I'm not sure what you saying here. I don't think we need to conform to period technicals when writing, or Clan of the Cave Bear would have been written on mammoth hide. The printing costs alone would have been astronomical.
Am I aware that the only examples of primitive man "writing" are on cave walls? Yes. But I didn't think anyone would want to pay for shipping on a new cave, when they hadn't even finished the last one.
Clan of the Cave Bear was awful, you know that, right? Interesting story idea, poorly executed. I do think it matters whether it's a period piece or not. It's all opinion, friend.
I've read it myself, in a book, both closing marks together. So that editor either missed it or decided it worked.
Just to throw this into the mix, I'm halfway through reading this particular book where the writer uses both ! and ? during dialogue, three times on one page ... "Someone is jumping?!" "Where?!" "I don't see him!" "Over there on the left?!"
I've always been taught that a question overrides everything else, i.e. you just put a question mark. Exclamation, anger, all those things can be easily expressed elsewhere whilst a question, not so much. For example: "What did you say?" she snapped, glaring at me intently. Here there's a question, indicated by the mark, but you can pick up the irritation in the speaker's voice by what comes after the dialogue.
In this section, the writer is recalling the words spoken by strangers, a small crowd. This dialogue has nothing to do with the main characters and nothing is mentioned regarding the state of the strangers (panic, worry, stress, wonderment) so does that account for the use of both the question mark and the exclamation mark?
You should probably wWrite it like this: Angrily, I said and asked him why,"how could you!?, bitch I said, and screamed my fury, my lust, my antidopean ardour rising, my voice like a tent in its festival season, I was happy, but calm, incredulous with the world in my stride. What's interrobang?
