Use of ?!

I'd use a question mark and just use description of the speaker (body language, tone of voice) to convey the rest of it.

 

?! is fine to me. There isn't any viable alternative when you require the emphasis of an exclamation point and the suggestion of a question mark.

 

I try to avoid exclamation marks as much as I can. I am with FV, go with the question mark and another means of conveying the urgency part.

 

I second what Gryphos says.

 

It is allowable, but I generally find I have needed one of those in over 300k words.

 

I am anti-!? except under a circumstance of maybe quoting a character's email or something.

I expect agents and editors would see it as either amateur or lazy. Of course I could be entirely wrong, but I'd go with FV's suggestion. I honestly don't recall ever seeing ?! in house published work, outside of maybe kids' stuff? Sure don't remember any.

 

My favourite punctuation mark, the interrobang ‽ is available on our very own MS Forum!
Really‽
Yes!!!
Interrobang

 

That looks like a currency symbol.

 

I don't have a problem with any kind of punctuation, provided it is being used correctly.

From what I understand, the proper order for the marks should be, "!?". The one exception is when the sentence ends with a title, and the title ends with a "?" (As in - "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?")

 

Until recently, I shared this sentiment. It changed in the past several weeks as I've discovered book after book with many !!!! for pages and pages. To be honest, I didn't really notice at first because I was so engrossed in the story. But the picky writer in me eventually caught on and now I wonder just how important keeping exclamation marks down really is?!?!?!?!

 

"What are we going to do now!?"

I think is fine if the context fits right. Generally I'd do something like this;

"What are we going to do now?" The rogue exclaimed holding the snapped grappling hook in hand as he looked back to the charging army of guards.

 

I will use '!?' when emailing friends or texting, but in professional emails or my writing it just feels a little juvenile to me. Same goes for exclamation marks on their own. I think punctuation is one of those things that is there, but people don't specifically notice it. It's more of an involuntary response. It's much more powerful to show emotion through other means.

 

Interrobang sounds like a form of torture.

"General, the prisoner isn't speaking. We've tried water boarding and playing "Barbie Girl" for three hours straight, but he won't give up the location of the bomb."

"It's time to step up our tactics son."

"Surely you don't mean...."

"Desperate times, call for desperate measures. Prepare the interrobang."

 

I'm with Skip, do what you want, but beware. If you are writing children's, YA, MG or a fun modern informal voice of various types it won't matter much, if you want street cred with the literary, it's probably not a good idea to use ?! or !?. Traditional publishing with adult fiction, I'd expect a fight with the agent/editor if you want to keep it in. Heck, if I tried to slip that by my editor and they didn't gripe I'd know they were either spacing off or too sucked into the story to notice, LOL.

Personally, if I were into a book and I saw ?! it would break my immersion for a splash but not kill it... I see that on the first page of a book it better be awesome except for that or I'm throwing it back on the shelf with a smirk. Of course I am writing/usage snob, so a grain of salt with that.

Because you see something pub'd doesn't mean to do it. For God's sake just because 50 Shades had success DO NOT write like that! heh heh. There isn't a "proper" order because it is not proper punctuation, but consistent would matter.