On Mar 25, 2005, at 3:25 AM, Charlie wrote:
> Weighing in late as usual...
>
> I can only speak for myself, but I really think
self-censoring is a
> bogus thing to do. You're a writer - you create lots
of characters
> and make them talk. Being a writer, you're
omnipotent, so you get to
> say "Hey, none of you characters can curse. No bad
language at all.
> I'll consider "fug yeah", and maybe "short, gutteral
verb, followed
> by 'you'". But nothing else. Got that? And if I find
any of you
> swearing behind my back, I'll kick your short,
gutteral asses!"
>
> So you've created these fictional people, and now
you're imposing
> your own sense of modesty on them. How true are your
characters now?
> How real can they be, with that
constraint?
Sorry, Charlie, but this is fiction, it's not "real."
Real life doesn't have to be believable or full of great
dialogue. Fiction does. If writers wrote the way most people
actually speak, nobody would bother reading. Imagine reading
pages and pages of "So, yeah, uh, fuck, uh, yeah, so I was
going to uh whatsisname, oh yeah fucking Christ, Bobby's
place on, er, uh -- you gonna finish that? -- so, er, yeah
and I, oh yeah... this cocksucker Bobby, I went to his place
and... "
A person in real life may curse a blue streak, but reading it
can grow pretty tiresome pretty quick (unless that's the
point, of course).
A few "fucks," like any word, can go a long way. But obvious
overuse of any word, particularly one that already carries a
lot of weight, has the potential to annoy readers. Even if in
real life "fuck" may indeed account for fifty per cent of
some cardboard toughie's vocabulary, it's not necessary to
proportionally fill your fictional cardboard toughie's
dialogue with it. As I said before, this ain't real life --
it's fiction.
A good writer is always editing himself, tailoring his work
for his or her readers, trying to tell the story he wants to
tell without losing his audience. It's part of the creative
process, this distilling reality and re-presenting it as
fiction. A writer who only writes for himself is almost
surely going to get the audience he desires.
And a writer who is always whining "but it happened in real
life" to justify some complete leap in logic or some excess
or another, is probably not going to gather much of an
audience either.
> And getting sideways of the issue a bit... We're
crime readers and
> writers, right? We read and write about people who
kill, steal,
> torture, maim, defraud, assault, rape, jay walk,
etc... Pardon me for
> being controversial, but I think those guys and gals
may well indulge
> in ripe lingo at times. Bad actions, bad language -
which is more
> acceptable? Is "I'll cut your balls off" more
acceptable than "I'll
> cut your fucking balls off"?
Without knowing anything about the character speaking, it's
hard to tell. But adding "fucking" doesn't add much to the
dialogue in this case, as far as I can see. And don't worry
about being controversial -- you're not.
This is an old argument.
Kevin
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