: Re: Swearing in a book, within a context. Too offensive? I am currently writing a science fiction novel. The characters are almost uniformly pirates and/or miners in the asteroid belt. Having worked

@BetL639

That would depend on the audience. If you are writing for a certain age group, consider that. If you are a writing a book hoping that it will reach a lot of different ages, or types of people, consider that too. If you are going to publish a book, I would think the idea is to gain a lot of readers who enjoy your work, but also make enough sales that you can hopefully live off the things you write. So if you are going to write things that are going to be offensive to people, it might have a negative impact on possible sales, or such. I like what Tave says about how a play with cursing is just as affective with-out cursing. It would depend on what you are trying to achieve. You can chose to focus on the story more. If that's what you want. Cause it is your book, in the end.

Example : I also read aloud, and just recently read the entire book "Paper Towns" by John Green to a friend. There is cursing & profanity in the book. (I edited those things out the best I could.) It was realist. The book was good. But I feel books can be either.


draining to read : Where it gives you a yucky type of feeling, sort of like a bad after taste.
"uplifting" or more thoughtful, and leaves you with a better feeling.


Paper Towns was a good read, but I think it had a Type 1. effect. Nothing is all coming up roses of course, but I feel the message of the story could be just as affective with-out that bad-after taste feeling.

A message of a story can be just as tragic, sorrowful, deep, & powerful with-out cursing. I think one form of mastering writing is being able to write realistically but doesn't mimic reality. I read to escape the world Im in. Which for the most part is negative, in some points of view.

I would recommend being tasteful. You can make the most 'immoral' characters realistic, in a way that is effective, but doesn't take away from the story.

If you write in a way that doesn't often offend people, you will have twice the amount of readers. Of course anything you say can be offensive to people. So yes, write despite that, but keep in mind that people might have ('good') reasons that they are offended about something. But there are also petty reasons too. Balance is key.

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