CUSS, CURSE, OR CLEAN IT UP:
How Much, if Any, Profanity to Use in Young-Adult Fiction

Recently, I came across a blog where several authors were debating the use of profanity in young-adult fiction. As I was reading through the messages, I was reminded of my own struggle to add realism to my stories without being irresponsible to young readers.

One of the first things I learned as a writer was to utilize stimulus and response in my scenes. My real-life response to mashing my thumb with a hammer is to cuss. Like it or not, the use of profanity is an effective device for portraying emotion in fiction. It can add realism to dialogue and to the character's introspection.

As writers, we make lots of choices, and as writers of young-adult fiction we are faced with choices regarding profanity. My second novel deals with troubled teens, boys likely to pepper their conversations with expletives. If conversations between real teens includes foul language, how much profanity should an author use when creating dialogue and introspection? The choices come down to:
Liberal use of profanity,
Omit the profanity,
Sparse use of profanity,
Summarized profanity, or
Sanitized profanity.

LIBERAL USE OF PROFANITY. In some ways, this is the easiest of the choices. Rather than agonize about the use of foul language in my novels, I could have used it wherever it seemed natural. After all, nearly everyone has heard and read foul language before, and it's been decades since its been taboo to use it in fiction.

On the other hand, there are serious drawbacks to the liberal use of profanity. First of all, if a writer needs profanity to make teen dialogue seem realistic, then a lot of it may be needed. For any work of fiction, overuse of profanity can become an annoying distraction to the reader. For some readers, it's an outright turnoff, leading them to promptly put the book down.

For young-adult fiction, there's a substantial economic price for the use of profanity. Although some youngsters purchase their own reading material, many buyers of teen novels are parents, grandparents, teachers, and librarians. Based on my visits with other parents at numerous book signings, adults are reluctant to purchase teen fiction that includes gratuitous use of profanity. I suspect that most editors and publishers share those feelings.

OMIT THE PROFANITY. An alternative to liberal use of profanity is to avoid the issue by totally leaving it out

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