Hi everyone,
Today, we are talking about everyone’s favorite topic: cursing in novels. Uh oh, I know. Cursing is a touchy-feely subject. In one hand, we have writers like Stephen King who allow their characters to curse mellifluously. In fact, Mr. King made cursing a creative art by writing a full paragraph with various derivatives of the f-word. On the other side, we have writers who rarely or never allow their characters to express themselves in expletives. I can think of a few such as Joyce Carol Oats and (maybe) Toni Morrison.
I remember in book 4 of Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling allowed Harry to express himself too much by writing some of his dialog in caps. She had a backlash from readers who expressed their dislikes toward Harry’s rage. In the subsequent volumes, when Ron was angry, Ms. Rowling described it as “Ron cursed profusely” without getting into details of the exact curse words.
It’s easy to understand since Harry Potter is a children’s book. However, when it comes to books written by adults for adults, what is the exact guideline for writers? Should you go the Stephen King way or the Joyce Carol Oats way? I was confused at first so I consulted a whole bunch of books about writing. The common denominator in this subject is: respect the language, don’t allow your characters to curse too much.
While I love Stephen King’s creative cursing, I decided to come up with my own solution regarding the f-bombs, a-trains, and their relatives: I would use them as special effects. For example, I have this character who is basically a quiet guy. He doesn’t talk much but whenever he does, people just tend to ignore him. At first, he doesn’t mind and keeps it to himself. One day, things really happen and people are looking for a solution. As usual, nobody listens to him.
So, he stands up, opens his mouth, and starts his speech with an f-bomb.
Everybody swings their heads back and begins to listen.
That, my friends, is how I would like to use profanities. Special-effect profanities, that is.
I don’t really like cursing in general, but if the scene requires it and it is consistent with the character’s personality, then I don’t mind. After all, people in real life curse and so, if done right, it can make the story more realistic. It’s cursing for the sake of it that I find really annoying.
Hi Gio,
I agree. It’s a tricky thing to do and sometimes, I’m annoyed when an author allows the characters to express himself or herself too much, especially in young adult novels. That’s not how you want to let the readers know your character is tough. I still prefer to use it as an emphasize than anything else. It gives more impact that way.
It’s all subjective, in my opinion. If you’re writing a character who naturally curses like a sailor, then you’re doing that character and your readers a disservice if you censor him in your book. The same for if you force out curse words in places that are unnecessary. There’s no set in stone rule, it just depends on your audience, as well as your characters.
Hi Chris,
I know, it all depends. But sometimes I do get a feeling that when the author allows a character to curse too much, it cheapens the book. It has to be done the right way or else it just feels like the author is churning out expletives at the audience.
However, in movies and TV, cursing works better as a tool to develop a character’s personality. There’s this one character in “True Blood” who curses like a storm but people truly like him because that’s who he is. But I can’t imagine the author writing him that way in the book. It would be too much.
Hahaha, I agree– and your example is pretty fabulous.
Hi JP,
Thanks for stopping by! One of my closest friend is like that: she is quiet and in my life, I never hear her curse but once she did and it made our head swing. At that moment, I realized the power of proper cursing and I guess I moonlighted the MC after here (with a gender switch, of course!)