Holy F@^#ing S#!?

I have been in some discussions about the use of swear words in writing. There are authors who love them in general, others who use them as just an extension of some of their characters’ personalities, and some authors are limited (usually by genre) as to how many and which words they can use.

Swears words are just like any other word in the English language. They have power when it is given to them. When it comes down to it, swear words are really just words that show a degree of emotion.

A swear word compared to its non-offensive counterparts operate in the same manner ‘good’ and ‘amazing’ compare to each other. If someone uses the word ‘darn’, in most cases, they aren’t usually that upset about something. Now if that person were to use ‘damn’ instead, then it would be understood that the person had a stronger connection to that thing. So there is a time and place to use them. A swear word should really be used in situations where it could actually be left out and still have the sentence make sense (when used as an adjective/adverb). If it’s used as a noun, it gets trickier to test if it was used appropriately. It’s more dependent on the context in this situation. For instance, the phrase ‘That’s bullshit’ would have to be tested by replacing ‘bullshit’ with words like ‘crap’, similar to the same test as ‘darn’. All in all, swear words should be used when they portray the appropriate emotion, with the exception of it being a characteristic of a character that does not use them at appropriate times.

There have been stories which use profanity in them that are completely clashing to the motif of the book. I have read books in which halfway through a swear word was used. While it fit the appropriate reaction to the event for the character, it created a dissonance in the book. The character was a noble of a city set in a medieval locale and he went off swearing up a storm. Up to this point, no profanity had been used in the book and even the main characters, who were assassins, didn’t use such language. So to go from no use what so ever to four f-bombs in a row was very distracting and caused me to lose my flow. The scene had such a disruptive effect that I put the book down.

Often the problem of using them for the portrayal of a character’s personality is the overuse of them. A character that drops an ‘f’ bomb every other word or tries to use it in every part of speech that is possible, can become annoying to a reader. The repeated use can, but doesn’t always, create a jarring effect and ends up ‘breaking up the illusion’ of the book. Similar to typos and plot holes, when a jarring effect happens, it can cause the reader to break their flow. If a reader’s flow is disrupted, it detracts from their reading experience. This often causes them to lower their opinion of the book and possibly go as far as to stop reading it, if it has happened on multiple occasions.

The other consequence of overuse is the loss of meaning in a word. In an episode of a TV show several characters confronted another character about his use of the word ‘divine’. They pointed out that ‘not everything can be ‘divine’’. If people use swear words too much, they eventually degrade the meaning of the word to the level of their less obtrusive brethren. Which is, of course, simply no good. ‘Darn it’ should be used in a sense of disappointment, while ‘Damn it’ should be used when one seeks to call forth the wrath of the gods down upon their intended target to have it smitten into the nether.

I also believe that swear words are something that should not be used by children, not until they understand the word’s true meanings. Of my experiences with children who use swear words, I’ve noticed that they use the words as filler words or simply adjectives. Because it’s seen as ‘cool’ to use the words around their peers, children use them without knowing what they are actually saying, which of course leads to the misuse of the words. No person should have to suffer through that.

The use of profanity in literature has its purposes but should, above all, be used with consideration. It can be used tactfully to enhance a character or situation in a book. But if used without thoughtfulness, profanity can really deteriorate the quality of a book.

The zen of writing

Writing is an odd sort of occupation. Writers want to communicate with others—but not necessarily have any direct contact with their readers. The writing itself, generally intended to be shared with at least dozens of readers and possibly hundreds or thousands, usually gets created in solitude and if not in silence, then with a sound-background of the writer’s choice.

Writers differ widely in their approach to writing, too. Some swear by organization: not just outline, but detailed character descriptions, and action mapped out to the level of chapter-by-chapter, at least. Others just pick up pen, pencil or keyboard and start writing, with or without any idea where this essay or story might end up. After all, one can always fix inconsistencies and plot omissions in the edit stage.

I fall somewhere between these two extremes myself. I always have some idea what I want to say in a short essay, and I started my few novel-length works (2 more-or-less done, one more barely started) with an idea about the identity and personality of at least two main characters, the opening problem and a goal or endpoint. But I leave myself plenty of leeway, starting out with vast uncharted areas within the general territory I intend to cover.

Partly, this reflects a rebellion against early how-to-write training in school, which insisted that an essay must be fully outlined, supporting ideas and all. That never worked well for me. As I’d begin to write from my outline, I’d always find myself departing from my outline: thinking of better examples to support my argument or a better order in which to present them. So I got in the habit of writing my essay or report first, working directly from my notes. Once the paper had been written, I could go back and make an outline that reflected what I actually wrote, thus keeping my teachers happy.

But an approach to the writing process that I can only describe as a sort of zen forms other big reason for leaving myself wiggle room when I start to write. While I can understand the rationale behind mapping everything out beforehand—even admire those for whom such a technique works—I can only admire from afar. For me, ignorance of exactly how the story will unfold between opening and goal allows me to come to the story’s details fresh. And somehow I help the loose ends stitch themselves together by the end.

I’d probably have better control over length if I preplanned more, though.

Susan shares more thoughts about the process of writing on her blog about writing, http://startingyourstory.wordpress.com/.

Putting it to paper.

      There are many ways a person can write a story.  There is no proper way or way that it has to be done.  Writing just more or less happens.
      I've found that the style I use best is the form in which you map it out first, find out where I'm going with the story before writing too much.  I started out with the 'write by the seat of your pants' style.  I couldn't figure out how I wanted to start my book so I started somewhere in the middle and just kept writing.
It wasn't until I took History of Theater in college that I figured out that I could start my book in the middle of the story.  The professor shared that when you watch a play you are witnessing a snippet of the character's whole story.  What he meant was that you weren't watching the character's entire life ie: birth, childhood, adolescence, and so forth.  So what you are seeing is the portion of the character's life pertinent to story of the play.
      Once I learned that, I decided that I would use what I've written as the beginning of my book.  From there I realized that I wasn't sure where I wanted the story to go.  Some writers are okay with that and it's fine.  My writer's blocks tend to deal with me not writing because I don't know what is going to happen in my story.
So my method is the story boarding style.  I have several white boards that I map the whole plot line of my book out on.  These plot points are not set in stone and I have changed them as I've gotten feedback and found out some plot points are weak or irrelevant to the story or characters.  You just can't set it in stone.  That will limit you too much, especially if your story takes a turn you hadn't anticipated earlier (which happens quite often).
      When I actual go to write, I pick a plot point that I feel like I can tease out into a scene.  It might be a large scene that is several pages in length or it could end up being only half a page just so I get the plot element into the story.  Once I'm done writing it down and typing it up, I go back to my white board and update the point with a little more elaboration so that when I go back to look at the board later I can remember easier how I expanded it.
      I am very visual with my planning.  I've drawn maps of the areas my characters have gone so that I can describe them better in the book.  When creating a new world it helps to remember where all your landmarks are in relation to each other.  Or while writing the second book of my series, I realized that I had a hard time remembering where certain characters were in their own story lines, relative to each other.  So I took one of my white boards and drew out a timeline for each character.  One time line above the other so that when I plotted the points of the timeline for each character, the points then showed, in more readily available format, where each character was.
     I'm not saying this is the best way to write a story, and I'm sure it doesn't work for everyone.  This is the way I set it up though and it keeps me on track.  That being said, I'm always curious about other writer's methods and ways I can try differently to keep the creativity flowing.

The Multiple Perspective Approach

There are various ways to write a book, and they all have their advantages and disadvantages.

For instance, a first-person perspective book is great for character development but the problem, as I see it, is that that is the only way a writer can show things happening in the story.  It seems to me that characters end up hearing things or being present to events almost haphazardly.  I know there are writers who do this well and can pull it off amazingly, but that's the case with all writing.  Some authors can pull off writing styles amazingly.

The omniscient third person where the narrator can tell the reader everything they need to know about the character the first time the character is introduced.  This makes it easier to describe things that happen that are pertinent to the story without forcing, in some manner, the main character to be there.  The drawback to this style is that it tends to give too much away to the reader.  Some readers like this, of course, because some people like to know what's going to happen or they enjoy the feeling of what I like to refer to as 'Game Show Syndrome'.  What I mean by that is, when someone watches a game show and they know the answer but the person on the screen doesn't, they sit there yelling the answer at the person even though they can't hear them.  This same thing happens with books and movies.  The classic of course being, "Don't open that door!"

There are many other ways to write than the two I listed above but those are two common ones.

The perspective I use and personally love is the multiple perspectives.  This approach still is kind of a meshing to some of the others.  It allows the writer to still be able to draw the reader in and influence their opinion of the character while allowing the freedom to show things happening in other parts of the story that may still be important to the overall story.  If done well, the story will come together and mesh well while still providing some good intrigue.  If done poorly, like when I first started writing my story, all the characters just end up seeming like the same person or different character attributes of the same person.   To me it seems that using more than one main character allows the writer to toy with the reader's emotions and get them to second guess who the 'bad guy' is in the different character relationships.