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To curse or not to curse?

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.
 

Phin Scardaw

Troubadour
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!
 
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.
 

Rikilamaro

Inkling
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.'
 
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?
 

Ophiucha

Auror
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.
 

Graylorne

Archmage
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.
 

ArielFingolfin

Troubadour
I think when writing swears - just like when speaking swears - the more you use it, the more it loses its impact. If your characters are constantly turning the air blue, it won't mean as much when they drop a bomb when something really happens, whereas if one character hasn't said anything spicier than a 'gee whiz' all story and then finally loses his temper, you know something's going on (if written correctly). Just make sure you're being intentional about it instead of trying to inject a little emotion to the scene or flavor to the dialogue. If you have a character that feels the need to mimic a college football player and have every other word he says be the f word then go for it, but if you have a milder tongued character you need to be a little more aware of the undercurrent of emotions.
 
I think it can actually add a lot to a book in the right amount. If you protagonists swear now and again I actually find it can add a lot to their believability:D. I don't know why, it just highlights them as very human to me. I wouldn't have characters swearing on every page, but now and again and carefully placed I say go for it. Andrej Sapkowski is I find a master of the believable swearing trick with his characters, and I think Steven Erikson does it as well.

Also I would say be selective about what swear words your characters would use. In my book my characters swear now and again, and the frequent one is sh*t (sometimes elaborated to sacred sh*t :)), but they also use b*st*rd, b*tch, and the slightly more acceptable ones like sod and bugger. God I'm a pleasant writer aren't I? Anyway, to get back to my point on which I got carried away elaborating, I knew that I was not going to have the word f*ck. Why, because I felt it was too recognisably modern. Thats just me, so thats the decision I made, go with what works for you.
 

Sinitar

Minstrel
Whatever you do, make sure the cursing is consistent with the rest of the variables. There's nothing more infuriating than using 'hell' as a curse when the world developed by the author has no such concept. Invariably, such blatant mistakes make the work seem cheap and contrived.

Secondly, witty cursing is the way to go. Foul language is the play ground of many writers, and you're not the first to try and reinvent those stray words we all appreciate from time to time. Fortunately, you don't have to. Just make sure that the cursing bears your own brand. And remember: Excess is bad!
 
I think it can actually add a lot to a book in the right amount. If you protagonists swear now and again I actually find it can add a lot to their believability:D. I don't know why, it just highlights them as very human to me. I wouldn't have characters swearing on every page, but now and again and carefully placed I say go for it. Andrej Sapkowski is I find a master of the believable swearing trick with his characters, and I think Steven Erikson does it as well.

Also I would say be selective about what swear words your characters would use. In my book my characters swear now and again, and the frequent one is sh*t (sometimes elaborated to sacred sh*t :)), but they also use b*st*rd, b*tch, and the slightly more acceptable ones like sod and bugger. God I'm a pleasant writer aren't I? Anyway, to get back to my point on which I got carried away elaborating, I knew that I was not going to have the word f*ck. Why, because I felt it was too recognisably modern. Thats just me, so thats the decision I made, go with what works for you.

F**k came from the middle dutch, meaning to hit or strike, so it has been around for a while.

In my book described earlier with heaps of swearing, a lot of it was written phonetically to convey the regional accents involved - cockney, Irish, northern England, Scottish. Writing fark or fook certainly seems to reduce the impact while still keeping the authentic flavour of the characters.
 
F**k came from the middle dutch, meaning to hit or strike, so it has been around for a while.

In my book described earlier with heaps of swearing, a lot of it was written phonetically to convey the regional accents involved - cockney, Irish, northern England, Scottish. Writing fark or fook certainly seems to reduce the impact while still keeping the authentic flavour of the characters.

Fair enough, but unlike the others it felt kind of modern against the backdrop of my story.
 
In my writings I tend to use "lesser" curses like damn hell add bastardy etc. when I want to use something of a greater effect I will use an Invented word that I came up with. I try to keep the sweating relevant and formal and I agree to not use a lot for shock value .
 

Kit

Maester
I decided that I didn't want my characters to use curses relating to body parts or processes, because they don't have the concept that body parts or processes (including sex) is/are "bad", and I specifically do not want that meme in my world.

That eliminates most profanity, so I have to make some up.
 

Ireth

Myth Weaver
F**k came from the middle dutch, meaning to hit or strike, so it has been around for a while.

I didn't know that. I heard that it's actually an abbreviation of "Fornicate Under Consent of the King", dating from the medieval era in Europe, though I could be wrong.
 
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