The Word Cloud

I agree with Wrathy - to me, it feels false if a character doesn't swear when it is plain obvious that in real life, you wouldn't get a word in edgeways for all the flying expletives. I also LOVE it when you get a butter-wouldn't-melt posh type (extra points if they are female) telling people to fuck off. To reduce a character of that standing to swear... yeah, I like that!

Saying that, I am guilty of toning it down after getting negative feedback for using swears. I have a piece where I thought the swearing was justified (the two people concerned were essentially gangsters) and it was interesting to see how some people thought it made it sound more authentic, whilst others were vehemently against it (to the point of questioning the entire validity of the story).

One thing I do wonder is maybe this visceral reaction comes from me being a female writer? Male writers have traditionally got away with hard swearing for a lot longer than female writers (heh, even in normal speech, where people might be a bit put out when a man swears, if a women uses the same language, you can visibly see them wince...), so do people find it harder to hear 'Fuck off!' from a female perspective? Or, even more controversially, when a female character says she fancies 'a good, hard fuck'? On that topic, I used to be one of those people who hated the word cunt, but now I have re-embraced it and am rather fond of it now... ^^D I also find that when writing sex scenes, sometimes no other word will suffice. It's a hard, uncompromising word, and sometimes I don't *want* to describe female genitalia as something soft and submissive - I have discussed this in the past with other female writers, and we did agree that sometimes, when the woman is in charge of a situation, cunt is the only word to use). We kind if had a 'sisters, rise up and reclaim our word!' moment. It was very refreshing, actually!

What gave Harry the idea he couldn't swear?

Some books have fuck or fucking repeated so often you'd halve the word count if you took them out... and it's BORING.

Some characters swear, some don't, and with others it depends on the provocation.

Some writers don't listen to their characters and others have a limited vocubulary. They could use a dictionary, or is the alphabet a closed book too?

If agents/publishers put money into books consisting mainly of obscenities, should covering letters contain a good selection?

I agree with that. Swearing constantly shows a lack of intelligence IMHO, and what used to bear interest is now watered down to a tiresome thing. Swearing in dialogue makes sense, but not in the tale tself.
Swearing ain't fun any more!

I agree with that. Swearing constantly shows a lack of intelligence IMHO, and what used to bear interest is now watered down to a tiresome thing. Swearing in dialogue makes sense, but not in the tale tself.
Swearing ain't fun any more!

I currently have one character that swears. She swears constantly. Ironically the word cost turns out roughyly neutral, as all the words I spend on profanities I get to save on reduced quote tags. (when Megan speaks you KNOW who's fucking talking.)

I'm a lumberjack and I don't swear...

It's copious use of foul language that puts me off a piece of writing; it makes no difference who has written it, Ely. It's the writing I'm lookling at, not the writer. However, I was interested to note what you said at the end of your first para: "To reduce a character of that standing to swear..." It does reduce, doesn't it? Over-use of swearing makes the speaker less of a person, it has a wearing, reductive effect on the reader (perhaps mitigated slightly if they skip offensive words and carry on reading when they stop, as I tend to) and, if used gratuitously, throws a degrading light on the writer, too - for that piece of writing. There are plently of modern books out there that contain no swearing, or only minimal and mild cuss words. So it's not a pre-requisite for a good story. Unless there was some essential tie-in to the plot that demanded a foul-mouthed protagonist, or villain, it isn't necessary, and I would certainly not choose to write such a story, nor indeed read one. But, hey - that's just me.

We have alot of people complain about Irvine Welsh and Morris Gleitzman at the library x

My take on dialogue is that you are showing a distilled essence of what would actually be a verbatum report. In everyday speech people repeat things, miss the point, ramble and swear because they feel this increases the impact - but to see that written you'd be so bored that your readers will skim. The dialogue is the gist - always short and to the point. Sweary Mary - every sentance starts with a FCUK - might be funny the first few times. . .
We all know that gangsters or horny handed men of toil use colourful language (constantly) and that they might struggle to implement a two sylabal word but a tirade of actual foulness obscures the point of their conversation. If this conversation doesn't have a salient point to move the story forwards it should be cut entirely.

Re Richie: awesome!