forum how much swearing is too much swearing??

Started May 31, 2019 by @WriteOutofTime

tune

My characters have such dirty mouths! I don't swear a quarter as much as my characters do, lol. How much swearing do you guys think is excessive in a fairly mature novel?

If it doesn't add anything to the story, then find something else to say. I swear a lot, but I also try to find a situation where you can't use any other word except a swear, and that adds a lot more punch to your sentences, in my opinion. If one guy is swearing every other word, then you could play that up for character by having someone try to curb his bad habit (swear jars can be pretty funny) or putting a small child next to them and a mother that would break the character's neck if they swore around that child.

It depends mostly on the age range you think the book would appeal to- if it isn't an almost adult book or more adult book, I'd personally say keep the amount of swearing down.

I'm avoiding stronger words like f*ck, and its kind of a military/superhero story. It's fairly violent but not grotesque… I'll try to keep it TV-14 lol

Just don't swear like me, I swear every other word

My characters swear a lot too lol but I try to keep it down to just some of the characters swearing so that it becomes a part of their personality and not just random