Before I start this post officially I would first like to
point out the similarity in this photo of Winston Churchill, nabbed from the
BBC website;
To this picture of renowned evil vampire Herrick in Being
Human!
It made me pause in my sandwich eating…
Anyway, the image of Winston Churchill comes from a news
article on the BBC about legally insulting people.
It demonstrates the art of the insult through a few examples
including Winston Churchill’s comparison of Charles de Gaulle to a ‘female
llama who has been surprised in the bath’ and Shakespeare’s ‘thou hast no more
brain than I have in mine elbows’.
Brilliant. They put the majority
of insults to shame.
This made me think about swearing in fiction (as swearing is often used when insulting).
Swearing, along with sex scenes, is something I’m not completely
comfortable with when writing. Which is
strange considering I constantly swear in reality,
and am fine by sex (where appropriate).
Personally, I think my own problem stems from the way I was
brought up. Swearing is unprofessional
(a definite no-no in the workplace) and I want to be a professional
writer. As for sex scenes, I’m fine
until I wonder if my dad might read it…
I’ve recently started putting stronger swear words in my
novels, reminding myself that I am writing for adults and therefore it is
allowed. I’ve read far worse from best
selling authors.
Then again, according to latest studies, the characters who
swear in young adult fiction are the most popular,
including mild swearing in the Harry Potter series which surprised me. This has raised questions about whether books
should have age ratings, which is a whole other debate.
On the other hand, my mother-in-law comments on the books
she reads that are filled with profanities, claiming that while the story is
good, it would be better without the constant swearing.
Essentially, swearing (and sex) in fiction is
utterly subjective. As is everything in
fiction. When writing fiction, you
should write what you want to read and if you don’t mind profanities and sex in
your books then hopefully your readers won’t either.
This is not an excuse to overuse the swear word. Some swearing can make a character, or
situation, more believable. Sex and
swearing, as with everything else in writing, should be used as tools. For example, in the first series of Game of
Thrones Joffrey called Arya a c***.
This was a complete shock and I vividly remember both me and my husband
gasping at the sound of it. It was the
moment when you realise that Joffrey isn’t just a spoilt little prince, in one
word the viewer comes to realise that there is something very wrong with Joffrey.
On the other hand, the brilliant Neil Gaiman’s Amercian Gods
contains detailed sex scenes. I read the
first one with shock and actually had to put the book down to think about how I
felt about such descriptive language. On
one hand, was this detail necessary? On the
other hand, it made me stop, think and look at Neil Gaiman’s name on the
front. I certainly haven’t forgotten it
in a hurry and it didn’t detract from the story, rather it gave it a certain
flavour.
A good rule of thumb when deciding whether to include
profanity, or sex scenes, is to consider;
- Is it believable?
- Does it add to the story?
- Who is your target audience?
- Does it fit into the setting?
- Are you comfortable using the words?
No comments:
Post a Comment