by Danielle Benedetti

Created on: February 16, 2009

When writing for young adults, it is important to remember that young adults want to be able to relate to what is going on in a story. They want to know how the characters are feeling. Most of all, though, they want to believe the story. And part of making a story believable is making it sound as realistic as possible. Although some would hate to admit it, swearing in a young adult novel makes things sound much more realistic.

Whether it is intentional or not, swearing shows great emotion. When a teen swears, the people around the teen better understand how that teen feels. In the same way, when a character in a book swears, the reader gains a better understanding of how that character is feeling about a person or event. Part of making a story believable is to show, not tell, what is going on. By being shown rather than told, the reader can find out more information about the characters' personalities and about the plot, making the read so much more enjoyable.

Swearing not only makes a story believable by showing emotion, but makes it more believable because the characters sound more authentic, like real teens. Let's face it: teens swear. They swear a lot, and there is not much anyone can do to change that. Teens are used to not only hearing other teens swear, but adults as well, so they almost expect a book to contain swearing. They have grown used to it, and seeing authors replace eliminating profanity and replacing it with euphemisms is extremely silly. To them, those euphemisms can be annoying and a turn off towards the book.

This isn't to say that profanity should be used as often as possible. It gets to a point where excessive profanity is not only unrealistic, but just as annoying as the aforementioned euphemisms. Teens may also view the excessive swearing as the author trying too hard to sound like teen, or the author trying to "better understand" teens, but failing at doing so. Contrary to popular belief, teens are not stupid, and they pick up on "adults trying to understand teens to make the teens better people" tactics quickly. They're ultimately put off such tactics as well, and are more likely to put down a book. Which is detrimental not only the author, but the teen as well.

For these reasons, profanity should be used in young adult fiction, but only to show a certain character's feelings and to make the book sound more realistic to those who are reading it.

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