This is a discussion on "To curse or not to curse?" in the Writing Questions forum.
Ok i was wanting to see what you guys thought about characters that curse (or cuss, whatever you want to say). I'm working on a new story that one of the character's no-care attitude gets him into trouble. He curses like crazy but that is his humor, also he is not the brightest person which adds to his need to be funny. Anyway, I just wanted to know if anyone else thinks that cursing in other media (television and movies) can also be funny in book form.
Swear words like sex scenes are very tricky to write. If you use invented cuss words, it can come off as silly. I'd stick to the basics and try not to overdo it.
I didn't invent any words that's for sure and I understand what your telling me but what I was wanting from the character was for him to be the exposer of the entire group's feelings. The moment when they face the final boss and everyone is silent and thinking of how impossible their task is, he blurts 'oh, sh*t...' or when a fight occurs it's because of his big mouth. He is also the character that can take a beating, kinda goes with the humor.
Write whatever you think is appropriate for your story, but remember you will lose part of the market with lots of swearing. (Mind you, you might also lose part of the market with not enough swearing. It's a big market.)
Both of my published books have lots of swearing in them. They're definitely not for kids, but not just for the swearing. My most successful (so far) book was a crime thriller set against the backdrop of English football. You can't have vicious hooligans, Irish mafia and angry footballers saying: Gosh! and Gee Whillikers!
You had me cracking up with that last part, but I understand what your saying. Thanks for the input.Originally Posted by The Dark One
I say gosh, golly, and gee whiz all the time. Course I'm not a football player, or in a crime thriller.
In my opinion, an appropriately placed swear word can be a great improvement to any story. It's the characters that drop F bombs every time they open their mouths that put me off. So, to be brief, write what the character needs, but don't throw in curses for the 'shock value.'
You can never have too many friends.
I'll tell you something I've noticed in recent times. Public swearing (especially among younger people) is far more prevalent than it used to be (in Australia). When I was young it was almost as though swearing was something only kids did and they were careful to hide it from adults - I rarely heard an adult swear. Then when I became an adult, swearing was something only adults did and they were careful to hide it from the kids. It was like there were two major social secrets operating in tandem - everybody swearing but careful not to let the other generation know.
But these days you hear kids swear all the time - on trains, in front of old ladies, even kids dressed in private school uniforms!
It's a f*%%in' disgrace!
What's the experience elsewhere?
I grew up in America, and where I went to school, nobody batted an eyelash if you dropped a c-bomb, and I am talking the ladybits one. I curse like a sailor, my best attempts at censoring myself are still full of craps, damns, and hells, and I find cursing to be linguistically fascinating. For instance, curse words are the only infixes in the English language. An example, "Abso-f***ing-lutely." Living in Canada... it's not too much different. You get a few parents who don't want their six year olds hearing it, but other than them, not many people seem to care about the casual use of nearly every curse word - save of course the ones that have more political connotations.
In general, my writing is roughly reflective of that environment. I don't even think about dropping an F-bomb every once and a while because it's as much a part of my vocabulary as "the". And as long as you aren't writing for kids, and you're not being repetitive*, I don't think it's an issue. The gray area is young adult literature. Some people find it inappropriate to have a lot of cussing, other people say it's written for teenagers, and they cuss worse than the rest of us, so who cares? If you read the reviews for Holly Black's Tithe, a YA book I loved when I was a teenager, you'll see one of the most common criticisms is actually the amount of cursing. I was pretty surprised to see that trend, but there you go.
* Using the same word over and over again is just bad writing, whether that word is "gemstone", "ancient", or "s**t". So don't get carried away.
Dutch swearing tends to centre on terrible illnesses. Scientific studies have been into that and nobody know why, but there it is.
In my books I use only mild curses, except for a few moments of extreme distress. But generally a dash it or drat suffices, more wouldn't fit the story either. My writing generally has a slightly archaic flavour.
My soldiers usually swear, and my sixteen-year-old girls usually don't. Of course, this is context-dependent--my sixteen-year-old soldier swears just as much as her colleagues.
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