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Reviews are coming in for our newest scifi thriller. Some are five star and no mention of the profanity. Some reviewers are put off by it, and focus on it and give it two stars. I would love to hear the opinions/experiences from readers, and from other writers, of using profanity with such characters as: navy seals, Russian thugs, and a foul mouthed lawyer.

Dennis wrote: "Reviews are coming in for our newest scifi thriller. Some are five star and no mention of the profanity. Some reviewers are put off by it, and focus on it and give it two stars. I would love to hea..."

I use it in my Martelli novels. If the snowflakes don't like it, let them cover their ears. Life is life.

hahah. lol.. that's my belly laughing!!!

Carole wrote: "hahah. lol.. that's my belly laughing!!!"

G_d forbid someone utter a disparaging word. Have you been near a playground these days (assuming children are even let outside to play)? The language kids use is astounding? Between television and the Internet, not to mention homelife, anyone who complains about profanity in books meant for adults is on a crusade...and a losing one, at that.

This was my response on anotehr thread= I have spent my entire adult life around the transportation industry and for a loooong time, I was the only female in the room. Profanity was a big part of that culture. I don't like it, but it has been part of some of the lexicons I have experienced. So if I was reading about thugs and their language reflected a tea room education, I'd doubt I'd feel it was authentic.
I also love to read historicals and believe me, nobody cursed more fluently and colorfully than the characters in Shakespeare's stories.
If you are going to buy a book that involves the underbelly of criminal culture chances are you are going to come in contact with that kind of language.
While some say cursing is the lance of the dimwitted- and it is part of the character's personality- it has to be expected.
Gratuitous cursing is another matter. If the language reflects the character and situation- I'll read it, if it feels overdone and doesn't belong- I usually put the book down- but that is a matter of taste and shouldn't reflect in a review rating. IMO

Carole wrote: "This was my response on anotehr thread= I have spent my entire adult life around the transportation industry and for a loooong time, I was the only female in the room. Profanity was a big part of t..."

Well said!

Ah, Ted you’ve worded that very well. Snowflakes. That is actually my view on people who have a problem with profanity in books. I have never lived in that kind of bubble. I’m also English. Some of us really know how to swear.

I had a high tech swear jar in Missing Remnants that Detective Track was single-handedly contributing to. I couldn’t have that if he’d wandered around muttering “oh dear me”.

D.J. wrote: "I had a high tech swear jar in Missing Remnants that Detective Track was single-handedly contributing to. I couldn’t have that if he’d wandered around muttering “oh dear me”."

Stephanie Martelli maintained a conventional Swear Jar in her kitchen, to which Louis contributed generously. It paid for most of their miscellaneous expenses on their annual vacations to Lost Wages. Their son and daughter were known to contribute now and then, as well. Here's one portion from an early book in the series:

Stephanie went to the foot of the stairs and called to Rob, “Tell your sister she’s already used half the electricity generated at Niagara Falls during the past twenty-four hours and she has exactly one minute to get her butt out of the bathroom and into the kitchen!”

Within a few minutes, both teenagers were eating their breakfast with their parents. “By the way, you two,” Stephanie noted, “each of you owes the Swearing Jar a dollar. I heard what you called each other up there.”

The children got up from the table and went to their book bags, from which each withdrew a dollar bill. The bills then were placed in a large jar, the Swearing Jar, on the counter to which was affixed a sign: VEGAS OR BUST!

Or this excerpt:

When Rob and Tiffany, the two Martelli children, asked their mother, Stephanie, at breakfast the morning after their father captured the Iranian terrorists, what happened to his face, she told them she had caught him with another woman and hit him with a golf club. Rob was heard to remark, “Holy s*** [spelled out in the actual text], dad, don’t get caught next time!” Stephanie immediately ordered him to put one dollar into the Swearing Jar on the kitchen counter, which at that time held $156, much of which had been deposited by his parents.

Swearing-it saves you money.

I'm going to offer an alternative viewpoint. My personal background is such that I don't particularly like profanity, although I have no choice but to be immersed in it. (Call me a snowflake if you wish. I think of it more in terms of courtesy.) However, it's not my place to tell other people what to write or say, so I don't.

But I will say this:

As a writer, a part of your job is to cut whatever doesn't serve the story you are telling. You must be vigilant about how you tell your story, right down to individual word choices. We know that overused words draw attention to themselves, and often we rephrase to avoid excessive repetition. Obscenities are strong words and call attention to themselves. If you use them, they should not be overused. This isn't a moral thing. It's a principle of writing that all too often is violated left, right, and center today. The result is bad writing.

My wife, who is not shy about profanity, once overheard a snippet of a cable TV show in which one of the female characters was using the f-word every time she turned around. That character could barely speak a sentence without it. My wife's reaction was, "Is that the only word that woman knows?" It was a spot-on criticism of the writers.

It's important to remember that dialogue is not conversation. Dialogue is cleaned up conversation. If you wrote your dialogue the way people really speak, it would make terrible reading. The trick is to make it sound real without including all the clutter that actually occurs in conversation. And some of that may well be excessive obscenity. Again, this is just about good writing, nothing else.

I wrote a Medium article (Clean Up Your Language) comparing the art of bonasi to writing, with regard to cutting whatever doesn't serve the story. It was not specifically about the use of profanity, but I did cover that toward the end of the article. I talk in a bit more detail there about solid writing reasons to not overuse obscenity.

For the reason of too much profanity-I don’t like the film Goodfellas. I’m not sure I even finished watching it. Yet it’s apparently brilliant.

One book I read years ago started with the word shitshitshitshitshit. I thought that was a peculiar choice for an opening. I was possibly underwhelmed by the rest of the book-I can’t remember anything else about it.

Dale wrote: "I'm going to offer an alternative viewpoint. My personal background is such that I don't particularly like profanity, although I have no choice but to be immersed in it. (Call me a snowflake if you..."

"It's important to remember that dialogue is not conversation. Dialogue is cleaned up conversation. If you wrote your dialogue the way people really speak, it would make terrible reading."

Really? Many parts of my novels, short stories, and flash fiction writings include dialogue in voices that mimic EXACTLY how I have heard people speak. I want my readers to "hear" my characters in their heads when they read my works, regardless of whether the characters be medical professionals who are discussing an illness in proper English or sharecroppers in Alabama who barely made it through the 4th grade and are talking about planting 'baccy. I make the dialogue fit the character. To me, that's as important as setting the scene and pushing on through the plot.

People don't speak perfect English (nor perfect anything). They start, stop, do a little of this, do a little of that (vamping), swear, do all kinds of things to their conversations. I love sitting in airport terminals (well, not actually, but what can you do until you plane is ready?) and listening to what people are saying around me. Some of the conversations have actually become grist for my mill (with the names removed to protect the guilty).

Buy hey, each to his own. I'm a stickler for reality. In my books, if the tide is coming in at an inlet on Long Island, then you can check the date and time in the tide tables against the dates in my novels, and by G_d, it'll be just as listed in the tables. Realism, baby!

I have nowhere near the amount of experience as the rest of you, but when I wrote my book, I struggled with this concept. I didn't want readers to throw it down in the first chapter, due to language, but I wanted the characters to sound "real", and without a little profanity they didn't. It was based on real life, and real people, and without a little thrown in, they would have sounded as though I'd run them through the dishwasher. So...I compromised. I threw some in, but tried to minimize it. Not to "please" anyone, but to keep them reading despite their own personal reactions to profanity. That said, when doing a promo with Bookcave, my book sounds much worse than it really is, because there are readers who want none of it, or to be forwarned it is there. If I get a two or a one due to language, I can accept it as reader preference, and it doesn't say a thing about the rest of what I wrote.

Carmel wrote: "I have nowhere near the amount of experience as the rest of you, but when I wrote my book, I struggled with this concept. I didn't want readers to throw it down in the first chapter, due to languag..."

If you publish on CreateSpace, as I do, there's a checkmark for Adult Language when you publish your book. The readers are warned.

My narrative sometimes says something like "he swore profusely" which covers a multitude of sins!

Okay, just for grins...

Here's an excerpt from one of my Det. Louis Martelli, NYPD, mystery/thrillers...it contains adult language, which, below, I masked by using asterisks (in the published text, the words are spelled out). The scene is one in which two men whose friendship dates to their teens meet for the first time since high school. (Both are in their 40s, now.) Tell me how this scene should be "cleansed" without draining the energy and realism from the book:

Kyle Lambert may have left South Beach, but South Beach never left Kyle Lambert. His Body Tint tattoo parlor on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn looked much the same as its predecessor on Ocean Drive in Miami. Brightly lit with a plethora of neon signs hung for decoration and wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling framed tattoo art from which patrons could choose their next tat, the shop was viewed by many as a mecca for aficionados of the art. It was one of the few shops in the five boroughs open 24-hours a day, and even in bad times it did a staggering business. Lambert held down the first of four booths, the one closest to the door, right behind the receptionist. He was just finishing with a customer when Martelli and O’Keeffe entered and presented their credentials. The time was 3:20 PM.

Martelli smiled broadly when he saw Lambert.

“Holy s***, it’s Lou Martelli!” Lambert bellowed, shooting both hands into the air. “I give up. I did it! I’m guilty!”

Martelli turned to O’Keeffe. “Book ’em, Danno!”

O’Keeffe had a look on his face as if to say ‘What the f*** is going on here?’

Before O’Keeffe could even ask what was on his mind, Lambert and Martelli threw their arms around each other in a bear hug and Lambert started blurting words like an UZI spitting slugs at a thousand rounds per minute. “Lou, you old fart, how the hell are you? I heard you lost a leg in Iraq. That’s bad s***, my friend. How’s Stephanie? Gosh, you two were inseparable in high school. You’re a lucky man, Lou. And wasn’t that a shame about our old classmates, Vince and Elena Ponticelli? I was blown away to learn you were the one who arrested him. Sad their nine-year-old boy died. Wow, it’s good to see you.”

“Sean, meet Kyle Lambert, one of my closest friends in high school,” bellowed Martelli.

Lambert and O’Keeffe shook hands. “Kyle ran the fastest 100-yard dash of anyone in our high school’s sports division. His record hasn’t been beaten to this day, if my read of the sports pages is correct.”

From Wheel of Fortune
Copyright, Theodore Jerome Cohen
All rights reserved

Theodore wrote: "Really? Many parts of my novels, short stories, and flash fiction writings include dialogue in voices that mimic EXACTLY how I have heard people speak."

Including all the "ums" and "ahs" and repetitions and free-flowing changes of subject (that in a story would have nothing to do with plot or characterization) and . . . ?

I'm guessing not exactly exactly, even if you're trying to make it as close to real as possible.

Dale wrote: "Theodore wrote: "Really? Many parts of my novels, short stories, and flash fiction writings include dialogue in voices that mimic EXACTLY how I have heard people speak."

Including all the "ums" an..."

Not much time for the "ums" and "ahs" in this scene (;>)

My first book starts off with a seventeen year old girl yelling at her parents, "What the F*CK IS WRONG WITH MY ATTITUDE?"

I'm sure it puts a lot of people off. I've even had some school teachers tell me they would love to recommend my book because of its positive messages regarding relationships and self-esteem....but were hesitant to because of the swear words.

Yeah, well, teens swear. This story is about a girl with major anger issues. It would be unrealistic for her not to swear.

My life would have been easier if I had taken the swearing out. It's funny because I don't swear much myself. My dedication says,

"To my mother, who always believed I would write a book but never dreamed it would contain so many swear words."

Since the swears are mentioned in the dedication and then occur heavily in the first couple pages, I feel like anyone who does a look inside will be well forewarned.

And while some reviewers have knocked off a star or two for language, most of my reviews are positive and people love the main character.

I'm glad I didn't water her down.

You can't please everyone.

If you had your rough-and-ready blue collar men talking like 1950s housewives you'd get stars knocked off for that, too.

C.L. wrote: "My first book starts off with a seventeen year old girl yelling at her parents, "What the F*CK IS WRONG WITH MY ATTITUDE?"

I'm sure it puts a lot of people off. I've even had some school teachers..."

Here's a discussion on the subject:

https://www.tckpublishing.com/is-expl...

The fact is: teens swear. I included mild swearing in my YA novel, The Hypnotist (written under the pen name Alyssa Devine) and...AND...this book still was named one of two books (the other is Witness for the Prosecution) in the Neshaminy High School's (Bucks County, PA) Core Genre (Mystery) Reading Program. It's been in the program since 2016, where I guest lecture on mystery and flash fiction writing. Kids are smart...they can smell a "con" a mile away. Treat them as children and they'll reject your writing faster than anything you can name.

Ha! Speak of the devil.

I just got that exact type of review.

This is the BEST type of review because I feel like it will both recommend my book to those who don't mind the language and put off the people who do.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Theodore wrote: "Not much time for the "ums" and "ahs" in this scene (;>)"

Exactly my point. Realism is fine up to a point, but if carried too far it makes a story disjointed and unreadable. I don't know if you read the Medium article I previously referred to, but I point out there a number of ways in which bonsai artists make brilliant forgeries--trees that are very unreal in certain aspects, but which fool viewers into thinking they are completely real. Writing, I submit, is very much the same. You want it to feel real, but fiction is absolutely not real life. It's fiction, even if carefully arranged to fool the reader into thinking it's real.

I submit that sometimes things we think are necessary for "reality" actually aren't. Your tide charts are an example. I'm sure you feel being accurate with regard to tides adds an element of reality to your stories, and I won't argue that it doesn't. But how many of your readers are likely to even notice if you get it wrong sometimes? Probably somewhere in the vicinity of zero.

I suspect obscenity is very much the same. People notice it when it's there, but do they really notice it when it's not, especially if you've managed to maintain the tension, excitement, or whatever in spite of its absence? I'll bet very few people do. I don't know if anyone here notices it, but I don't use obscenity. Has it hampered my ability to communicate? Does it make me feel any less real? Do you even notice?

Again, it's not my place to tell anyone what to say or write, but if asked for an opinion, I'd say that where obscenity is concerned, less is more, and I personally could do without it entirely. A sufficiently clever writer can generally find ways to get by without it, and without sacrificing the illusion of reality. I'm clearly in the minority on this, but that's my opinion.

I think well placed swear words can add authenticity to a character.
However, I have read dialogue that is littered with profanity that seemed to be unnecessary.
The 1st paragraph of my book includes the word 'bollocks' so readers know what they're getting right off the bat.
It also mentions that there is an occasional swear word in the book description so there are no surprises but it's non-fiction so I think that makes a difference too.

Dale wrote: "Theodore wrote: "Not much time for the "ums" and "ahs" in this scene (;>)"

Exactly my point. Realism is fine up to a point, but if carried too far it makes a story disjointed and unreadable. I don..."

"...fiction is absolutely not real life. It's fiction, even if carefully arranged to fool the reader into thinking it's real."

Ah, but MY fiction is drawn from real life...MINE. And how what I've experienced is embellished and expanded up--the mix of fact and fiction (faction)--is at times so entwined that even those who know me well--who have known me all my life--have a difficult time unraveling the two.

In fact, all of my books mix fact and fiction in this way, from my first novel (which basically chronicles my life as a violinist) through the flash fiction anthologies; they all contain that signature mix on which I base my writings.

It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but then, I don't write for everyone. To do so would, by definition, result in the production of mediocre books.

In all the time I have been writing fiction--and I started in 2009--only one person has even mentioned swear words in my books. That person was a Catholic priest. Obviously, he was not a fan of that language (though he was, and still is, a friend).

Theodore wrote: "Ah, but MY fiction is drawn from real life..."

Sure, and as you say, all fiction is to some degree so drawn. But "drawn from real life" is not the same as "is real life." I'm really just pointing out that we shape our stories in ways that are not 100% "real life" in order to make them readable and engaging.

I've said all I have to say on the subject, though. You've probably had enough of me for one day anyway. ;-)

Dale wrote: "Theodore wrote: "Ah, but MY fiction is drawn from real life..."

Sure, and as you say, all fiction is to some degree so drawn. But "drawn from real life" is not the same as "is real life." I'm real..."

No, not really...there's always something to learn from these exchanges.

I think I write the way I do--with truth (real life) entwined through and through in my fiction--is because my favorite "read" is a biography. I read little if any fiction for pleasure, but give me a good biography, and I'll stay up late into the night to devour it. I find "real life" so much more engaging than anything a fiction writer could conjure up that a person's life story, well-told, just grabs and holds me. I truly believe this is one of the major reasons I infuse my stories with so much real-life material based on my own life, my travels, people I know or have known, and so forth. It's also the reason I'll probably never be able to write science fiction, though I'm trained as, and have worked as, a field scientist in North and South America, Asia, and Antarctica.

Theodore wrote: "...a field scientist in North and South America, Asia, and Antarctica. ..."

What field of field science?

Dale wrote: "Theodore wrote: "...a field scientist in North and South America, Asia, and Antarctica. ..."

What field of field science?"

MS, Physics; PhD, Geophysics

Thank you all so much for your comments. This is how Norman Mailer handled profanity:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nak...

In a previous novel I added a thick accent to the dialog of a foul mouthed Russian hacker. Got no complaints about the profanity in that book.

In historical novels you'll often come across outbursts such as "By Jupiter". It all sounded a bit odd to me, but I started to use it and it works quite well. Contemporary novels need something different!

Theodore wrote: "Dale wrote: "Theodore wrote: "...a field scientist in North and South America, Asia, and Antarctica. ..."

What field of field science?"

MS, Physics; PhD, Geophysics"

Interesting. I was heading down the physics/cosmology path myself at one time, but life got in the way and I ended up as a software developer. It's been a good career, but I've never lost my interest in the physical sciences, especially astronomy and cosmology.

Dale wrote: "Theodore wrote: "Dale wrote: "Theodore wrote: "...a field scientist in North and South America, Asia, and Antarctica. ..."

What field of field science?"

MS, Physics; PhD, Geophysics"

Interesting..."

If you want to make G_d laugh, tell Her your plans.

Theodore wrote: "If you want to make G_d laugh, tell Her your plans."

So I've learned. I don't make too many plans these days. I just try things out and see what happens. ;-)