Do you swear?
Most of us do although there may be different contexts. An accident, a flaring temper, fear, excitement, a few drinks – these things can make even the most mild mannered person drop a four letter word.
The company we find ourselves in can also influence our choice of language. I would never swear in front of my grandma or my children, I would only swear in front of my parents if no other word could convey the feeling I wanted to get across. I swear pretty freely with my friends and they with me. When I meet up with friends who are also mums, and without the children, we use language that could shock … well probably no one would be particularly shocked these days but still, it’s pretty bad. I suspect it’s a relief valve, we’re so careful around the terrors darlings that when they’re not around we can let fly.
And, of course, teenagers swear – probably for the same reason as the mothers of young children. I have yet to meet a teenager (and in a past life I was a high school teacher) that doesn’t swear amongst their peers, even if it’s only occasionally.
And so, here’s the question – should there be swearing in books aimed at young adults? When your seventeen year old protagonist is running from murderous thugs, is it acceptable for him to drop a few dirty words? Or is swearing in young adult fiction a no go? And if it is, what do you replace it with? I would love to hear what you think.
I’m a YA author and a young adult myself, and I’ve found that it really depends on the character. Personally, I do swear quite a bit, but only around people I’m extremely comfortable with. A character in one of my books swears all the time no matter who he’s with, while his best friend never swears at all – he only swears once in the whole book, and that’s when he finds that the first character has been kidnapped. So I think there’s definitely a way to manoeuvre the swearing debate to your own advantage, using it to shape your characters. 🙂
Great points. After all, if the words don’t add to the character or story then they’re just taking up precious space. Thanks for your comments.
I think swearing in young adult fiction would add to the relatibility (Is that a word?) of your target market. I am a young adult who swears a lot (I shouldn’t because it doesn’t reflect well on one’s character or something like that) and I would relate a lot more to a fictional character that swore, even if it was just a little, than one that didn’t. Unless of course the character isn’t supposed to swear because of some religion or being mute or something.
I agree. Especially if the context calls for it. Someone running for there life is going to sound more realistic if they swear rather than say ‘oh darn.’ Thanks for your input.
I find this really interesting since I don’t actually swear in real life, and I write YA, but I’m also aware that most of the target audience does, likely, swear. I pretty much stick by the Harry Potter rule – low-levelled swear words (like “bloody hell,” for example) but otherwise pretty clean language.
That’s a good point Lynette – if you don’t swear in life it can feel unnatural having your characters swear. And it’s interesting that the only time I noticed the lack of swearing in Harry Potter was when the characters ‘cursed under their breath’ and so on. Thanks for giving your views.