I've heard some advice that you're only supposed to use an exclamation point every 100,000 words or so. I'm finding this advice very hard to follow; I've written 2,000 words so far and have about 5 exclamation points (which all appear in dialogue).
For example, take this scene where two characters are separated on opposite sides of a large room, and they can't communicate with each other without speaking loudly:
1.) "Press the green button!" Alice called to Frank.
This reads naturally to me. The exclamation point fits the situation.
2.) "Press the green button," Alice called to Frank.
Even when I know there is a long distance between Alice and Frank and that they have to speak loudly in order to hear each other, this line of dialogue reads to me as if they are right next to each other. It's more difficult for me to hear Alice calling out to Frank from the other side of the room when the exclamation point in the dialogue is absent.
So, is using exclamation points okay in this context? I don't use them in my actual narrative, only in dialogue when someone is speaking loudly.
EDIT: If it's okay, I'd also like to give another example, one I'm having some difficulty removing the exclamation points from:
She was already halfway down the hall when she heard a voice.
"Alice!" It was Frank, running toward her from the other end of the hall, waving a piece of paper wildly in the air as he called for her. "Hey! Alice! Can you hear me?"
Rewriting this with periods just doesn't sound right:
She was already halfway down the hall when she heard a voice.
"Alice." It was Frank, running toward her from the other end of the hall, waving a piece of paper wildly in the air as he called for her. "Hey. Alice. Can you hear me?"
Lythric advised me to use adverbs/adjectives in order to get around my exclamation point issue, but what should I do when I can't seem to fit them anywhere?