Or: Characters that curse.
First of all, don't forget that we're looking for new members! Go to this post for details.
Now, let's talk about cursing! I, personally, don't swear. There's nothing wrong with it, obviously, but I work with kids and I just don't feel it's necessary for me as a person.
That says nothing about my characters. My first book, Spyder, has 97 f-words right now. And I've been trimming them out. But my MC in that book swears like a truck driver. My second book, Berserk, has no f-words but some other curse words. My third book SMN has less swearing but there's still some.
The thing about swearing is that they DO have to matter, especially in YA. If you're cursing for the sake of cursing, it shows and that's something I have to watch myself. My MC in Spyder swears a lot and that is part of her character, but every time a character swears, as a general rule of thumb, it needs to be important. They are words that have power and if you overdo it, you risk losing that power.
It's like... you know those people who every other word needs to be a curse? You know how it just gets old? It's like that.
You also need to keep the setting in mind. There are places where it is WHOLY innappropriate to be dropping f-bombs left, right, and center. (Like, outside of an elementary school right before the bell rings for the end of the day. Ugh. Don't get me started on how rage-making that is.)
For me, too, the age of my character matters. My two main characters who swear more are seventeen and one is close to eighteen. My one who doesn't really swear (but other people in the book do) is fifteen turning sixteen during the course of the book. She's at an age where she still gets heck from her parents, which the other two don't have to worry about, and she's a lot more shy than them.
So. Do your characters curse? How do you make sure that you're not overdoing it? What are your tips about this?
Peace and cookies,
Laina
I swear far more than I should and the most when I talk about work but I try to watch where I am. It's unfortunate really.
ReplyDeleteThis is something I struggled with a lot when I started writing my own novel. My main character is 18 and with her character and life and such it seems off for her not to swear. But I had a lot of people telling me to cut it because it is YA.
So, I think it is about balance. You're right that there is a time and place. At the same time you need to be true to who your character is.
I swear more than I'd like (but I'm trying to change that), so as a result my characters kinda swear more than I'd like too. I actually just wrote a scene where one of my characters swore right before I read your post. It feels right for the scene but not for the character. I'm gonna sit on it for a while before I change anything. I love what you said here though. I don't know if I would have given that line another look otherwise :)
ReplyDelete