I try not to use swearing in my writing. Aside from moral issues, I find that (for me at least) if I'm having a character swear, it's because I'm trying to inflate a scene with importance. What I have going on isn't strong enough, so I cut the corners and have someone swear. That'll get an emotional response, right? Make the scene powerful and vivid? If someone's swearing, it's usually a clue to me that I need to do something to that scene to make it emotionally powerful without just throwing in words that are powerful by themselves.

One has to understand, my father always believed right to the core of his child-like being that God really did exist and disapproved of certain things my father did habitually, including the blasphemy. Robyn has a point, that belief is what makes blasphemy possible.

I occasionally say bad things to Mr. Smarty-pants of the Universe, even though I know I should be trying to cultivate a better understanding of why He does things rather than getting heated over what He does (as my irreverent nick for Him might indicate, it also really steams me when He turns out to be right about things...again).

I think that God is happy when I deflect myself from feeling angry about certain things and instead learn to take it with a grain of salt and a bit of perspective. I'm sure He wants me to develope a better perspective, and I work on it, but I don't actually worry that God will be offended, as if His dignity were at stake. We're really only talking about my dignity.

In other words, the very core of true blasphemy, really disrespecting God and His position, is to believe that you can insult a being so immeasurably greater than yourself. Usually we only concern ourselves with how our outward blasphemies hurt those around us.

And not only did Robyn express exactly that belief (whether intentionally or not), she also casually lumped God into a group of deities, presumably all of whom are easily offended. It was that artlessly sincere statement of something so blasphemous which I found really remarkable. It was...amazing, in a way.

I'm sure that nobody here can fathom what I'm saying by now, which is just to point out the other aspect of my little jibe. See, blasphemy is in the eye of the beholder. Any statement about Deity is likely to disagree with something that someone holds to be an essential or self-evident truth. We can't judge what offends God, only what offends man. That's a simpler point, and probably easier to understand.

Your explaination is interesting and not the interpretation I expected.

I meant to use offend to mean "to transgress or violate", not "to cause wounded feelings". If you are one who believes the Ten Commandments to be the first of the laws handed down by God to Moses for mankind, then taking the Lord's name in vain, would be breaking, transgressing and violating His law.

When people are offended (using whatever definition you like) the response is often anger. I can live with angering a fellow human. When God is offended (meaning more specifically that you have violated His law), anger is probably what you are incurring, and I don't particularly want to incur the wrath of the Creator.

Perhaps "anger" or "slander" would have been the better term to use, but I chose "offend" without considering its varied meanings.

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In other words, the very core of true blasphemy, really disrespecting God and His position, is to believe that you can insult a being so immeasurably greater than yourself.

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And I almost didn't put deities for exactly the reason you point out, but as not everyone believes the same thing I didn't want to be overly specific or exclusive and indicate that only the one I believe in can be blasphemed.

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Anyway, I apologize for taking the shot, it probably was a bad thing to do. I have to say "probably", because after all, so many of the things I think are good ideas are so clearly evil.

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JOHN!

Offending their intelligence will.

Honestly, though, there's no right or wrong here. It's YOUR story, and YOUhave decide what's best for YOUR work.

JOHN!

I could write a detailed and graphic rape scene and never use profanity, same with gay sex.

However, sex and violence should be treated the same way, use them where they fit naturally into the story.

EDIT: I just realize that the more graphic a sex scene is, the less profane it is likely to be. Really, the F word is more of a tell word. The show words are all a little less profane.

Of course, I don't mind that sex be fictional (although it's not as much fun), but I don't want to watch them Do It in every detail, just as I wouldn't want to spy on real people's bedroom activities. Tell me how they felt about it, and I'll know enough about the details.

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Miriel made a good point, sometimes profanity is a signal that something is missing from the scene -- a cop-out or short cut so to speak. Not always, but sometimes (the same way gratuitous sex and violence can be used to add three chapters and cover up a plot hole ).

It's also absolutely filthy in parts--well actually, in a good bit of it.

Is it a bit over the top? Perhaps, but I don't think it takes away from the story being told.

A story can have all sorts of stuff in it, but still be something completely different.

There’s also something to be said for separating the art from the artist. Maybe you don’t swear, but do your characters? Sure, you may think this is sophistry, but I’m sure there’s a lot of things your characters do that you would never do.

I also don’t think swearing should be used in the same way as a black hat is in old Westerns. If you have a secular audience, swearing isn’t going to make the bad guys badder in a lot of their eyes.

JOHN!

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Most "curse" words we know and love today come from Germanic roots. They are not, in and of themselves, bad. In fact, they were merely the common terms for what they describe in the Saxon-ruled England. However, after 1066, the nobility spoke French due to William the Conqueror's roots in France's Normandy coast. The old words became low-class, common, or in Latin, vulgar. The only actual curses in the English language involve the words "hell" and "damn" and are generally considered pretty mild. So consider that [if] you criticize someone's work for using vulgar language, you are only telling them the truth -- that they are using the language of the common people. Because, let's face it, most people use some of those words now and then.

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We seem to be so mixed up on what the point of this argument is.

Is it about censorship? Or following rules? Or is it about the worth of a story?

Anyway, I just wanted to say a couple of things, and if I'm lucky I'll start a whole new round of bickering (just kidding, KDW ):

1. Asking people in a public place (kinda like this forum) to follow certain rules of decorum, is no more censorship than arresting someone for sunbathing naked at the local city park. If I had demanded that SB change the content of his story (the first thirteen lines posted on this forum NOT being the actual story) or if a publisher had changed the content without his consent AND contrary to a contractual agreement, THAT would be censorship.

2. Just because a story--despite its vulgarity, profanity, sexual content, swearing, etc, etc, etc--has greatness in it, does not mean that all readers will be be able to enjoy it for the greatness of the story. The fact is that there are readers who would be hard pressed to find the value in such a story for the offensiveness (relatively speaking, of course) of the content. Are these types of readers any less valuable than others? Does it make the story less meaningful? I don't think so. No book that I know of, however, ever sold less because it lacked offensive content. I mean, really. Do you think ANYONE bought American Gods BECAUSE Gaiman used the f-word a couple of hundred times in the first two chapters? Probably not. But do you suppose he lost sales that he might have made otherwise? Yup. Me included. Sad. I so absolutely LOVED Stardust.

2b. Were my comments of SB's story inappropriate? Absolutely not. They have served to clarify a few things around here, I think. To remind us of a few rules and principles that have made Hatrack the kind of site that writers such as myself have found a safe haven, valuable, polite. Something different than so many writer's sites, from which many here at Hatrack have fled.

3. Rules are rules. Just because you choose not to read them doesn't mean you're not responsible for keeping them. Try telling a cop you just didn't KNOW that it's illegal to change lanes in an intersection. I guarantee you'll get the ticket anyway.

"When do you think this is/isn't acceptable?" It is acceptable when it doesn't lead to utter boredom on the part of the reader. The problem with profanity is that it is extrordinarliy limiting in its descriptive potential. Having served time in the military I can understand the meaning when a person says. "F the f'ing f'er. It's all f'd up the f'ing b'ard f'er! F this S, SOB." But this is usually accompanied by finger pointing and gesturing in a rather simian and emotional manner, all of which isn't translatable to print.

Interesting, but the worst of Hustler Magazine just doesn't come close to capturing the real words people say during really pithy life situations. Once you've heard a schizophrenic man speak after he's been shot in the belly by the police or talked to a hundred pound woman while she's giving birth to a ten pound baby you realize that much profane writing is just pretension. So literary pretensions of obscenity leave me with an overweening boredom.

I don't think profanity in novels is ever good, but that's because I don't think that it is needed and because I've seen successful novels that don't use one profane word and are just as effective at conveying the personality traits of the different characters as those books that do use profanities. However, if one wishes to use profanities, then so be it. I'm not going to stop them. I'm just not going to use any.

The same rule applies to highly crass expressions/descriptions. I can generally avoid those by saying something like "...and then he muttered something unintellegible.

"Gabriel cringed at hearing such crass words coming from his friend."

I know, it's utterly off topic and not properly a part of this thread at all, but when a character resorts to behavior that I feel is immoral, even if it's just kicking an obnoxious student out of a class which that student needs in order to graduate (and yes, that does refer to a specific case), I don't overlook it.

I can sometimes forgive it, if the character repents sincerely, though.

Anyway, back to the topic. Matt is full of s***

And for the point of being OT -
Fight Club, the book, would have had badly developed and unbelievable characters had the author not included their cursing and swearing.
Do you think someone who urinates in soup and conducts violence on a regular basis would way, "Make love", or "sex", or even "fornication"?
Blue Velvet, the movie, again has a character who is largely defined by his choice of language. I'm sure there are people who would argue that the movie could have been done without it, but the language choices served to point out the class differences, the slide in to 'bad' of one character and the aggresive mentally ill behaviors of another character. It also gave us a lot of great lines, like "F you, you Fing F." which has made it's way onto a T-shirt, with full spelling.

Either * all swear words which appear in posted fragments

"Wanna f***?"

or change the wording

"Wanna get it on?"

and then, when and if any members ask to read the whole story, the text can be left intact, as it is being send privately by email. Provided, of course, that the author has prewarned readers that there is cursing in the story, thus avoiding misleading anyone as to what they're about to read.

As to cursing is general?

Joe R. Lansdale has his characters cursing so beautifully and colorfully that the text really would be the poorer for it. So is all depends on the book and ultimately how good a writer you are. (Lansdale's so mouth-wateringly good I hate him!)

On the taking the Lord's name in vain issue. I've heard it said that what that truly means is doing evil in God's name. Surely God hates that much more than a mention of his name in anger, however bad that may also be.

*goes off to find the aliens and mythical creatures.*

If I could write dialogue well, I might include cussing if the character was that kind of person. I cuss all the time (except in front of my mom) so seeing it doesn't bother me. But I don't want to see in my own writing what I hate most, dialogue that seems wrong, stilted, or just useless padding, used to characterize a person because the author is lazy or ineffectual. Slang and foul language seems to be easy to mess up in writing.

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I'm in the wrong forum if everyone here is human...

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Please look at my post again. I didn't say everyone here is human.

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human like most of the rest of the people around here

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profanity is just a way for a bad writer to make his/her point.

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I thinks that’s a cop out. I see a lot of people say that. Swearing isn’t usually meant to be creative. Swearing is a lot of times used as an exclamation, out of anger, excitement, or some other emotion. It’s a knee jerk reaction a lot of times. If I stub my toe or get cut off on the highway, I’m not trying to be creative. I’m trying to vent my anger. Sheesh!

For a lot of people swearing is just habit. Again, not trying to be creative.

This whole “profanity is just a way for a bad writer to make his/her point” or “that’s how weak and/or uncreative people express themselves” is just horse sh!t.

I won’t out of respect, but I could post a rather creative string of swears that would make your eyes bleed for the number curses and the sheer vulgarity of it. But it is very, very creative.

Yes, you have to know when swearing is appropriate in the confines of the story. For example I have a story that changes POVs with each chapter break, rotating the characters throughout. One character is a born-again Christian, and devoted family man. There is no swearing in those chapters. None whatsoever. It’s really not that hard of a thing to do.

Then I have another character who grew up in the boonies living in a trailer, her mom and little brother died in a car accident and her father became an abusive alcoholic. She ran away from home and has been a stripper every since she was sixteen. She’s a hard drinking, coarse, loose woman of twenty-one now.

I don’t see her drinking with her pinky in the air saying, “Please pass the tea and crumpets.”

You also have to be aware of your audience. If you’re writing children’s books or Christian literature probably isn’t a place for swearing or vulgarity.

And no, you don’t need those words to make a good story. Though, I would rather read a book with a few f-bombs then characters saying “fudge” or “frack” or other nonsensical euphemisms or made up swears. It’s silly and takes me out of the story and makes the author look prudish. I think it’s better to avoid it all together or use vague tags instead. (i.e. ,he swore under his breath.)

It sounds as if a lot of the poster here just disregard any literature with anything more vulgar than an occasional “hell” or “damn.” That’s the kind of attitude that gets great works such as “Cater in the Rye” banned. It’s asinine.

If you don’t enjoy reading or writing books that have that sort of language in them, then don’t read or write them, but don’t dismiss them as irrelevant or criticize the author’s ability.

JOHN!

You think that the same thing can't be true of strippers? Well, maybe you know more about that subject than I do, but please question your assumptions.

Using profanity is generally a very lazy thing to do. I don't have a problem stereotyping some characters a bit by putting those words in their mouths, but you do need to be aware that it's a stereotyping device. Think of it as showing a character straining to dump a load in the toilet. True to life? You betcha...

On the other hand, I've read stories in these settings with curse words. I know for sure I've read those because I remember the cussing. It sticks out, especially the f-word when it is overused. Actually, if you want to talk about lack of creativity, have you ever read an author who only seems to know about one cuss word?

I'm not sure what the first authors are doing right. Maybe...just maybe...they did have cussing in there and the reason I don't remember it being there is that it was handled with extreme competence and naturalness. Or maybe they simply didn't use the words, but the emotions and attitudes were handled so well I filled in the details.

When I do remember cussing I can tell you for sure it's handled badly. In fact, most people who use profanity in their stories don't know how to use it, it sounds clunky and/or unnatural, and this shows in their writing.

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You think that the same thing can't be true of strippers? Well, maybe you know more about that subject than I do, but please question your assumptions.

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I don’t think she swears because she’s a stripper, I think she swears because that’s what she was raised around and that’s what she’s surrounded by now, both in her personal and professional life. This is a woman who, try as she might, often picks up guys in bars and sleeps with them when she gets drunk. Again, not because she’s a stripper, but because she a sad, lonely person, with a effed up childhood. Bourbon and marijuana are two of her closet friends. She’s looking for something to fill a hole in her life. I don’t think swearing is going to be something she’s adverse to.

There’s also certain tone I’m going for. Maybe if I give you few lines it will make it clearer.

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“F***ing Stephanie,” she muttered rubbing her sore, tired feet. Molly should’ve been off an hour ago, but the new girl, Stephanie, decided not to show up--hadn’t even bothered to call in--leaving Molly to cover her shift. Now in hour seven of a twelve hour day, Molly couldn’t have been happier to be on break between sets. Usually, that’s when she would walk the showroom floor and try to drum up some private dances, but f***k that. She needed a break, and since she was filling in, no one would give her any s**t.

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In contrast, the main character who’s also a stripper, doesn’t swear as much and rarely drops the f-bomb. Another character who’s Irish swears fairly regularly, but also says things like, “sodding” and “bugger” which can be considered swears or not at least not so nice in the UK.

Again, I don’t want it to seem that I’m a proponent of swearing in literature, but it doesn’t bother me as long as it’s not nonsensical.

I do think swearing can show many things like, the persons just vulgar, they’re young, they’re uneducated, they don’t care, how they were brought up or any number different things. I don’t think you can so easily say swearing = bad person. Like I said before, if you’re person swears in front of children and doesn’t tone it down or care, yes, that shows they’re bad. If the same character is out with some buddies at a bar and their dialogue is peppered with swears, doesn’t show them in a bad light.

JOHN!

"He cursed."

A writer that goes to extremes to avoid foul language, when it would be the most natural and appropriate thing for a character to use, is as bad as if not worse than one who uses vulgar language for the heck of it.

"He cursed" is telling, not showing If the rest of the scene were detailed descriptions and dialogue, a simple "he cursed" would stand out, which might work in some scenes but mostly it would break the rhythm of the story and cause the reader to stumble. But a "He cursed such a string of obscenties that Mary felt a need to check to see if her ears were bleeding," might fit fine.

Still, in the appropriate genre written for an appropriate audience, using the actual vulgar words is usually the better way to go. In both science fiction and fantasy a good author will create their own swearing, But in contemporary fiction, creative swearing may not maintain the feel of contemporariness.

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In both science fiction and fantasy a good author will create their own swearing...

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This usually annoys the hell out of me. It seems forced and fake.

Most fantasy settings are very reminiscent to medieval times. There were real swear words back then. Ass/arse, shit/shite, damn, hell, bastard, bitch, etc. These were all around, and are fine to use if you so chose. If you don’t, then fine, but there’s no need to make up swear words.

Now, given that the above words were around for all that time, don’t you think they’ll still be around in the future? More than likely, yes. Again, no reason to make up swears.

Someone earlier mentioned Firefly, which I thought did a really good job with it. Most of their swears were in Chinese (and were real Chinese swears) and that was explained in the story as apparently 500 years in the future we move away from a Latin based language. That was cool.

I'm not going to say that using profanity is necessarily bad writing (in fiction, at least), just that most people who use it are entirely mistaken about the effect it will have on the audience. In other words, if you are under the impression that profanity will give your scenes more impact or realism, then you are entirely mistaken and it will be a crutch whenever you use it.

Coarse profanities (the only kind that are generally regarded as "realistic") shove the reader out of the story in several ways. Not all apply to everyone, but the overall tendancy of recognized profanity to disengage the reader's imaginative faculty and arouse the reader's critical faculty is very nearly universal. When you shove your reader out of the story, the story seems less real.

Basically, you're appealling only to those readers who have been carefully trained to regard any use of profanity in fiction as proof of the author's "gritty realism" or whatever. But if they had already been engaged in your writing, you're only losing out by making them think about how gritty and realistic you are. Whether or not they even believe what they've been trained to think.

Sometimes a character or scene really does call for profanity (or a toilet scene)...and it is a challenge to incorporate it without ruining the story.

For me, most profanity is like people using "literally" for mere emphasis of a figurative expression* Of course, I'm not most people. But the simple fact remains, it is wise to avoid that kind of thing in your writing.

"Moongazer!" she shouted.

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The cases I find ineffective and annoying are those using made up words to replace specific words in English, or when they create what is obviously a curse, and then explain it in language that completely kills the mood.

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There you go. That’s pretty much what I was getting out. There was a comic book called Spider-Man 2099 (obviously a future interpation of the character we all know and love set in the year 2099). The writer, Peter David, is uber-talented, but he would use the word “shock” to replace “f**k.” A lot of times this was used humorously, but it did get annoying after a while.

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For example, if gazing at the moon were a mortal sin that only the lowest of the low would even contemplate, calling someone a "moongazer" could be as bad as us using words like a**hole to describe someone. But if you wrote that in a fantasy novel...
"Moongazer!" she shouted.

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That’s really good actually. I think it would be more analogous to something like “bastard,” though. Which in and of itself wasn’t a swear word, it was just what it was, someone born illegitimately. Now, that society has moved past caring about such things, it’s used exclusively as a swear. Back in the day, though it wasn’t a swear, just a really, really, bad thing to call someone, especially a gentleman. Which why John Adams was found of using it towards Alexander Hamilton, though technically the term was accurate.

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What Is a Christian Movie?
Many godly people think that the goal is for movies to be "non-offensive" in terms of sex, language, and violence. But the problem with that standard is it only describes a void. It doesn't give any creative guidance. A lot of Christians lauded the 2002 release A Walk to Remember mainly on this basis: "It didn't have any bad language, and the two teenagers didn't sleep together." Yes, but it was a banal, predictable story with underdeveloped characters, pedestrian acting, and saccharine dialogue.

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http://www.beliefnet.com/story/178/story_17841_1.html#cont

Another, somewhat hackneyed point, I wanted to bring up as well.

If I wrote the following in a story, many people would be truly, truly offended. (I hesitated to even copy it here)

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There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

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That would be really raunchy and racy, and many people would actually be mad at me.

Guess what? The above quote--Ezekiel 23:20.

Just something to think about.

JOHN!

Using profanity is a choice. As with all our other writing decisions, ie: POV, tense, action vs dialogue, characterization... there is a price to pay.

Writers who choose to use profanity pay the price. It will engage some readers, by giving the story a more gritty feeling. It will put off some readers who feel like profanity-laced dialog is rather like sorting through used toilet paper. Unfortunately, some of those readers who are put off by profanity will be editors.

The question has nothing to do with "Should there BE a price for using profanity?" There IS a price. Get used to it. Griping does not change reality.

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You can never overstate the importance of context.

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True enough. This is taken from a happy little tale entitled The Two Adulterous Sisters. The one sister is beaten, raped, and killed at the end.

But, in the better translations, it is never necessary to resort to crudities in order to tell those stories with all their grim details intact.

Which is merely to say that that particular argument is a total non sequiteur. Sometimes profanity is necessary to the story. Just like a toilet scene.

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...it is never necessary to resort to crudities in order to tell those stories with all their grim details intact.

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From the article I posted a link to above:

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A Christian dramatist needs to portray sin with the same intensity as does a purely secular dramatist because, as Flannery O'Connor noted, "Redemption is meaningless unless there is a cause for it in the actual life we live."

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By the rationale of the article, my “stripper story” could very well be considered a “Christian story” There is a message of hope, and an exploration of good and evil and right and wrong.

Like the one character I was describing before who bar hops and finds a different bed to sleep in every night. No, she doesn’t learn her lesson, but the reader can see she’s lonely and her life is unsatisfying.

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Sometimes profanity is necessary to the story. Just like a toilet scene.

But if it is necessary to you, as a writer, then you aren't a very good writer.

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That I can agree with. (though, I find necessary in a great many stories I write).

Here is my point-of-view on the matter.

I would never presume to tell others how to write, or what to include in their writing. In my mind, that would defeat their purpose of expression and effect the self satisfaction for writing in the first place.

As one who prefers NOT to have profanity in the books I write and read, mine is based on my personal beliefs and that will never change. Does that mean I will never use a “colorful metaphor” as it was called in one of the Star Trek movies? Not necessarily, but if I do, it will be in extreme moderation and from a shortened list of the lesser crude.

Here is an example of the effect too much foul language can have from different points of view:
Recently I finished reading a novel that started with metaphors in four letter profusion dripping off the pages. I was so busy being disturbed by the quantity that I just about tossed the book in the circular-file.

The book had, right from the beginning, soured my taste both for the novel I was reading as well as what I think of the Author (which really should not be done on a single work). I dragged myself through it and it ended up getting a little better, but not much. Bottom line, I wouldn’t recommend the book to anyone I know, with the exception of a few construction works who have the same “profanity on” enabled in their OS (operating system) as the Books author did. In summary, I hated it.

Now I will tell you it was on the New York Times best seller list and won the Hugo and Nebula for Novel in 2002, ‘American Gods’ by Neil Gaiman. I may have been in a minority of readers who didn’t like the book almost completely due to the language, but that didn’t change the fact that I found it generally deplorable.

I compare that book to Uncle Card’s ‘Enders Game’, having little to no foul language what so ever. In my mind, there is no contest. ‘Enders Game’ was superior “for me” in every regard.

Feelings between reader and writer can vary like the grains of sand on a beach. If I don’t like your use of language in expression, I simply won’t read your writing. But I encourage you to continue to write in what ever manner suits you best just the same. If it’s something you enjoy, there are probably others that will enjoy it too, unlike the smell of pig farms which only my nephew in the world enjoys.

"Tom! ... was that you?... WHEW!" Jim says waving his hands in a distressed manner trying to get fresh air.

Tom, laughing uncontrollably says "Sorry... sorry... kinda smells like..."

Assimilation of Mikes thesis into the project proceeded at an abysmal pace....