But then I came across another problem. Perfect Summer is a gritty mystery story with lots of tension and drama. Some of the scenes warranted, I thought, some cursing and strong language, especially the scenes where the main characters faced grave danger. My publisher disagreed. Their ethos was to publish good fiction without using any bad language. Now I agree with this in principle but I found it incredibly difficult to write some of the scenes without using the odd curse word or two. I tried to think of alternative words but 'Oh Sugar,' or 'Gosh' didn't quite have the effect I wanted so I decided to delete most of the offending words and let the dialogue stand on its own. And to my surprise it worked. I've asked a few people to read the book and they've agreed that losing the language hasn't lost any of the tension.
Have you ever come across this problem? What did you do? Did you manage to find some adequate substitute words that aren't swear words - if you did please share in case I face this problem again. Do you think writing YA fiction justifies using strong language?
Karen King writes all sorts of books for children. Check out her website at www.karenking.net
10 comments:
In certain cases, I'm fine with strong language in YA - an excellent example is Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly, where there are several uses of strong language but ONLY when it is necessary to facilitate the main character's emotional state of mind and ultimately, the heartbreaking confession she is forced to make.
However, books like CHERUB by Robert Muchamore use swear words excessively, so much so it can be a off-putting of the reader. It's these cases where writing YA is not enough to justify littering a perfectly good story with words that may offend or detract from the plot.
Interesting point. I used quite a mild expression - "piss-poor" - and rationalised it to myself at the time of writing and felt that it was just right for that scene & character. (It is said as an insult by a bully.)
However, I discovered that I leave the full wording out, just saying "poor" when reading that passage aloud to Year 5/6/7 in school. Still not sure why, but when it's read so publicly, it feels uncomfortable.
Also hard is remembering to use appropriate curses when you've dropped things etc in front of school audiences.
While I see that are times when _not_ swearing is jarring, for the most part I don't think it's necessary and if it's not necessary I can't understand why writers would risk offending their readers. I was very happy to lose almost all the very mild swear words in my first draft of The Bone Dragon: there was only one where I felt the substitute didn't ring at least as true, but it wasn't an important moment so I just made the cut. My view is that swearing should be kept to the minimum necessary not to make the story and characters unbelieveable. I think this should apply to all fiction though, not just Children's and YA: in my experience, children mind swearing a lot less than many adults. Sometimes I don't mind swearing in books at all: sometimes I think a book would be poorer without it. But a lot of the time I find it unpleasant and (especially in crime novels) repulsive without this being effective on an intellectual or emotional level. For my own writing, I ask 'Is this really necessary?' and then edit accordingly. Great topic, BTW! Have been thinking about this a lot lately.
Thanks for all your interesting comments. I'll have to read Revolution, Sophie, it sounds good. And Penny I agree about remembering to use appropiate curses when you drop things! Alexia, I thought the swear words were necessary too but since I've cut them out I can see they weren't so will be asking "Is this really necessary?" in future.
Sometimes, when you've written a character who would swear in certain tricky situations, it's hard to make their speech convincing without swear words. To have the swearing cut by an editor because gatekeepers won't like it (not because children won't like it) is then frustrating. Children are used to swearing. It seems to me to be no more realistic to miss out swearing than to make them all eat healthy meals. I want to reflect the world they live in, make the story convincing. And sometimes that means that there need to be kids who swear, or drink, or smoke, or have sex. And sticking them all in a sugar-coated world where they don't do those things - but bad stuff still happens to them - just seems false.
I have a 16 year old who is writing a novel - a contemporary one. I'm lucky enough that he lets me read it and asks for my comments. One thing that constantly makes me stop and consider is the language. His main character swears - of course she does. She's a bright but spiky girl from slightly over the wrong side of the tracks and from a background where swearing and drinking is taken for granted. (Oh, and she's facing a major terrorist war so has a certain provocation!) Since we're not talking immediate publication it's not a pressing concern, but I have talked to him about this issue of what publishers will or won't accept. Since he lives in a world and goes to a school where swearing is all around him, I think he feels that it would be unrealistic to eliminate it from his character's speech, not to mention unfamiliar. And I find it hard to answer his argument!
You're right, Anne, teenagers swear in real life and it can be hard to make their dialogue convincing in some situations if you don't show this. It's exactly what I was worried about. Some stories definitely warrant strong language. I think mine works without it. I hope so!
Anonymous, great to hear that your son is writing a book. I wish him all the best with it. :)
I've put bollocks into my current manu but I'm not wedded to it - it just seems to be working at the moment.
I was bitten here, when a school ordered a set of my debut novel Taking Flight for a class reader, and then withdrew the order, when they noticed the use of the F-word -- and probably others. My editor was puzzled: she hadn't noticed any swearing, but when she ran a check, sure enough, there was (infrequent and, we would both argue, entirely justified and convcincing) use of strong language. The reason she hadn't noticed it before was beause it was completely in line with the world of the book. My follow-up novel was even grittier, but this time -- although it still contains the F-word and some others -- I rationed them very carefully.
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