Note: This post contains mild swearing. If you are offended by swearing, maybe it would be best to not see the entire post.
You’re damn f***ing right!
When I was first starting to think about writing, one of the thoughts that crept up on me was the usage of swearing. Now, in real life, I’m a bit of a swearer, but I still make an attempt to not cause major offence. Everyone is different, however, and people view swearing in different ways.
I’m fond of the Irish use of the word ‘feck,’ a word used over there as frequently as the real F-word, but used in a more normal way. While that is commendable, it is not a word used worldwide, Canada in particular. We appreciate swearing in the full, and only one person has to go see an game of hockey during the play-offs to see how some of the more dedicated fans of the game use swearing. Not that every game is like that in every part of Canada, but it does put a less than modest light on the stereotypical “I punch you in the face, and you just apologized” thing that many people apply to us northern North Americans.
In the writing world, you have nearly one-hundred-percent freedom in the choice of words. The page is your canvas, the pen is your brush. That’s nice and all, until you think about context. In a fantasy world, using modern swear words in a world that doesn’t have context in the real world is meaningless, and can break the reader’s connection to the characters in a snap of a finger. Authors invent ways of swearing that envelop the culture and religiousness of the world, if there is any. For instance, ff a character is hammering a nail into a plank and hits his thumb instead, he might go “Holy God of Hell’s Folly that hurts,” to use a generic and cheesy phrase. Of course, the default that always works, and my favourite, is “fucking ouch!”
Peter Capaldi’s portrayal of Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It and its spin-off In The Loop is fantastic when it comes to his inventive swearing. Now, would you use that level of swearing to assist in character dialogue? That’s up to you. What is your target audience? Young adult to adult? How about toning it down a notch?
Recently, I’ve started using the low-to-mild swearing only once in a while in my work. The word shit appears quite a lot in my revised book, and at least one instalment of The Severis Tales. With the latter, I try to not swear much, because I want to appeal to a wide audience (the stories are free to the general public), whereas with Elineer, I can get away with it a bit more. When I started two years ago writing the first book, I would not use the F-word, as I didn’t think it would fit. As I realized that feck is only going to be understood by some, it became clear to me that the family-friendly minced oaths would begin to sound cheesy, and not fit well in the context of the characters and tone of the books. By the third revision, which I had just completed, I changed some of the fecks to fucks, and when read back, sounds much better. It also put my mind at ease, safe in the knowledge that I’m not over-worrying about the real world.
That sort of thing might throw off a target audience. However, at my branch of Chapters, I opened up a seemingly innocent-looking fantasy novel, and on the page I opened to contained some “high-level” swearing. Am I offended? That depends on the context of the book (which now I’m interested in reading), and what it is all about. If it didn’t seem to fit, then yes, I would be offended. That’s not for me to judge, however. If everyone was offended by it, the book probably wouldn’t be on the shelf, which would be more poignant, as it was published a few years ago.
The author’s toolbox is full of useful gadgets and tools to help describe characters, scenes, and help visualize what kind of person this character or that character may be. However, true expressions of the character are in the language of the character. It gives their words more life, and makes the rhythm of their speech more fluid. As the many examples of swears invented are in English, if a work of yours was translated into another language, some of that tone and composure may be lost. That’s just something everyone has to deal with, like reaching a deal to the person next to you to put sunblock on their back at the beach.
In the end, I think swearing is not as bad as people think, and can be very useful in times. Just don’t put it in a childrens book.
What do you think about swearing? Are you for or against it? Or, do you have an alternative way of dealing with character expressions? Let me know!