: Explicit language in YA fiction I'm writing a YA novel where most of the characters are in their teens or early 20's. One of my characters has some "colorful" language in certain situations,

@Gonzalez219

Posted in: #Dialogue #Language #Profanity #YoungAdult

I'm writing a YA novel where most of the characters are in their teens or early 20's. One of my characters has some "colorful" language in certain situations, (e.g. she twists her ankle, hears some shocking news, etc.) So far, because she only uses profanities as a kind of reaction I've been able to get away with adding a little line that says, "she cursed" or something like that.
I've been careful not to actually spell out any profanities just to keep the novel more kid friendly. So a parent can skim the book and decide it's fine for their young teenager to read.
The issue I'm running into now is that I have an older adult character that I think would cuss like a sailor casually throughout dialogue. Is there a way that I can show this character slipping profanities into dialogue without spelling out the harsher words and without drawing the reader out of the story? or should I either, bite the bullet and slip in some actual profanities or write this character without the colorful vocab?

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@Nickens642

@Nickens642

It depends. I think that first, you need to decide your audience. You said you were writing a YA novel, and profanity is one of the things that makes YA. Even if your characters are older, if it’s kid-friendly it’s technically not YA. I’m writing a series where my characters are older teens, but my audience is still middle school age and it wouldn’t be YA.
So I think you need to ask yourself if this is truly a YA novel. If yes, then make sure your characters are true to themselves. You can’t please everyone. If you do add profanity, then that means that only your targeted audience will pick it up, because they are the ones who like to read about it.
Some people probably won’t be allowed to read your books anyway. (My parents (I’m under sixteen) won’t let me read Harry Potter because it has “dark magic” even though there’s nothing wrong with it :( sad.)
So ask yourself who your audience is. Once you have that figured out, ask yourself what your audience expects in your book. Most people who read YA expect profanity. If that’s truly what they expect and want, add it in.

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