Cursing…
I had one correspondent say that my book she read would just be fine without the bad language. I overheard another person say that a musical play would be much better if it weren’t so crude. This has me thinking about the audiences for my fiction stories. Because this is intended to be a PG-13 website, I won’t go into examples here, but I want to analyze authors’ use of cursing all the same.
First point: Cursing is a cultural phenomenon. It’s an old one too, although cursing publicly used to be more frowned upon. New Yorkers curse, for example. Can you imagine a hard-boiled NYPD homicide detective not using a few swear words, especially when s/he’s in a firefight with some bad apples in the Big Apple? Certainly those bad guys will use foul language. I’ll repeat Clancy’s maxim: fiction has to seem real. Language reflects culture, so language used in fiction has to seem real. “I am in a gun battle with some bank thieves” might be correct English, but you’d have something more colorful in that situation in a real firefight.
Second point: Curse words are often part of slang. While I’m against slang being used throughout a book because it can be tiresome for readers who don’t know that vernacular, it can be used initially for color and to make situations seem more realistic. When I was writing Rembrandt’s Angel, I spent a year studying British English, including slang, while I was writing. It’s clear that my character Esther Brookstone, whose father was a vicar, was probably taught to be prim and proper and not to use British swear words, but she utters a few throughout the book she probably learned by working in MI6 (barely mentioned in the book) and Scotland Yard. Everyone picks up slang and swear words in their work environment. Everyone uses them judiciously, right?
Third point: Cursing and slang, or the lack thereof, can differentiate characters and establish POV. The latter is important in narrative, most of which shouldn’t be written in omniscient in order to establish that it only represents the thoughts of one character X. The reader will unconsciously think that these are X’s thoughts because they reflect how X speaks. This can also be used in dialogue to avoid clumsy tag lines. Think about it. You’re listening to a discussion among your friends. You can generally know who’s speaking just by how they speak, although timbre, rising and falling of a voice, and so forth are important too (the latter is harder to convey in written dialogue).
Fourth point: Cursing can indicate other character traits. A young gamer might use more colorful language than his grandfather. A bunch of girls in a high school bathroom might use language that would make their priest blush. And so forth. This goes for social media and texting too, where acronymese mixed with cursing and other foul language often dominates some people’s messages. (As we know now, that can distinguish one executive branch at the federal level from previous ones too.)
Fifth point: Because cursing is a cultural phenomenon, curse words reflect race and ethnicity. One aspect about our great melting pot is that kids on the playground often pick up curse words and expressions from many languages and dialects. I believe that creates bonding, especially when English is a second language. This is important for YA novels. For example, a kid arrives at a new school and just wants to become part of a group.
One of my best Shakespeare classes became livelier when the professor treated the bard’s prose as a foreign language and explained the cursing. According to her, Elizabethan audiences loved how the playwright would take foul language and create double meanings. I expect a lot of old classics explained in this way would shock Puritan audiences. Maybe they would try to ban Shakespeare if they knew? And this is my last point: If you use cursing to make your fiction seem more real, you have to consider your audience. Shakespeare knew his well.
I don’t pretend that this list is all-inclusive. Readers and writers perusing this post might have other points. Cursing in literature is a wee bit like sex and violence (and sometimes they’re related!): it’s both a reader’s choice to read fiction that contains it and a writer’s choice to include it in her or his fiction. Many times, though, it can help the story better satisfy Clancy’s maxim.
***
Great Spring Thaw Sale. Every two weeks, with one week overlap, starting April 1, one of my books will be on sale at Smashwords (the overlap means that there are usually two books on sale). (Yes, it’s been going on…sorry about that, but it was announced on my Home page and elsewhere.) Take advantage of this to download some entertaining spring reading. Each ebook will be on sale for $1.99, regardless of the normal retail price. Access my Smashwords author page for the entire list of ebooks. (Remember, Smashwords offers ALL ebook formats, including mobi format for Kindles.) Use the coupon code for the ebook on checkout.
In libris libertas!
