Cursing Solutions

[TexasSky]

Instead of bull ----- could you write, "The manure" was.

 

[TexasBluebonnet]

Hey, how about Att's Rass? If you want to know what I mean, reverse the letters in bold type.

 

[CelticRose]

Try swearing in another language. French is good. Even quite harmless words can sound pretty vitrolic in French. The S part of your cow sounds worse in French than English. German for blunt cursing. Latin always sounds horrid no matter what. Milder cursing ~ something like Zeus in pan fried butter. I do really well in Gaelic but it fits my story lines so that helps. There are times when reality really sucks & walking this fine line is one of them.

 

[sunstruckdream]

Hey guys...

I decided to go with 'sham' for now. I thought seriously about just leaving the word for a while, but I really feel that it's a major compromise of the principles I've always tried to hold to. While there are some mild words that I'm finding to be inevitable, I guess I feel like this one really warranted a substitute. If I feel guilty about saying it, I probably shouldn't be writing it.

Thanks for the ideas and suggestions, guys! It's wicked interesting to hear what other Christian writers think on the cursing matter. I've met a few in person who are totally fine with it, saying it's not like it's them speaking, and I've met some who are completely and totally against any form of it in any context. I'm still working on where I need to draw all my lines.

God Blesss!

 

[LadyMarion52]

I've always believed that as a Christian, one way I can honor God through my writing is leaving out the profanity. Neither my narration nor my characters take God's name in vain (those who use His name believe in Him, are referring to Him, or are calling out to Him), curse, or swear. In context I've used to word 'bastard' (please don't report me - not everyone in my stories refers kindly to a certain young child without a father), and recently I've been thinking about making execptions for 'hell,' seeing as it's not profane (and 'heck' really isn't communicating it for some of my characters/situations), but last night I hit a spot in my novella that's really making this hard.

I can't tell you what I said without getting reported FOR SURE, but I left the word (for now) out of uncertainty as to what should go in its place. I thesaurused on the internet and wracked my vocabulary, but nothing I come up with is doing the trick. I really don't want to scrap the sentence it's in - I love what it communicates, but there's no other way to say what my character's thinking/feeling that doesn't sound artificial and contrived. Without explaining too much (I'd be happy to synopsis for anyone who wants to PM me), a young woman who's been abused by her father and has stepped in to keep her younger sister from becoming his next victim is finally standing up to him, confronting years' worth of baggage, rage, turmoil and hate. And because of a personal connection I have to this sort of situation, I don't want to gloss this over. Much as I try not to curse in my own life, I know I almost definitely would be cursing if I were in her place.

All right, that's a lot of information. What are your thoughts? How do you tend to handle situations like this? I know I need to put the Lord first, but how can I do that without compromising the strength of my piece and sounding just plain amateurish? The novel I wrote (not this project, but a different one) is in the edit phase, and one of the things I have to work on is making it stronger where I used too many childish language copouts. I'm not going to resort to cussing, but it's a definite problem to solve. What can I do? What would you do?

Hi I too have used my faith to write. Only I write fantasy and the cursing is a lot easier to come up with different things.......like your mother she is a goat.....haha but honestly I try to be as convincing as I can to write as the person who is experiencing the action would normally act. If I were confronting my father for that kind of thing i'd be screaming at him and using a lot of body language..........and maybe if she was so angry that she got to the point of saying the unmentionable word I would stop and studder and then tell him to just get the crap out of our lives....slam the door in his face..... and show anger in that way... .......do people get reported for saying that? Anyway, that's a tough question. In the book i'm writing the girl is Elvish and is dealing with an Evil man who has been taken by the Dark One who is wrecking havoc on the peoples of the lands. The more innocent people he kills the stronger her gets so that his powers get worse and worse. I have to convey his evil somehow so I use visual interjections instead of lanuage so much if you know what I mean.? Visual imagery is good to use at times when you want to convey something horrific or an horrific emotion..........Anyway, I'm not published yet so I'm not the end all. Just a suggestion. I wish you light and happiness and lots of good words for your book it sounds great. angels hugs Lady Marion

 

[sunstruckdream]

Hi I too have used my faith to write. Only I write fantasy and the cursing is a lot easier to come up with different things.......like your mother she is a goat.....haha but honestly I try to be as convincing as I can to write as the person who is experiencing the action would normally act. If I were confronting my father for that kind of thing i'd be screaming at him and using a lot of body language..........and maybe if she was so angry that she got to the point of saying the unmentionable word I would stop and studder and then tell him to just get the crap out of our lives....slam the door in his face..... and show anger in that way... .......do people get reported for saying that? Anyway, that's a tough question. In the book i'm writing the girl is Elvish and is dealing with an Evil man who has been taken by the Dark One who is wrecking havoc on the peoples of the lands. The more innocent people he kills the stronger her gets so that his powers get worse and worse. I have to convey his evil somehow so I use visual interjections instead of lanuage so much if you know what I mean.? Visual imagery is good to use at times when you want to convey something horrific or an horrific emotion..........Anyway, I'm not published yet so I'm not the end all. Just a suggestion. I wish you light and happiness and lots of good words for your book it sounds great. angels hugs Lady Marion

Thanks so much! Yeah, I've heard it's easier with fantasy. I've played with some fantastical elements, but never anything full-blown.

Curiosity: how exactly do you mean "Visual imagery"? I'm interested!

Thanks!

~sunstruck

 

[LadyMarion52]

Thanks so much! Yeah, I've heard it's easier with fantasy. I've played with some fantastical elements, but never anything full-blown.

Curiosity: how exactly do you mean "Visual imagery"? I'm interested!

Thanks!

~sunstruck

I write what the picture of the scene would be. I have to write a lot of gory battle scenes with the evil guy for instance when Rayne's village was pillaged and burned as the bad guy Sanyo looked for her this is just an excerpt of and sample of visual immagery "Rayne crawled into the copse of trees near the portico where her Name Day festival was to be held when the man called Sanyo walked so close to her she could have touched him. Sparks drifted and filled the air with an acrid smell of burning flesh ,blood and the burning of what was left of her village. The smell of blood was so strong it rang metallic in her mouth. She wanted to spew her guts up just from the smell alone not to mention the vision of horror that was spread before her.. She tried to hide her eyes from the scene as bile rose into her throat but she knew she had to be strong so she swallowed hard and focused so she could remember this moment. If she would ever be able to hunt these men down and repay them for what they had done. Smoke hung heavy stinging her eyes and making it hard to see anything clearly but she let her eyes wander about the portico where just hours before her Name Day feast was to be held. The table nearby that had been covered with brightly colored linens and foods of all kinds now was covered with food mixed among blood and gore of the people she had grown up with, now barely recognizeable ,decorated the tables. Focus Focus she thought or she knew she would lose it altogether. She could not afford to be found or these men would get away with this butchery. She swallowed hard as she continued to scan the area. Not five feet from her lay part of the body of the prankster of the village. Who only hours ago had chased girls with lizards laughing with glee at their screams and play. There lay Drayfus with his arms spread wide as if he were about to take flight but something was horribly wrong. His head lay nearby eyes gaping horribly as if his last moments had been in terror. Sanyo stood nearby so close she could smell the stench of blood and sweat of his body covered in gore. Suddenly he threw back his head and roared with loud laughter that echoed in her head horribly then almost as an after thought he kicked Drafus's head across the portico. The sound was like a ripe melon as it hit the wall making Her stomach heave but she knew if she made a sound she would give herself away so instead she burned the vision of Sanyo in her mind. One day he would get his just reward. One day his head would roll. One day his laughter would be silenced forever. What she had in mind for him was nothing the Creator would want her to think about but the scene before her was not made by the Creator but of bowels of Hell itself. The scene before her called for justice and she would live to see justice served. This she promised herself. So she seared the images of her loved ones in her mind. She would live today to have her revenge tomorrow or the next but she would have her revenge. One day that bas____ would pay. Slowly Rayne backed into the tunnel. Smoke filtered through making breathing a chore but even as she leaned her head back against the damp earthen wall she clutched her sword. She could still hear the whoops and hollers of the mauraders as they went about their vile deeds as the last survivors screamed their last. Even where she was the smell of death hung heavy settling on her like a cloak. She wanted nothing more than to bathe the filth she felt and smelled off her hair and clothes. To scrub until that smell was gone. She wrapped her arms around herself as tears blinded her vision but her mind was clear. In the space of a few hours her life had been destroyed but she was alive. Silently she cried out to the Creator for a reason this was allowed and somewhere between her tears and prayer she fell into the sleep of one dead of exhaustion and sorrow........"

It's my own words for what I write....... What I would see touch feel hear smell etc....... that is what I try to put into the scenes to make them as real as possible. There is very little need for cursing as I put emotion into a picture.........does that help any? The above passage is not as well written as the one in the book as i did it from memory but I just wanted to give an example. I would love to hear more from you too.........please keep me informed. Hugs Lady Marion