: Re: How far can insults go in a "Young Adult" novel? In a Young Adult (>12 y. old) novel, once the obviously bad words (F-word, C-word, N-word, etc.) taken away, how far can rude language go

@Bryan361

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This isn't a general rule, but perhaps one that might be useful to you. Teachers, like myself, don't really want swearing or explicit sexual references in the texts we teach. Reading them out loud can cause problems even if the language is realistic. (A novel becoming a common school text will mean greater revenue than just appealing to casual YA readers.)

However, insults, etc. are a part of everyday life and have to be written about. Using violent, common words and phrases is fine. Robert Swindells in Stone Cold manages to make his characters, mostly homeless people, sound realistic without using a single 'four-letter word'. Eoin Colfer, in the very popular Artemis Fowl series, made up swear word: 'darvit'. Soap operas before the nine o'clock watershed avoid swearing, but there is plenty of violent language in some of them.

YA novels can be very violent. Think about the Hunger Games series or Maggot Moon which includes a very graphic scene of a teacher kicking a student to death, including things like an eyeball popping out. Teenagers actually like to read about violence.

Glorifying violence can be a problem, but violence per se isn't. Stand in a school for a while and you'll hear a lot worse than what you have suggested above, and novels often exaggerate reality.

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