Science Fiction Aficionados 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

There is a point at which it becomes tiresome, just a bunch of noise. It doesn't matter what kind of characters they are.

Profanity is to language as salt is to food. Too much will give you high blood pressure. Too little and it gets really f'ing bland.

People have different tolerances to it. But here's my spectrum:

Disney (too bland) --------------------- Tarantino (too salty)

So the preferred sweet spot of your reviewers across that spectrum is going to be scattered. You have no control over that and should ignore the complaints unless they are so pervasive that you suspect your work is inappropriately skewed to the Tarantino side.

Personally, I think you just need to make sure that the profanity is used appropriately. For example, I once saw a blistering negative review of a book based solely on its "excessive" profanity, stating that even in the first few chapters it was way over the top. So I read the Look Inside preview on amazon... The first two chapters had about 7 "f" words, one of them spoken by a guy taking an exam that he was flunking (and the teacher chastised him for using profanity), while the other 6 were spoken by space pirates who were murdering the entire crew and passengers of a ship they had boarded. I mean, literally, WTF? (Not to mention the fact that the person giving a negative review was absolutely fine with brutality and senseless carnage, but toss in a few "f" words and it was all, "Whoa, buddy, you've crossed a line!")

How else would space pirate murdering b'tards talk?

"Oh, I say, old fellow, was that your head I just blew off? I am dreadfully sorry about that and am most dreadfully embarrassed by my indiscretion!"

I usually dont like it. It needs to be very un-gratuitous, which is hard as this is a subjective standard! I actually thought that the over-use of profanity in this character was very defining. It was part of her and seemed appropriate.

I think the main thing is to make sure profanity is only used based on the situation, the character(s), and tone of the story.

Situationally: moments of high stress, urgency, or danger are more likely to bring out your f-bombs. Certain settings, as well, will naturally absolve the use of profanity (gangster or war settings, the aforementioned pirates, dystopian worlds, etc.) And, of course, the profanity used should fit the setting. GRRM ruined a lot of scenes of his GoT novels for me because the characters would be chit-chatting in pseudo-medieval polite courtier talk one minute and then the next they'd be swearing like gangstas in the hood. It didn't work.

Characters: characters who want/need to appear tough would use it more. But more than that, if you're going for realism, then not all characters should curse in the same amount or in the same way. My mother would only use the "s" word. My father would only use the non-softened version of "Gosh darn it to heck." I'm more prone to toss in f-bombs. My wife doesn't curse at all. A similar pattern in our characters makes the dialog more believable.

Tone: lighthearted cozies should probably avoid almost all profanity (a bad guy tossing in a sudden invective would be passable -- shocking! the bad guy said a dirty word!). Hard-boiled detective stories should have a decent amount of profanity scattered throughout (appropriate for the setting and time period of course). Classic space opera (read that as stories similar to the old pulp ones) should probably avoid it as well, while new space opera (in the likes of Reynolds, Banks, Hamilton, etc.) would use it more liberally depending on character and situation.

Balance and context, in other words.

Also, I think that if you are a great writer (I know everyone thinks s/he is a great writer) you can maybe get away with it a bit more; if you are a crappy writer it just adds to the crappiness. For me, Reynolds and Hamilton fall into the former category...but I feel like I've read far too much of the latter in recent years, and to be honest I'd just as soon do without it entirely.

To me, it's like sex in books: it was novel but now I often skip it. Some authors don't do dialogue well enough for it not to sound forced.

MrsJoseph wrote: "...Some authors don't do dialogue well enough for it not to sound forced."

Scott wrote: "... if you are a crappy writer it just adds to the crappines..."

Bad writing isn't going to be helped by trying to make it sound edgy with profanity. But OTOH abstaining from profanity doesn't make crappy writing any better!

I won't read that stuff in any case.

I think Micah has it right (though I don't really agree with him on GoT). It has to fit the context and characters, otherwise it gets gratuitous and silly. I have no objections to the words themselves. It is similar to romance in stories as well. If you've got major world-changing events going on and two characters suddenly fall in love, sex scene or not, it doesn't fit and feels contrived.