Cursing in Your Writing

I would use terms like "so-and-so unleashed a stream of profanity" rather than record every last shit, piss, fuck and arse (unless doing so would highlight something of the character's nature, or at least prove amusingly "colourful") but shorter swearing I leave in if it's the sort of thing a character would say.

And if a character doesn't normally swear they'll certainly stand out enough that the other characters wouldn't need to comment or otherwise lampshade it. (And if that same character uttered the word "fuck", I suspect a more foul-mouthed character would simply say "oh, Christ!" and run...)

My characters do swear quite regularly, given as it's primarily in a war setting. Usually, I don't tend to censor out my writing, and definitely never write "f***" or "b****". Many of my characters swear more than others, however, and also in different contexts–many only usually swear when angry, but others will do it for comedic effect.

However, I usually avoid Cluster F-Bomb, just because it can be taken as narm and kind of unintentionally funny: saying "while the pilot swears incredulously" sounds better than the pilot saying "Holy shit, man! Did you see that? Did you fucking see that? That fucking bitch, she just– just shot at you! Fuck!"

I tend to keep swearing on the low side. The only time I swear a lot is ... on the internet... and yet I feel weird imagining my characters swearing a lot as a type their dialogue. Maybe it's because I write a lot of historical-fantasy and have a hard time imagining old-timey people swearing even though they totally did. *idiot*

I think Boy Aurus has one F-bomb and nothing else. Well, Aurus considers "pizzle" a decent swear... He's a lousy omniglot, so he tends to use weird word choice every so often in addition to getting the completely wrong idea about things fairly often.

Greetings from Magical Los Angeles probably has the most casual swearing thrown in since a few of the characters are average teenagers and it's set in modern times.

Oh well, swearing... well, the main character of my story tends to swear a bit, but given that his life wasn't exactly nice most of the time, it's sorta understandable.

My main problem with swearing is similar to other dialogue, when I want to convey some particular way of saying it (such as dragging it out, ala "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU"), it is difficult. Other than that, I try to choose which characters are more uncouth compared to others and have them swear more and others do not swear at all.

I posted a long response to this on a different website, so I'll summarize it here.

I use cursing as a tool. If the story is supposed to have a sophisticated or maybe innocent voice, I will avoid cursing in the narration and in the dialogue. If the story needs to have a rough, gritty tone, I'll add cursing almost exclusively in dialogue and introspection. In one case specifically, I wanted just one character to stand out as uncouth, to emphasize that he was the bad guy (I'm sure the gun to the hostage's head didn't make it clear enough), so his dialogue was the only time swearing was used, and it was used fairly frequently.

Anyway, that's how I use swearing. It's just a tool to add layers of grit.

edited 24th Jun '11 1:14:52 AM by Psychobabble6

Huh.

My characters swear a lot. There was one character I wrote who I swear every other word out of his mouth was fuck (then again, it was Na No Wri Mo, so that might have something to do with it.) In edits I'll often tone it down but if it makes sense for the character (like the one above), I had to leave most of it in.

Then again, this is coming from someone whose family affectionately calls their dog "shit for brains"...

Then again, I would say it's not the actual words but how it's directed. I wouldn't think "this is fucking fantastic" is offensive (inappropriate for children, but not really offensive), while saying "that fucker got what was coming to him" is, even though they're using the same word.

edited 24th Jun '11 1:46:38 AM by OhSoIntoCats

Since my target audience for most of my stories is "young adult," I tend to only use the words on the "softer end" of the profanity scale. "Hell", "Crap," and "Damn" are my usual all-purpose swear words. "Bastard" is used as an uncommon insult. "Ass" is generally quite rare, unless it's in the context of "badass." "Bitch" is generally reserved for a Precision B Strike. I don't use the other ones much, since I'm afraid of agitating any potential Moral Guardians should I actually get published.

I would say that it depends on the character I'm writing, but I like to take it in different directions. For example, several of my characters were worshiped as deities in the ancient world, so they have pretty clean mouths. One of their companions does frequently drop the Cluster F-Bomb...but in ways that sound like Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe to the other characters.

edited 24th Jun '11 4:07:17 AM by AcesoldierZero

I, and hence my characters, like to use rather eccentric, vaguely religiously oriented swears, with some horrible mixtures of regionalism. "Thrice damned" is fun.