Hard SF discussion

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.

Personally, I try to avoid profanity in my writing (my editor tried hard to get me to include a couple f-bombs, but I resisted). However, sometimes a character just has to be real and use real language, like the ones you listed.
As a reader, I don't think it's reasonable to give a poor review based on the use of profanity alone, unless it was just so pervasive and constant that it feels like the author was using them to pad his word count.

Thanks o much for your comments. This is how Norman Mailer once 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.

Once you get your series openers with the bad reviews for profanity out of the way, comments about that will drop off.

My books vary from as many as 50-60 f-bombs to as few as 1 or 2 depending on the characters present and the situations they find themselves in.

However, I've always used profanity in my books and have never set an expectation that there'd be no swearing, so I think its more accepted--as compared to an author who wrote a lot of books with no swearing and then added it.

Personally, I find it amazing that folks are often more put off by cursing than by people being killed. It seems completely backwards to me.

M.D. wrote: "Once you get your series openers with the bad reviews for profanity out of the way, comments about that will drop off.

My books vary from as many as 50-60 f-bombs to as few as 1 or 2 depending on..."

I use profanity as well, depending on the characters would say.

I personally feel that if you are concerned about "fitting in" and conforming, then you might consider whether or not to use profanity. I find it amazing that the f-word is screened out in these emails. It's like having the thought police watching over me.

I use the f-word as is needed, depending on what the character would say.