Ever since Norman Mailer used “fug” in The Naked and the Dead (1948), it was only a matter of time before the Berlin Wall between “real” speech, as we know it in everyday life, and “nice” speech, standard practice in “litchra-ture” throughout latter-day Western History, came apart and fell.
Is profanity, including the depiction of profane acts, out of bounds? Not legally, because we have the First Amendment, and extra-legal censorship has dried up. How about morally? Well, in this country, morality is up to the individual, right?
But I’m concerned with one thing only: does profanity hurt or help the story. Some markets will be closed to you if you include profanity in your toolbox–Young Adult, Romance, Christian, to name a few. But some mainstream stories will suffer if profanity is barred: imagine, for example, a gritty Vietnam War combat scene in which the soldiers shout, “gosh darn it” or “phooey”–which is exactly why Mailer fought so hard to keep the real f-word…
Why is profanity so hard to control. In my experience, largely because of the ease with which it can find its way into the speech of certain types of characters. In life, these characters (mostly soldiers, athletes, other macho types) achieve a certain street eloquence by sprinkling almost every sentence with colorful four-letter words and expressions. Try to replicate that faithfully on the page, however, and it’s clearly “too much.”
What’s a writer to do?
When there’s a legitimate need for profanity in a story I’m writing, I’ve developed a very simple, 2-stage method for getting the job done. In the first stage, I don’t edit, I let them flow as profusely and excessively as they would flow in life. In the 2nd stage, I automatically cut 2/3s of them, either replacing them with a harmless expressions or dropping them out altogether. How did I come up with 2/3s? Don’t ask me–it just seemed to work, and still does.
The 1/3 that remains smooths out to just the right level of gutter-speech. But here’s the part I love: the ultimate effect is not to diminish the profanity factor, but instead to enhance its effect by taking away the “too much” taint (a serious reader distraction, in effect) and reestablishing the illusion of authentic realism.
Paradoxical? Welcome to fiction.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
LOL. Love it!
But gosh, I’ve heard some people get a real stick up their you-know when an author has profanity in their book. Sheesh. What’s the big deal? It’s not like they haven’t heard it before. It’s just a word!
Great post and just in time for me! I’m working on a piece where the first 1/3 to half of the story does take place in the military with 20-something year old characters. I’ll have to do a sanity check to see how closely to your formula I’ve managed to be — but I did intentionally throttle it back a lot from what the actual dialogue would have looked like in real life.
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.
I remember the first time I really used the “F” word in a piece of writing. I was at my first writing workshop. Pat Schneider was the writer in residence and were asked to pick a photograph from a pile on the floor and write using the prompt…”the body what about the body.”
I wrote this scene where a girl wakes up after a night of fun and the guy in her bed, she assumes is dead. She calls her friend who comes over. She used the “F” once, maybe twice. I felt very self-conscious. Then, worst of all, I had to read it out to the rest of the class (it wasn’t maybe as bad as the gay love scene I read out loud, but that’s for the earlier craft lesson).
At any rate, I was so nervous (why??? It’s not like I’ve said the word before). So I read my story. People laughed out loud, deep belly laughs — the story was funny. What I remember most, is Pat’s comment. She said, just what Bill has said here. The scene never would have worked if I had used a limp word (gosh, shoot). The only way the scene worked was with the little “F” word (one of 13 cuss words as my son has informed me).
But, 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!!!