Profanity in modern fiction
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- L1th3rl+and
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Profanity in modern fiction
Thoughts and comments much appreciated.
- CheyHutchison
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- L1th3rl+and
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- Kris5911
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I prefer less profanity or none at all if possible, but I find that if profanity is expressed when needed and not merely thrown around in lazy speech or writing, an audience like-minded as I are willing to tolerate the profanity for a great story.
Does it make a story worse or better? Profanity was generally used to emphasize someone's anger and frustration, but since people started using it to replace nouns and adjectives, it's my opinion that the story is made worse by an over abundance of swear words.
Proportion is key.
- vermontelf
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However, figuring out the grey area between realistic and too much is quite blurry and difficult. If I examine my own speech, I have so many levels of filters, it would only make sense that my characters do as well. But certainly some readers would be put off by more than a phrase or two. It's a hard call whether you gain more readers for the lifelike characters or lose readers for the offensive language. Considering my audience would have to guide me, but there is no hard and fast answer.
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On the other hand, making a respectable character curse all the time is going to undermine attempts to make them respectable. If someone curses all the time, one would think they are easily angered or not thoughtful enough to come up with a way to describe something without a curse. So if you mean to make a character flawed in this manner, it might be an easy way to show this, but use profanity in moderation otherwise.
Hope this helped!
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