Re: yesterdays post, some interesting points about profanity and its uses in fiction writing were raised by you guys, so today you get the floor.
“This sort of reminds me of the use of names in dialogue. I think writers tend to have characters refer to each other by name far more frequently than we refer to each other by name in real life.”
Lisa Kenney
Yes, the detrimental effect (reader distraction) is similar. What’s different is that, for whatever reason, writers guilty of the over-naming syndrome have characters naming each other in nearly every exchange. This never happens in life, so it’s just a case of misrepresentation. Literally, it’s just wrong.
Profanity, by contrast, has to be reduced from what would be technically correct, just to avoid the same effect of overuse. You’re creating an illusion. Literally, you have to be wrong to be right.
Weird, huh?
“I still feel like my mother is standing over me when I use it in my writing, wagging her finger and giving me that “I can’t believe you used THAT word” look. BUT I STILL USE IT!!!”
Anne Willkomm
Good for you, Anne. Mama goes back in her box when you’re writing. Writing fiction is not for the other-directed. It just isn’t. Your ego has to be strong enough to tell Mama, of whoever else is “looking over your shoulder” to get the hell out of you writing room.
That said, I have to add that, having raised two daughters, I know it goes the other way, too…
Now, after years of yewww, my girls are old enough to read my books without cringing. Yet I still have to fight off the urge to make what I’m doing “acceptable” for my little girls.
I had a problem with my own mother, because she was a writer herself, and wrote a few things that at least approached the iffy area, even if they never actually forayed into it. Yet toward the end of her life (she was becoming a bit confused) she would thumb through an old book of mine and say, “Son, do you have to use those dirty words?” My natural response would have been to remind her of the 1/3 rule, as a way of saying, “Hey, Mom, it could have been A LOT worse,” but by then it wouldn’t have mattered, so I just said, “I’ll work on it, Mom.”
“Sheesh. What’s the big deal? It’s not like they haven’t heard it before. It’s just a word!”
spyscribbler
I know, I know, but you have to give them their due. I’ve heard a lot of words in my life, and I’m using many of them right now. But trust me, I would think long and hard before pouring some of the words we are thinking about into this post–like RIGHT HERE [______________].
They are powerful cultural artifacts, and as with anything powerful, you handle them–and use them–with care. Otherwise, they will blow up in your face.
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