While I personally do not swear a whole lot, it would be unnatural for every character in my story to never swear, at least if I'm writing for teens/adults. If I was writing for kids, probably never, I'm kinda curious how often some of you guys's characters swear or if they do at all. My (personal) rule of thumb with swears is what I call 'play the character'. Essentially try to think how that character processes things and how they feel in the moment. Some characters might swear when hell freezes over, others might be an English sailor. A couple of my characters are quite literally 'angry welsh person'. I'm also careful which swears a character uses too, loose-tongued characters might be more wonton with their swears, and another character might be more...deliberate? Like, normally they would rarely if ever swear, unless they're making a very serious point. etc I also try to keep the age of the characters accurate. Generally the older they are they might be more ready to swear when it's needed. I don't think I've written child characters often but when I do they don't swear at all.
That's something I've thought about before. Like in my history WIP funnily enough the character who swears the most is Elizabeth I, (yes, armada virgin lady, that one). She was well known for using oaths like "God's teeth" and "God's wounds" a lot. Got those antiquated historical swears down pat. And most recently I was thinking about this in relation to another work which has a first-person narration with post-hoc, informal and somewhat meta, fourth-wall-leaning elements. And I was thinking that I don't want the narration to swear too often because it can be distracting, slightly unpleasant and would lose it's potency compared to if it is a bit more occasional. That way when the narration does include swearing it has a little more impact than if it was overused. So it definitely shows in the narration significantly more than it would normally and the character, who is also the protagonist, is not shy about swearing, but I want to keep it controlled.
It depends. I always try to downplay it. If it should be a lot then it's a little. If it should be a little then it's none. I almost prefer to have a swear happen in indirect dialog, and then I finish the phrase in quotes. I know that's very Puritan. Eh . . . whatever. I just find it distracting. I think of all those action movies where the hero keeps dodging explosions while shouting "Shit! Fuck!" (always one of those two) and it goes on and on like this, and I'm expected to feel excited by it all, but I feel nothing. I can't help but imagine how utterly stupid it looks in the script. I kind of feel like some writers think they're courageous, and therefore good, when they fill the page with swears. It's lazy, in its own angry way. I think you have to be VERY good to make it work, one of those dialog geniuses. Yeah, there are writers who can do it though. It's also more fun to say something vile that dodges all vulgarity. I think that hits harder because it's not so predictable, and so I try for that.
To be fair, if I were dodging explosions I would be shouting the exact same thing probably. Don't you think it has more to do with the quality of the dialogue? I'm quite curious what your take on that is. Many people swear frequently, so do you feel that realism (depending on whether that's your goal, I suppose, or if you choose to write about those people in the first place) is sacrificed by not writing much profanity into dialogue? Is realism even important in this sense?
I literally just noticed yesterday that none of my characters in any of my works have ever sworn! Which is odd because I do swear a lot in life - at least everyday. Especially at my living room door handle which has made it, it's mission to try an snag me every time I walk past. I'll catch myself saying "swine door!". Swear words just don't pop in to my head whilst I'm writing. I thought that really weird.
Too much. I usually have to edit it back out because most of the time it's unnecessary or lazy filler. My latest story has people who would definitely swear a lot (young villains) so I've kept a decent amount in but there was plenty I took out and I'll likely try to remove some more when I edit again probably.
One one of my characters swears like a sailor. I write it out for him. Other characters, i go the same route as Nao
I chalk it up to verisimilitude of dialog, where what we're writing is never what would literally be said. It's an illusion on the page. Everyone's just a little too witty, a little too dramatic, and they never stutter. If they ramble a lot, then they only ramble a little in the text. Everything's building to a subtle profundity designed to show tension/character and chosen that way to serve the story. I put the swearing into that category. You give the reader enough to define a character but not so much that it's in the way of the message. This is just what works for me. And yeah, I agree . . . there are some authors who are so great at dialog that every obscenity feels natural and perfect. It's just that I've just seen so many who seem to be compensating, and then it just makes their writing worse. You know, it might even show my own lack of confidence that I don't think I can get away with it. There is that. A funny aside. (I like funny asides!) I had this buddy back in college and he had this awesome Mustang. We'd drive through the parking garages and gun the engine, and that would set off car alarms. Harmless hijinks. Well one day I get a call to come pick him up. I had a very embarrassing vehicle, a little Eagle Summit. We didn't take it anywhere unless we had to. But I climbed in it and took of for his locale. Turned out my buddy (lets call him SamIam, because he hated that) had gotten in a traffic accident. It was totally his fault. He drove out into an intersection, got nailed by oncoming traffic, and was knocked into the vehicles across the way. Messed him up a little. Why wasn't an ambulance taking him in? I don't know. I drove him in to the college hospital, called his parents, and he recovered with a neck brace. Anyway, I ask him that next day. "What were your final words? Were they insightful? Because this is the summation of your life." He's very bothered by this, because his last words on this earth were: "Fuck a duck." And we laughed a long time about that. I mean, this is the last bit of yourself that you offer to the world. Not good. If I would have written Endgame, those would have been Thanos's dying words. Only SamIam would have gotten the joke.
Rarely. Of course, it depends on the characters and the book and there are places where it's more common, but mostly, it just doesn't happen, or if it does, I just wrote that they swore, not what they said. It's far too gratuitous in a lot of places these days and lacks any kind of impact.
Minor swears, like "hell", I use decently often, but I hold off on anything bigger unless there's a moment of intense emotion. I'll say they curse indirectly for lesser situations where they would still curse, or if it's a curse word I just don't feel like writing (because I don't honestly don't like writing them).
If I write them in, I usually edit them out later. Swearing is not too common (or there at all) in a lot of the publications I submit my shorter works to. Being aware of this, I don't want a few cuss words to distract from my work and result in a rejection. I remember taking out the swearing before I submitted my first short story that sold. I had thought the swearing was appropriate where I had used it and it wasn't too much, but this was a big-time publication where I had never seen any swearing. While editing out those bad words, the story ended up being a little better. I had to either get more creative with my word choice or show a things in a way where swearing would be appropriate still even if I was cutting them out. Sure, I might have still made the sale. An editor could always cut those words out. But I ended up doing a little more than cutting those words. And, for a publication that I have not seen print any swear words, it might have been enough to just stop reading my submission. I still write them sometimes, but then I go back and think about what I said, usually finding another way to say it. With the novel I'm writing, swearing could easily be a part of it given the situation I've put my characters in. It's funny kind of because I'm almost done with the novel and I haven't used a swear word once. I'm not trying to avoid swearing with this story, but I guess it just hasn't come to mind while I'm writing. Anyway, my characters are fucked.
It might just be me, but I'm surrounded by people in real life who swear every other word. Like, fucking literally every other fucking word. So much so that I notice when somebody completes a series of sentences without any profanity. One of those real life things that doesn't play in literature at all.
When I was in late grade school a friend was spending the night and we were going to sleep out on the deck because it was a perfect summer night. Then it started to rain. The deck had a roof but mist was blowing under it and getting us. Rather than pack it up and go in the house we decided to take our blankets and pillows under the deck, into the gravel bed where we'd have better protection. It was pretty nasty, there were spiderwebs and it was dark, but we were determined. Soon it was storming really hard, the trees whipping thither and yon. God it's fun to actually be able to write that! Anyway, lightning struck a tree about 20 feet from us and we could feel the electrical charge crackling in the air around us and smell the nitrogen or whatever that is. In that moment neither of us could think coherently, and we both just mindlessly shouted out. It was like some involuntary reaction we were unable to bypass. One of us said Jesus Christ and the other either God Damn or Fuck, I don't remember, and neither of us knew who said what. It was just yanked out of us by the violence of the situation. It was then that I realized cursing is sometimes not done by volition at all, just an unconscious reaction to an overpowering situation.
When I got trapped in a grain bin with multiple nests of angry wasps, bystanders reported nothing but hearing "FUCK!" repeated over and over. My dialogue probably sounded utterly stupid without context, but that's life.
Most of my secondary characters are not above dropping the occasional profanity. It also depends on their personality. My MC, however, eschews swearing as she sees it as a waste of energy and unnecessary to get her points across. Although...
I use swearing where it is appropriate. So its not so much a matter of how often do i have my characters swear, i use it based on the situation.
I am not so sure that swearing is absolutely necessary to help the story advance. Swearing doesn't help anyone in the long run, so why this would help the flow of a narrative is beyond me.
It depends on the characters and the setting... if you're writing about soldiers, cops, bikers, etc.. they swear, a lot... so if you want to be realistic your mercenaries fighting their way across the Belgian Congo can't be talking to each other like old ladies in a library...
@J.T. Woody might have some stories about old ladies cussing up a blue streak in a library: "Gimme some of that fucking Hemingway!" "Fuck Hemingway. I need some of that Faulkner shit!"
Well, the main benefit is that it can be character defining, whether that's good or bad is up to personal preference. 'shit' out of context can mean a lot of different things, 'fuck' (unless you're talking intercourse) usually means similar things to 'shit' but is ever so much more severe. Someone who says 'shit' out of fear of a monster is possibly less scared than someone who says 'fuck'. It's a useful way to inform the reader how a character is feeling, and when used correctly it can help you understand how that character thinks and processes things. When used in moderation swearing can be quite effective. Even if it's not one of the 'serious' swears, a well-placed 'damn' in an otherwise swear free story carries a lot of weight. It can add to the stakes quite nicely. Now I'm not saying I use swears willy nilly like (as said only when I feel that character would swear.) but in moderation it can be useful for changing the tone of a scene. Swears are a lot like Groot's dialect from Guardians of The Galaxy. The same phrase 'I am Groot' can mean literally billions of combinations. Swears have loads of different meaning depending on where and when a character uses them. Swears are generally a good way to express anger quickly, also fear. The keyword here is moderation, think of it like the many herbs and spices in cooking, too much and you spoil the meal, too little and your customer might lose interest, just the right amount and your dinner gets a five star review.
I have a coworker who curses up a storm. I love her, shes hilarious. Italian lady. Heard her say once "im sorry but i dont give a flying fuck" i poked my head around the corner and said "you alright?" She says "did i say that out loud? Fuck."
I don't swear so my characters don't swear. Possibly because I would write stories without swearing just in case it would affect the story. But you can put swear words in a book if you want to.
