What is your opinion on profanity in novels? Is it necessary?

I'm an adult and I read very widely - it's impossible to read widely without encountering characters who swear or say/do unpleasant things.

If a character would use profanity or say unpleasant things in real life, then they should also do so in a book. I am not personally offended by reading about a character saying offensive things. It's fiction. For example, racism is offensive; writing about a racist character, unless you are clearly attempting to show that they are right to be racist, is not. In real life, I would be offended by someone who was, say, anti-semitic, but if I was reading a novel about Germany in the late 1930s, it would be extremely unrealistic if there no characters who were openly and offensively anti-semitic.

It's ridiculous to write only about people who only ever say and do nice things, unless you're writing for very small children, and even then many small children's books have a villain or a scary character or a character who exists specifically for the child to see as 'bad'.

In answer to your final question, anyone who would be offended by anything I write isn't my target audience, so it isn't something I worry about. Everything will offend somebody. If something offends somebody, they don't have to read it.

I don't think I've ever encountered a book where a character said things that offended me... at least none that I can think of now. (Though I have seen movies in which I thought the profanity was a bit excessive.) But I don't think profanity should be kept out of a story *because* it's profanity, if that makes sense. What matters is the story and the characters, and if being committed to them as a writer means supplementing the story and characters with profane things, then I don't believe there's a problem with that. Is it necessary? Yes, in some cases. Especially to spell out the differences between characters. I'll take Ron Weasley as a quick example. His use of profanity (though it's not like he shouts profanities incessantly or anything) helps to portray him as a laid back character who has had to deal with five other brothers and from whom he has probably learned all the words at a younger age, himself. It completely fits him.

As a writer, I would be willing to create a profane character though I'm not sure I'd be good at it, because I'm not profane at all, myself. Is there a risk or a reward in offending the readers? If a character is profane, shouldn't it sort of be part of the point in him or her being profane or having that personality type? To offend the readers? To maybe make the character unlikable? Of course, there are characters who are profane and who are very likable. But I'm not sure that those characters have the same level of profanity going on as those who are unlikable. But it is a mixture of the profane and the personality types that will determine whether or not the character might offend the readers. If the writer is a good writer, he/she will know how to adjust the profanity and the personality traits and such to make the character come across in just the right way, whether that means the character doesn't offend, sometimes offends, or always offends.

I'm really not sure how good of an answer this was :p

Edit: Red Star put what I was trying to say much more eloquently and Origin makes a good point.

As a reader, yeah, I have read some books where there was more swearing than necessary and yes, stuff that has offended me. For some reason, every person that writes about high school MUST HAVE the head cheerleader be blond bimbo, blue eyed, and a complete pain in the butt if you know what I mean. That is really annoying because I am a blond and I am not stupid, or rude, and all the comments on stupid blonds really bug the heck out of me! I didn't think that it was necessary to the story at all >:I

As a writer, when I have my character swear, they are usually one of the bad influences or bad guys or antagonist or what ever you want to call them.

As a reader, I haven't come across anything that has offended me yet. I'm pretty tolerant of just about everything. I feel like profanity should be used where it's believable - if that's just how the character talks, then it's fine. If it seems out-of-character... like the author was just trying to make the character seem cooler or more intimidating, or something, something done by the author's decision and not the way the character would really speak/act... then I feel like the profanity is inappropriate. Basically, profanity is necessary if it's part of the character. You have to admit that Holden Caulfield would be a pretty different character if he spoke like a respectful man in a church all the time. :)

If I wrote, I would care less about offending readers than I would about offending myself. If I was creating a character that swore like a sailor, I'm not going to censor that character for potential readers. I feel like it's the same as being fake, presenting a picture of yourself that isn't true. I generally don't care about offending people in any kind of situation (um, except at my job. That could end badly).

I've read quite a few books where characters have sworn, but I wouldn't say it was excessive. I don't get personally offended by things in books, I don't get offended by very much :P

In most cases I think the profanities are part of the characters, and I think it does add to believability because in many serious situations (and even in minor situations) people swear. It's a part of people sometimes, and I think it's believable in certain situations. It could be left out, but there would have to be something to make up for it.

In some of the things I have written, characters do swear. I don't like including really awful words in my writing, but the words I include are fairly tame. It just seems slightly unrealistic to go through certain storylines where particular adults are included and they DON'T swear, unless it's a more mature book for younger readers.

If I felt it was necessary, I would include a profane character. Pretty much everything you write will offend somebody somewhere, because that's life :P But if readers don't like what they are reading, they can simply put it down. They don't have to read it if they don't like it!

I personally do not swear or use particularly profane language. In my generation (teens), this is pretty unorthodox (or maybe it's just where I live).

I don't feel profanity is necessary, but I'm not too bothered if I see a word or two in a novel I happen to be reading. No, I don't find it particularly offensive.

If there were swear or other profane words that served no purpose, I'd feel a little cheated seeing them, I'd feel as if the writer couldn't be bothered to find a better way of portraying an emotion.

I probably won't be making any profane characters. Well, not using any swear words anyway.

There are different cases, and each book should be judged on several things. First, profanity is sometimes necessary, in my opinion, to get the point across. If, for example, there was a novel about the gritty underworld of X city, for the criminals to say, "Well, golly!" in response to some event would be laughable. On the other hand, I feel that sometimes authors will add unnecessary and ostentatious language to their book for the pure sake of making it sound 'edgy' or 'adult-oriented'.

Many times I've felt that profanity in a novel was just another step in the novel-reading. It was expected in the setting, and delivered. However, there have been other times when I've read a novel and the characters started spewing swear words like there was no tomorrow. I definitely think there's a time and place for both.

A point of reference for me is to always look and the plot/characters. Does the use of profanity (or anything) further the plot/characters in the way you want them/it to develop? If so, go ahead. If it's gratuitous, cut it out.

As to your last question, it's a definite yes. As a writer, I'm not trying to be deliberately offensive, but if they don't like it, no one's forcing them to keep on reading and rage at me.

L.x

Honestly, around here, to find someone who never uses profane language is an oddity. I would say that almost every person I've ever known uses profanity at least once in a while, and a large minority will use profanity excessively and somewhat obnoxiously. So from this point of view, I would say that creating profane characters definitely adds believability (how is believability not a word?!) to the character. Even having several characters who throw around profanity would be believable to me.

I've read very few books in my time that had excessive swearing and profanity in it. Actually, right now I can only think of books by Neil Gaiman. American Gods had crazy amounts of vulgarity and profanity. None of it bothered me one bit, mostly because I'm so used to it. A lot of the time I don't even realize that words like the F-word and such are any different from any other word, because it's so common to me. Could it have been left out from the book? Mm, possibly, but I think it might have taken away from the characters. I think in the case with American Gods, the book is so aimed at adults already, and there are so many other things in there already, such as explicit sex scenes, it would almost be surprising if there was no profanity. It fits the characters. People like one of the main characters, Mr. Wednesday, who goes off almost every evening and convinces young girls to come sleep with him - with characters like that, you would think using profane language would be part of their everyday vocabulary. Even people who aren't quite as sleazy as our dear Mr. Wednesday will use words like damn and hell, which are - shall I say - more acceptable words to use than the F-word or S-word.

What I'm saying is that from what I can see, using profane language is part of the American culture. I would bet that the majority of the people that any of us know (unless there's someone here who lives in a cult of some sort) uses profane language at least once in a while in casual circumstances. You would be hard pressed to find a movie rated PG-13 (which is what the majority of the movies in America are rated) that doesn't have a single profane word in it, or even a PG rated movie, which can usually get away with 'hell,' 'damn,' 'bastard,' and probably a few others. The point is that I honestly can't see why when the F-word is used in a book, it could be enough to make a person want to completely stop reading a book no matter how much they had been enjoying it up to that point, when if the same word were used in the same context in a movie, that same person probably wouldn't think twice about it. Is it just because in a movie, the word is used and you're immediately on to the next thing, whereas with a book, your eyes are permitted to linger there for a while and stare at the word? "Oh my goodness, I just can't rip my eyes away! It's such a horrid word!"

As a writer, I wouldn't even be able to tell you why I never create profane characters. Haha, now I feel like a bit of a hypocrite for doing all of that ranting about making characters believable by making them profane, when I don't even do it myself. I guess it's mostly because in my writings, having a profane character has never been anything that would help move along the story or create character development, and it would probably seem like I'm just adding it for shock value. It's not about not wanting to offend my readers - I'm the only reader I have! It's just more of a style choice. I like to keep it as clean and classy as possible (not that I'm really a clean or classy person, but that's beside the point!). If creating a profane character would make my story at all better-written, more compelling, inspire ideas to my audience, then I would disregard any offense that may be taken by my audience. If a person does not like what I write, then so be it, I guess what I wrote just wasn't for them. Attempting to please everyone will get you no where, and attempting to please as many people as you can just makes you a suck-up. To be able to write something that does not offend a single person in the entire world is a paradox.

And that's how Kelly C's it!

If there is a character who I think would be better suited to swearing every two or three words then I will make that a personality trait of theirs instead of having them talk like a sweet old lady in Church. It's like when people wanted to replace all the mentions of 'n****r' from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and replace it with 'slave' - I find it to be an awful word and I hate to hear anyone nowadays say it but that's part of the character, it gives it more realism.

Unless you are writing a book aimed at children, I say include profanity if it suites the character.

My feelings about profanity have largely to do with what kind of book I'm reading. I remember be shocked once while reading a fairly tame "Prime Crime" mystery that contained no profanity at all until way over the half-way mark. Then the narrator injects one of the least offensive expletives that we are familiar with, but--because it was so unexpected--I was kind of taken aback. On the other hand, when reading a very modern "hard" crime novel like "Criminal Conversation" by Evan Hunter, I expect--and get--the harshest of language in heavy doses. But in a book like that it is really part of telling the story realistically, and I find it acceptable. Interestingly, though, I recently read "Xianne: A Comedy of Cultures: Volume One" by Jayce Grayson which deals with VERY mature themes, but has almost no profanity in it at all!