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Dang and Other 4-Letter Words My seventh grade science teacher called cursing, "Rude, crude, and socially unacceptable." She was right. It is.The problem is that sometimes my characters say things that are okay on network television shows like "Everybody Loves Raymond" or "Charmed" -- shows that couldn't possibly be adult-only -- not because I want to wiggle some dirt into my language but just because . . . well, because Candy really would curse if her brother was pulling on her hair and it hurt. It's not realistic for a girl like Candy to just go "Owwie." She's gonna get mad, and she's gonna get vocal about it. I'm a Christian, and I've met Christians who can't even watch TV because of the language, and Christians who wrote stories they probably wouldn't be able to show their mothers. I don't know how much of a debate this is in secular writing groups, but for me . . . I have ultra-clean people on one side and people on the other side who don't even see an issue. Personally, I don't think cursing is a sin. I don't like it, I don't do it, I don't like to hear it, and I think it's really rude to curse in front of a person who's sensitive about it. And it's never classy. But it seriously upsets some people, and we need to be conscious of other people's feelings. Otherwise, it's just thoughtless and unkind. In writing, the fact of the matter is that anything goes if it "works." If it "flows." If it sounds right. I apply my own sensibilities to this and say "If you can do something else that works just as well, do that instead. Never use any word they can't play on daytime television and, even then, be stingy with it." Whenever I use a 4-letter word, it's because nothing else works and I actually need it -- and can therefore defend it from an artistic standpoint. Otherwise, it's trash. I'm mainly talking about young adult writing, of course. I know harder language is more allowable in adult writing -- which is part of why I don't write for adults. ^_^; But if I stick to this -- if beginning writers say No to cursing -- then we're not going to use it unless we really, actually have to. When the line just can't quite "flow" without it.
Lines I wouldn't like as much if they didn't have bad words: "'Sorry if I was rude. But I've been looking all over for you, so I could tell you what a great time I wasn't having. And'--she shook her midnight hair out with a charming smile--'It's so much fun to be a bitch when you want to be.'" (Blaise Harman, LJ Smith's Spellbinder) You could say that she could have used the word "witch" instead, but it wouldn't work because they actually are witches. So the meaning of the sentence would completely change. Also, Blaise is one of LJ Smith's most enduring characters, being both the villainess and a sympathetic sister-figure. Blaise is one of the best character examples I know of -- she succeeds as a character because her nature is contradictory, because she can be both evil and good at the same time, and because you love her and hate her and still kind of want to be her.
Robert: "All I wanted was a place where people would care about me." "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." (Rhett Butler, Gone with the Wind) |
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