The shiny jewelry made people stop and look, so it was still effective as advertising...but next time, I'll just go for a big sign or something. Jewelry is a LOT harder to make than a big sign xD
What would I change for next time?
My booth happened to be between two other authors.
They both made a LOT more book sales than me.
One of them was a Romance author with 14 books written, the other was a Detective Murder Mystery author with about 8 books written.
Because they had more books (sometimes multi-part series!) and they only sold books (no extra item types) people were more inclined to buy multiple books from them.
As an author, aiming for that kind of sale model (More books, ONLY books) would be a good for future Book Festivals.
For myself, since I only have one book released, I think having multiple types of items at my booth was helpful!
...But I do feel like it took away from my book sales slightly. Some people walked up and asked: "Oh wait, you're an author too? I thought you were just a vendor."
That said: if this wasn't explicitly a Book Festival, I'd still totally want to have the extra Gifty Items.
At craft fairs, conventions, or other multi-purpose events...books are really hard to sell! So I wouldn't change my approach for those events.
But for events that are solely book festivals featuring authors, I'd bring less Gifty stuff and focus more on the books themselves.
Handling Credit Cards
I set up a way to accept Card payments using a card-swiper with a phone app. This has worked fairly well in the past.
But a TON of people wanted to do "Tap to Pay" or "Apple Pay" which I wasn't prepared for.
My app couldn't process those things. Thankfully, in most cases people had a back-up physical card I could swipe...but I did have to turn down one sale where the gentleman only had Apple Pay.
(Admittedly, who goes to a local craft fest with only Apple Pay and no other alternative payment methods?? Maybe this was just an unusual thing, or maybe he forgot his wallet.)
Cash sales were nice, but people only really got out cash for low price items (usually my tiny Gift items that were less than $10.)
Everyone bought books with a Card. So if you do a festival, you NEED a Card payment system, or people will walk away.
Also small note:
Ask "Cash or Card?" when asking for payment. Don't say "Cash or Credit" -- this confuses people xD (phrase is a holdover from one of my previous jobs. Writing this to remind myself to stop saying it.)
Other Miscellaneous Things
Having $1 bills and $5 bills is really important for giving change.
Wind WILL try to blow down your whole display. Bring heavy-duty tape and weigh everything down excessively if your event is outdoors.
Sunscreen is vital.
Practice your "1 minute" book pitch for when people come up and ask "So tell me what your book is about." Keep it short and sweet: they mainly want to know GENRE, the singlemost MAIN CHARACTER, and the basic PREMISE / VIBE.
You don't have to tell people you're an indie author or with a smaller press. None of the customers even cared. I assumed the authors next to me were traditionally published based on their booth and displays. I found out they were self-published later when talking to them.
Be chill and roll with it when people come up and say things like: "Oh, I only read Dystopian Sci-Fi. Sorry." and then walk away. Honestly I was glad when they didn't buy my book. If they don't like my genre, they might leave a bad review or hate the story by default! So I always smiled and was genuinely like, "Hey, no worries, thanks for stopping by!" and that approach worked out great.
I brought some Free Audiobook codes to give out, but only handed out one or two. Would skip for next time.
I also brought Freebies to give out with each book sale. (I had bookmarks, keychains, and jewelry themed off my book. If you bought a book, you got to pick one of these items to take for free!) But honestly? The Freebie thing just confused people. They were done buying their book and ready to walk away, and here I am like "Wait take a bonus!" I'd skip this next time.
Pre-signing the books was good for consistency, but it took away the fun of signing live. Next time: I'd still pre-sign them, but leave room to put the date and ask if I can write a custom message.
Bring smoothies or food you can drink (like soup in a thermos.) Otherwise, it's really hard to find time to both Eat and look Professional (unless you have someone else who can watch the booth for a minute while you take a lunch break.)
Find the bathroom location before the event starts. Same with parking or other vital event locations.
The secret to selling more books? Write more books, lol. I need to work on this xD
If you read this far: hey, hope some of the tips help you!
Mainly, I wanted to type this out now while it was fresh on my mind, so I can look at it later when I have another event.
I want to know what do you think about Anjali not defending Shyam when Arnav slapped him & threw him out of the house? Why didn't she try to leave the house with Shyam while she left the house on Raksha Bandhan clearly knowing how it would effect Arnav? She tried to kill her child just because no one respects shyam, then how come she stayed in Shantivan, where no one respects her husband ? She was upset to see Arnav celebrate Khushi's birthday, that too in their own room, where she had gone without knocking. Does she expect Arnav to leave khushi just because she doesn't like khushi anymore Like the way she is away from Shyam because Arnav doesn't like Shyam anymore?
She was upset that Arnav-khushi lied to her about Buaji's health, but she herself went behind Arnav to meet Shyam without any regret. She never asked Arnav why he destroyed his life by marrying khushi just to protect her married life. She doesn't say anything to Shyam during the second revelation about Arnav's kidnapping while, all the time saying Arnav is like her first child. Then she slapped shyam because he killed her rajkumari, whom she herself wanted to kill & had no regret about. A lot of her actions indicates that she wants Arnav to be happy as long as she is happy in her own life. If something inconvenience happens in her life, then he expects Arnav to be there for her, leaving all his other responsibilities. Does that not imply she is selfish ?
Thanks.
Hi Anon,
No, Anjali is not selfish. Definitely not in this phase of her life.
Anjali does not leave because she has nowhere to go.
Her and Shyam's house is under renovation and none of the Raizadas would let her go.
She has no money in her own name, it's most likely Anjali's shares in AR or whatever Arnav has in her name. And Anjali would consider that money, in this circumstance, as Arnav's.
She did not leave the house in previous Rakshabandhan to make a point to Arnav - it's that Arnav literally told her that Shantivan is his house. Not hers. She felt she overstayed her welcome which is why she ran away, feeling lost.
The birthday thing was oddly shot and directed tbh. The thing is every single proof that Khushi had against Shyam was proven false.
Arnav's words against Shyam would not matter because ultimately it's a situation where both the siblings are supporting their respective spouses.
And remember, Anjali has been in an extremely happy relationship where if there's ever been any doubt, Shyam has cleared it.
Also, no one knows where Shyam is because he was not arrested/taken away by the police. Why? Because there's just no evidence of him having done anything at all.
So the best rationale for this situation is that this is a misunderstanding. Because nothing else makes sense. And Shyam is an expert manipulator. He knows everyone's pulse points.
Also Anjali's whole life shattered. It is not her responsibility to ask people for reasonings - rather it's Arnav, Khushi and the whole family's responsibility to give Anjali a full blown explanation of events to Anjali so she can understand how and why things went the way it did.
And only Shyam is the one talking to her, explaining things. Everyone else is just trying to feed her, give her meds or make her go to sleep.
Anjali was concerned for Khushi and her family, despite all the pain and trauma and misgivings, upon learning Buaji's ill health. And yet again she's proven a fool for believing in Khushi because Bua ji is in perfect health. So why did Khushi lie? There's literally no reason for Khushi to lie about Bua ji's health but she did.
And even Arnav had to have participated in this lie because that would explain why he's away.
Anjali wanted to attempt self harm - just so you know the way she was attempting to abort would've killed/gravely injured Anjali herself.
She was being suicidal which kinda deals more with fractured mental health. Anjali never asks Arnav to leave Khushi, but she doesn't understand why Arnav and his marriage is more right than Anjali and Shyam's.
Arnav has been married for a few months. They barely know Khushi for a year. It's funny they know they family for less than a year and both the sisters from poorer backgrounds immediately got married into the only two bachelors in the Raizada family. It's public knowledge that Arnav and Khushi do not share the best of a relationship.
Anjali and Shyam have been married for years. Shyam has shouldered many of the emotional responsibilities in the household. He has truly kept everyone happy - including Anjali.
Shyam has only ever had the warmest of the relationship with Anjali and has apparently not upgraded himself using her wealth - it's very clear that they're living on his means, not hers. Yes, Anjali's clothes and jewelry are a gift from the Raizadas or Anjali's own purchase but you compare Shyam's clothes with the Raizada bros, or even the fact that it's implied they have a humble home.
And what other responsibility does Arnav have if not caring for the only immediate family he has left? He has no parents, his wealth takes care of his extended family, AR is secure as a company and he doesn't have much of a marriage with Khushi (he takes NO responsibility as a husband, he's literally just learning how to be a partner right now).
I know we are guided to dislike Anjali more because she is the issue between Arnav and Khushi getting their happily ever after but again the real conflict here is Khushi hiding the truth and facing the disastrous after effects of her actions and Arnav's inability to hold relationships.
Arnav does not know how to manage a crisis. His relationship with people is far more executed by the people on the other end and his arguments/mistakes are dealt with a sincere sorry and he expects the forgiveness to be given to a certain extent. Literally all of his relationships exist because the other person puts in work. At the barest friction, he pulls back and gets angrier. So he does not know how to navigate crises and tension with the people he loves.
Khushi on the other hand, she believes pure intentions justify everything and hopes that that will mend bonds.
Like literally Shashi forgives her for Payal's marriage debacle because he understood her intentions. Arnav seeks sorry for the barsi thing because she has a similar trauma as well and did not realize she was comforting out of empathy. Nani forgives Khushi because she realizes Khushi meant to preserve the peace of the Raizadas by hiding Shyam's truth. Payal forgives Khushi because she realizes that regardless of the horrible timing, Khushi wanted Akash and Payal to mend their differences.
So you see.... Khushi actually doesn't ever try to rectify her mistake because she feels explaining things is enough. Which, tbh, it never is.
So in this situation, Anjali is entirely blameless.
We loved Khushi when she supported Arnav despite having DNA evidence that Aarav is his son right? We love other show heroines blindly supporting their heroes. Like all the women in Ishqbaaz?
the writing style of the hunger games is addictive and that’s a huge part of the appeal of the novels that didn’t get translated to the screen. i always think about the stephanie meyer (lol) quote on the hunger games book where she says “i couldn’t put this book down i had to take it out to dinner and keep reading it” and i mean, so true bestie stephanie, but here’s why.
it’s because every chapter ends in a cliffhanger. and i’m not kidding when i say that it is so flawlessly paced that you can’t put it down, but those beats are so crucial to why the book is so amazing to read. think of the end of the literal first chapter of the book: “it’s primrose everdeen.” that is a BOMB that she drops in that first chapter, and after the introduction, you as the reader are as blown away as katniss. so, you can’t help but turn the page and keep reading!! because you HAVE to know what happens next. and how does the second chapter end? like this: “of course, the odds have not been very dependable of late.” you, the reader, are instantly thinking, oh my god, what is going to happen? are the odds going to be in her favor? is she going to have to kill peeta? you HAVE to know. so you turn the page.
the reason this works so well is because suzanne collins wrote for television and you can tell. it is my personal belief that thg should have been adapted for television and not into films, because missing those beats, even just the white space of the page, i think fundamentally warps the pacing and the structure of the novels. i know i go on and on and on about the “because she came here with me” and “if it weren’t for the baby” lines but seriously this is why peeta is a media genius, it’s because suzanne COLLINS is a media genius. can you imagine watching that on television and the screen just cuts to black and goes to commercial or the episode ends and you have to wait to see what happens next?? it’s GENIUS
furthermore, the hunger games series as a whole is divided into a trilogy, but within that, divided into three sections each. and each section ends with an even bigger cliffhanger than the last. i see these, in the world of television, as mini season breaks within the larger three “seasons” of the show (that being the whole trilogy). here are the first three endings of all the sections. imagine you’re watching this on television and these lines drop, and then you have to wait several more weeks for the next installment. you would be climbing the walls for it. part 1 (the tributes): “peeta blushes beet red and stammers out. "because. because. she came here with me." part 2 (the games): “before i can stop myself, i call out peeta's name.” part 3 (the victor) (the end of the book): “i take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when i will finally have to let go.” those are ALL cliffhangers and make it impossible to stop reading.
(also, we can talk about the fact that all three of those beats are focused on peeta, the one who seems to most intrinsically understand dramatic timing and using his words to create a narrative.)
anyway that is why it is my personal and impassioned belief that the hunger games should have been adapted for television rather than film, because it would have been far more in keeping with the spirit, tone, and pacing of the novels to adapt it into a serialized form rather than a 2 hour film.
I feel like the "seme/uke" "alpha/twink"(idk the correct termsxdx) "top/bottom" dynamics or any other terms that are used on homosexual (specifically gay) ships. I feel like it reflects the gender roles that we as society accept to relationships that in reality are seen as far from the generally accepted idea of love. Like the idea of woman, that its not a man, who is delicate, sensible, beautiful and submissive; and man,not a woman, who is strong, bigger, active and dominant; its a power dynamic that holds on the "differences" between the partners. Historically, the sexual intercourse has been seen as an act of dominance over the one who is "invaded" by the other. Like the myth of Horus and Seth, where Seth claimed that he "domined" Horus by putting his seed inside him, the Horus invited him a food that was dressed with his seed and when Seth eat it, Hours proclamed his dominance over Seth or the history of an homosexual married couple that in the husband's cript, they portrayed his younger partner in the common imagery of the wife of the dead man in the false door part of their rites to the afterlife, implying that its accepted if one´s was taking the role of a woman in their relationships . And the idea of an incomplete being who needs to be completed by the one who penetrates and i think it says that their union, a process of a kind of mutual complementation, results in a single man, and that duality of gender roles that pigeonhole the human capacity for personal expression, dividing their soul into either "power" "kindness" kind of molds that constructs the idea of woman and men that "complements" each other in what their roles forbide them from be. Like Plato and his idea of the woman as an imperfect man(i think, not sure), or the myth of Adan and Eva, where Eva borns from the right rib of Adan, an part of the man, and all that way of thinking moving into our occidental social understanding of gender and sexuality.
So with that some gay couples and people implement that roles of power difference from the system that rejects them, in their personal dynamics. In a hope of being accepted as "normal".
Sex is seen as a war, the act of subjugating the other, which must exercise the will of the victor. The winner can´t be the loser and the loser cant be the winner, not midpoints. Otherwise, where sex is saw as a dance between lovers, whose gives up their will and trust their bodies and most intimate and vulnerable places to each other. Each one trying to follow the steps of the other without fear, being an unisone, one being but two differents at the same time
So with establishment of that rigid gender roles on not-normative couples is to put limits on the free expression of the human soul who is forced to fit into a mold from the ones who rejects their love freedom.
I personally saw the Lbtq+ comunnity and queer media and content as an metaphor????(idk how to said it in english) of being able to be oneself without fear and be free to love and being loved by whatever we feel deserves love, being able to finally be "completed" by no following that rigid molds of beiing. To be themselves.
Anyone can be on the other side without that meaning to change their identity. So this terms and their normalization i think it affects that freedom that the rejected ones of the system enjoys
If i want to eat chocolate ice cream, i will eat chocolate ice cream, and that doesnt matter if i later want vanilla ice cream, i still like chocolate too. We need to learn to appreciate the beautiful things of every side in this world and understand that we are humans before everything else. And by learning to appreciate them, let their beauty capture us and make us Love them
Okay so late night thoughts that will be incoherent but whatever
I remember from my Wisdon tutorial in Uni where we cover Judaism, Catholic and Christianity in the first class. Catholic and Christianity branching and originating from Judaism and such
But then the professor that Catholic being Greek(?) and Christianity being Roman(?)
OR the other way around I’m not entirely sure (this was now 20 ish weeks ago) so I was thinking when it came to fandom talk about Percy Jackson and the gods of different mythologies technically are related to The God, Jesus and Judas. (More God than Jesus and Judas as from my understanding those two are more like demigods and messengers for gods will)
I did ask the question on the belief of the Greek gods, the professors respond that the belief of The Creator is that their is one, that there is no continuous cycle of creation (example, our parents were born from their parents, their parents were born from their own parents and so up until Adam and Eve kind of thing) and that having the mulitple gods is personification of an idea. Which ok god point, but technically the gods came from one sole thing. Chaos which is from brief google search and quick reading I’m obviously not surprised where the Big Bang theory came from.
So far we have
Chaos, big bang theory, God from all three previously mentioned
How does this have to do with anything
WELL I was thinking on how Allah, the Buddha are intertwined.
After again VERY BREIF reading of Google. Islam is quite “there is no God but god.” As well with Muhammad being a messenger for him
DOES ANYONE SEE A PARTNER YET??
Obviously you’re currently going to “how the fuck does this correlate to anything Greek mythology related. Well (I have no idea) BUT Greek and Roman mythology are quite intertwined and have similarities that cross over in both (as I’ve seen Apollo is still named Apollo in both sides)
I was thinking, It’s got to be the same with the rest??
THERE IS NO WAY ALL RELIGIONS BELIEVE IN ONE SEPERATE GOD THERE IS NO WAY.
It’s got to be about the same god and same messenger. God and Allah, Jesus and Muhammad.
Further research has been done. Islam is recorded to be the oldest religion in the world but Judaism is the grandparent of Islam…
They have the same prophet Abraham mentioned.
YOU ALL ARE FIGHTING OVER THE SAME GOD THEY JUST HAVE RECORDED DIFFERENT NAMES BECAUSE THE MESSENGERS WERE GETTING ATTACKED
That also being said the messengers also spread different names, maybe Gods plan? Different aliases to have the world as it is because of His plan?
Anyway I’m going to bed my head can’t handle another thought
okay here is my complete review of punctuation. for no reason except that i have opinions on punctuation.
(Disclaimer: i am not a punctuation expert. anything that i mention as fact is old and half-remembered)
.
Nice and simple, does exactly what it intends to do, and everyone understands it as such. The non-standard usage of it as creating. An. Angry. Staccato. Between. Words. is also effective. I'm ambivalent about its usage in acronyms, and moderately happy with the way it's formatted in sentences with a space (or two if you're like that) after and none before, but I think the latter's just due to familiarity.
That's meant to be a space, but it is handily invisible. Goodbye old latin hello spacing between words my belovèd. Does its job amiably, no notes.
“” (alternatively "" „“ „” «» ——)
There are a lot of variations for quotation marks, especially between languages. This review is mainly of English usage but i included some others for funsies. First of all "" is the worst. It's the one i use most on here because it's the easiest to get on a mobile keyboard, but it has no pizzaz, and can be confusing when there are multiple quotations side by side. on the whole i prefer quotations that use unique quotation marks, rather than relying on multi-purpose parenthetical marks. Also very much in favour of using quotation marks when referring to a word rather than using it. Please do not just put a word in quotation marks when you're using it rather than referring to it, even as a value judgement. Value judgements in quotation marks tend to come across as sarcastic these days (but are also very nice as sarcasm markers. Feel free to use them for sarcasm) (oh also if you're using the word but pointing to the fact you're sourcing It from somewhere else. very nice use if quotation marks).
(small shoutout to single quotes btw ‘’ '' ‚‘ ‚’ etc. same review of the straight ones being worse, but also single quotes are only cool when inside a larger set of double quotes. maybe i'll let you off otherwise for putting one word inside single quotes, but it's just a bit too minimalist, generally speaking)
()
Brackets! Look, I have good reason for not calling them parentheses. Brackets can be used as parentheses (like this) (can you tell I overuse them?), but you can also use them elsewise, like in mathematical or logical notation, which very much are not parenthesising, and you can use other punctuation as parenthesis. i'm a big fan of overusing brackets. i have no qualms about brackets within brackets (like that (this)), except that it is ever so slightly ugly. i used to do it a lot but now i seem to instead put two sets of single brackets (like that) (this), which i'll also probably find ugly in a few years but i think it's funny rn so going to keep using it in informal situations.
'
Apostrophe. Or apostrophe, depending on how you pronounce it. this is probably the punctuation mark i have the most opinions on. Back in the day when this first crossed over into English, there was no standards on when you could contract things with it, or how many you could use in a word (think Shakespeare era. they were having way too much fun). By the 1800s things settled down a bit and they made some formal rules on when it should be used. It should be used for existing contractions (can't get away with making new ones up willy-nilly now that you have this), and for possession, the latter of which being the stupidest set of grammar rules to ever grace this earth. obviously these rules are all artificial and there's things to be said from a prescriptivist vs descriptivist perspective, but punctuation is a bit more interesting then other features of language. Because whereas features of spoken language should obviously be analysed descriptively, punctuation is a little bit more of an art. yes, follow the usage, but the invention of all punctuation is more artificial than the natural evolution of language, and so i think the best standard to measure punctuation by is how well it helps the reader understand how the writer is attempting to convey their message as a speaker, without unnecessarily bogging down the writing. And the apostrophe is useless. Everyone knew what "dont" meant before they added an apostrophe to make it "don't". You get more context out of "parent's" vs "parents'" vs "parents" written down than in speech, suggesting that context clues in the sentence rendered the differentiation unnecessary. The possessive rules are so unnecessary and I don't think they'll survive the next few hundred years. Also, these possession rules, when they were added, were not added to pronouns, leaving us with the travesty of "its" and "it's" which has unnecessarily confounded school children for the past couple of centuries. And the reasoning for adding apostrophes to possession in the first place is false. it's not a contracting an "e" that existed in old English. the "e" wasn't in every declension and was long gone by the time the apostrophe arrived. this is not to say i dislike clarity, but that apostrophes should, for the most part, remain optional.
[] {}
Other brackets! Not many opinions about their usage in typical English sentences. Can be useful when there are a lot of brackets in play, I suppose? Also :] is a fun little guy. Also [REDACTED]
!
I think usage of the exclamation mark has become more conservative over time, as exclamatory expressions have increased. this is based on no evidence except vibes. exclamation marks these days seem to be more "woah!" "amazing!" "That's horrifying!" etc, whereas i get an older vibe from more toned-down usage like "it is quite a nice day, after all!", which might be more likely to just have a . these days.
‽
Yes i'm reviewing the interrobang. I've never liked it since I was little, because I didn't think it did it's job very well. "!?" really conveys the shock it's meant to. Compare "what!?" and "what‽". The latter just doesn't hit. However, in light of my musings on the older, less dramatic use of exclamation, I think the interrobang is actually quite well-suited. Compare "why are you out and about at this hour‽" when you bump into an old friend on an early morning run, with "why are you out and about at this hour!?" when your family is frantically calling you and you should be back for dinner. So fine, 1 (one) valid use of the interrobang
!!
I didn't used to like double exclamation mark. "Go for one or go for three! What does two even do?" I asked myself on a KS2 bitesize quiz question where a little alien gave various options of how many exclamation marks one should choose. these days, !! is all over the internet and i have to come to love it. A cutesy little punctuation mark, it has the urgency to use a non-standard grammatical form, whilst holding back from being a full triple exclamation.
!!!
One thing i love about both this and the double exclamation is that they're "non-grammatical", as in, you wouldn't see them in a formal text. But as I alluded to with the double, it is precisely this formally incorrect nature of them that makes them so effective. To be so incensed as to feel you have to break out of permissible grammatical structure to get the intensity of the message across. That's the art of punctuation, baby!
Making this a proper, formally recognised piece of grammar would destroy its fundamental nature, which is why i'll leave it out here in the dark with all-caps.
!!!!
Okay nvm what are you doing. Any more than three and you might as well spam tonnes of them. What advantage does four have? It's just wanting to go to five but toning it down a little bit for a cutesy vibe like two. It's not more dramatic than three, and in my opinion should not be used.
!!!!!
Okay fine. You can go to five. If you have to. Increased exclamation marks become meaningless after this point.
^
I appreciate this in handwritten pieces to add in letters or words you forgot. i forget a lot.
?
i love the question mark. it's so unique, and fun, but also well-established. It usefully denotes something present in speech (although i'd be interested to know of any languages that don't inflect or anything for questions. do you still use a mark in writing to express it?).
!?
As described in the interrobang section, !? is brilliant, no notes, inspires the exact reaction it's meant to, and is more exclamatory than ! itself without resorting to !!!
—
the em dash seems to be the people's favourite piece of punctuation. anyway, my opinion is controversial. in most cases, i severely dislike it.
It's a multi-purpose punctuation (which I already said I don't often like in the quotation marks section). Em dashes can be used as parentheses, as quotations, in place of colons, in place of commas, in place of semi-colons etc. they're an unspecific break, which lets them be used sloppily and not artistically :(
i'm a big fan of purposeful punctuation, and i think there are maybe 2 instances of good, purposeful, em dashes. the first is in poetry. Emily Dickinson used loads of em dashes, but i like them because they are purposeful. They express rhythm, meter, and the thought process of the imagined speaker of the poems. The other use, is as a less bold colon.
:
The colon is fine. it does what it's meant to do, and everyone understands it. the only problem is that it's very... bold. Very... emphatic. Sometimes you want to use a colon but less emphatically, and so i begrudgingly use an em dash. most of the time i'll probably still opt for a colon. there seems no way to make a satisfyingly less-emphatic colon equivalent, as any newly-invented punctuation will, by it's nature, be more noticeable than a colon. Sad.
;
my belovèd semi-colon. i tend to use them egregiously when texting, which can be a little embarrassing sometimes but i just think they're the optimum piece of punctuation to use over text. it's a medium where separate messages act as punctuation to separate main ideas anyway (hence the lack of full stops in all-but long messages, except for people who are far more used to non-texting written communication). Semicolons are perfect for the sort of break in text messages that don't warrant a separate message. i once wanted to find out if anyone agreed with me on this, so i googled something like "semi-colons best for texting" and came across an Observer article calling it "the perfect punctuation for the digital age" so i've been vindicated actually and will take no criticism 😌😌/j
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good ol' hyphen. Please do not use it when you mean an em or en dash. in american english, it's common for words to drop the hyphen and just smoosh the words together when they become common, but this is far less common in british english (hence my usage of semi-colon over semicolon), so i only tend to do so when making a specific attempt to normalise a term (e.g. nonbinary). the fact that you can purposefully omit them is the most interesting thing about hyphens. i tend to overuse them by connecting certain adverbs to adjectives, such as "less-emphatic" a couple of paragraphs up.
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Look, does anyone know how to use an en dash correctly? turns out i've spent a lot of time accidentally using hyphens or em dashes. i can tell a hyphen looks wrong in 5-10 as opposed to 5–10, but i'd be more hard-pressed to notice that "the red-green variation" was wrong as opposed to "the red–green variation". in fact, since there are situations where adjectives do need hyphenating, i think this latter use of en dashes is redundant. forget what i said in the previous paragraph; i'm fine with you using a hyphen here.
⸺
i'm pretty sure the 2 em dash is only used to show that part or all of a word is missing or redacted. i mean it does it's job i guess but do you really need that and the one below this
⸻
the 3 em dash is only for indenting multiple citations by an already-referenced author, and only in certain reference styles. can't this just be replaced by a tab?
speaking of which, here it is. it's invisible again. i like tabbing the start of a paragraph in. does it improve legibility? maybe. is it pretty much just a style thing? yes. does it bare any resemblance to something the speaker is trying to convey? only if you count it as part of the paragraph change. Also i personally don't tab in the first paragraph after a heading. just a stylistic choice. and i don't tab in when i'm typing on a phone because it's so hard to get a tab.
¶
am tired of invisible characters, so i'm putting in a pilcrow for a paragraph break. anyway, you know what a paragraph is. Makes writing more legible in divisions that occur along conceptual rather than purely grammatical boundaries. useful, but quite pedestrian so there's not much else i have to say about them.
??
Double question mark!! it's giving bemused and informal. i like it.
???
Another non-standard repeated punctuation, with two uses. one as a more exclamatory question, which is fine. i think it's acceptable in informal writing to use these in place of !? and it still carries the intended meaning. The second is at a unit of speech in its own right, such as "i went to ??? to see ???, which was okay i guess (???)". i love this. it doesn't sound like anything and yet it does? a very fun use of punctuation.
????
mayyyybe as an equivalent of the second meaning of ??? but to represent a longer word? idk. feels like erosion of the question mark. not really a fan.
!??, !!?, !?!, ??!, ?!!, ?!?, ?!
i'm not going to go into the reeds of all these except to say that i think it looks better if you have all your exclamation marks before your question marks. ?! is a minor exception but i just think !? works better in most cases. and do not switch from exclamations to questions and back again or vice versa unless you're using a bajillion of them like "WHAT!!?!?!?!!?!?!??!!????", which becomes more comedic than seriously trying to use all the punctuation meaningfully. if you're trying to use a bajillion of them in a meaningfully outraged way, don't try. it just looks humourous.
…
make sure to use … rather than ... as ellipsis. actually nvm who cares, it literally is just three full stops/periods and has been since before it was made its own character. they don't always look the same, though they do to me here on tumblr, and word processors will often automatically correct them. use three periods if you like. i'm not a cop
..
no. not even if you end a sentence on an abbreviation which naturally includes its own. just looks a little goofy.
& +@
should i include shorthand forms in this? the ampersand isn't anything that interesting. The @ is more interesting in the ways it's become used online to tag people, but i still don't think it's that interesting from a punctuation perspective, if it can even be classed as punctuation. i appreciate the rare usage of + instead of &. it's not all that common and it's stylistically messy, but as a shorthand for "plus", it's kind of quaint.
italics , bold, underline
couldn't figure out a way to underline in tumblr </3. but anyway, surely "punctuation mark" implies the existence of punctuation that isn't a mark... Anyway, although these three are kinda vague and do the same thing, i think they very much add to how something is intended to be read, so it counts. i generally prefer italics for emphasis, with bold and underline reserved for noteworthiness. that said, if you want to be excessively emphatic, don't combine the effects. it doesn't look as good as you want it to. Use multiple underlines instead, to make it feel as breaking out of the rules as triple exclamation mark does. However, with multiple underlines, i don't think there's any specific meaning behind two like there is with exclamations. just don't do more than three. and don't vary line thickness.
(underscore side note: the underscore was originally used on typewriters to underline stuff ____. so the only opinions i can give as underscores (as punctuation) is this. apparently it's recently gained usage in some slavic languages to express gender neutral suffixes. not sure about this one. it feels kinda like "latinx" as opposed to "latine" which is absolutely fine if people want to use it, but i feel like there must be a more eloquent solution)
,
lmao i nearly forgot commas???
[at this point, i returned to editing the post a day later to find to my dismay that the rest of this post had not been saved]
i said something about not using commas carelessly but so long as you use them at natural breaks, i don't really have any further opinions. Go forth and write ultra-long sentences with a zillion commas. I believe in you.
/
Two uses. One to suggest/imply that either of two words are suitable. basically a shorthand "or". Not that interesting. The other is to represent a caesura in poetry. not that interesting by itself, except when used within a line to give a slightly disoriented vibe. like an em dash but more staccato. very cool in that case.
`
Originally used for accents graves on typewriters, it (similarly to underscore to underline) is no longer used for that in the digital age. anyway, all i have to say about the backtick is pleeeeease don't use it as an apostrophe 🙏 it is not an apostrophe.
Emotions :) & emoji 🙀
i am from the tumblr school of "emoticons generally look stylistically nicer than emoji" but really i don't have many opinions. i do however enjoy using emoji at the end of a sentence instead of a full stop/period, exclamation mark/point, or question mark (hey americans why do you say exclamation point but not question point?). of course, unlike regular punctuation, emoji look better when used this way with a space before as well as after them.
irony marks (e.g. percontation point ⸮)
until a few years ago, i would've said there were no good irony marks and to please lump them in with the interrobang as failed punctuation. but i've changed my mind a bit. not about the percontation mark, or the irony mark (in any of its many variations), but "/s", "/j" etc fulfil the same function in non-standard usage without requiring any new, peculiar symbols. of course, in formal writing, making the tone clear should be the work of the writing, not lazily fixable with some punctuation, but in short form writing, especially in conversation, tonal indicators are brilliant.
okay, i can't think of anything else i'm missing, save for shorthands like = > £ ~ § ✓ and very much unused punctuation like exclamation comma (just use an exclamation mark and then continue in lower case if you have to) or love mark  (i will be impressed if that glyph actually shows up). small shout out to ¿ and ¡ being very handy and other languages should use them. if there's any i missed, please give me your opinions. also tell me if i'm wrong about any of them. i often am
I honestly loved it. I loved the character interactions, the banter and chemistry of the main cast was off the charts good. I feel like the devs really do love the cast as much as I do. Not a single person fell flat, and the stand outs to me were yuffie, barret, and CLOUD especially. My God the way they wrote Cloud made me so happy. It was perfect. This extends to the VAs who seemed to have broken the SE curse of stilted dialogue and anime grunting. However something about Tifa and Aeriths voices seemed weaker in this game compared to Remake.
Red XIII to nanaki voice change was weird as hell and didn’t seem well-justified in the story or his character. It just kind of happens and is really jarring.
I have accepted chadley. He’s essentially a computer so it’s not like he’s really in your way.
Even though the graphics have been complained about ever since the first demo, I haven’t seen many people mention how much more expression has gone into the character models, especially their faces. I went back to watch some cutscenes from the first game and was shocked by how static the faces are. The way scenes are scripted includes so much expressive body language, it really helps to nail the emotion 100%.
Why was everyone passing around the black materia and the clear materia and holy, like sephiroth already HAD it and then gave it to Cloud who gave it back? I don’t really care…. Kind of a weak story beat. But loved watching Cloud lose his shit in the endgame.
I braced myself for a bad ending. I was fully prepared to not take the last chapter seriously. So that’s what I will do. I’m not sure how I feel about the death. My favorite theory is from discord: Cloud killed Aerith and blanked it out. Maybe a long shot but would make for a really satisfying third act reveal. I mean, nobody else saw her die.
I didn’t HATE the zack stuff…. But it definitely killed the pacing for what was basically no story. Like…. I don’t remember anything really happening in those scenes? It was just weird fanfic interludes. Kind of cute though.
It’s kind of funny how 90% of these games are a loyal-but-expanded version of the OG, yet there is that weird little 10% that feels like a tacked on side story involving zack and other timelines that just sort of…. Exists.
I loved the dream date at the end between Cloud and aerith. You’re not sure at first if they’re AU until you realize that was them at their happiest selves. The camera poses. It was kind of beautiful and actually made me really emotional. Honestly their dynamic at the end was crazy, the chasing scene was peak. Plus the way everyone is just ignoring Cloud being psycho and dangerous? Like get him tf out the party bro! He feels so much scarier in this version compared to his little block model.
