Vulgarity is the fucking shit, dude! I think it can be very useful for setting up character and tone, particularly with the narrator, however it needs to be specifically necessary for building character, otherwise it seems off-putting. I think its a show-don't-tell deal and vulgar language is very telling. Some of my favorite movies are heavy with the language (Guy Richie movies and In the Loop [for some reason I think Brits, Scots, and Irish swear best]). Vulgar language can be very lyrical and poetic, but can also distract, so it depends on its usage. It's like anything in writing--if it serves the purpose of furthering story, character, image, etc. then it is good.

Okay, authors. Seriously. Cuss your heart out if you want--writing or talking. Because it's *gasp* YOUR CHOICE.

If people are telling you that you shouldn't swear, in your writing or if you're talking to someone, well... Spew some certain words at them and watch as they gape at you. Then tell them that they look like a trout.

Okay, sorry. That has nothing to do with anything. Let's get to the point.

I, personally, enjoy people who swear. It makes them more real, their writing more real. It makes it more believable, more harsh, more interesting. It makes their statement pop out. I mean, come on. You can't really give a good rant without a nice swear word or two. Swearing also just gets the bad feelings out. It's sort of like screaming into your pillow. If you stuff your mouth with blankets and shout all the swear words you know as loud as you can... It makes you feel a lot better.

Oh yeah. I'm used to swearing, too. My sisters love swearing. It's a constant river of swearing going through our household, so. You know. I'm used to it.

OKAY! SO, PEOPLE! The moral of the story iiiissss: Swear if you want to. If you don't want to, don't. If you don't like writing with swearing in it, guess what? Don't read it. Yayyyy!! Piña coladas!

I'm going to stop talking now.

Once upon a time, there was a pirate that spoke a bit oddly, "I do say kind sir, I feel you have fecal excrement in the place where your brain should be."

He was quickly made to walk the plank.

He happened to have a brother, who was also a famous pirate, "Hey there, bastard! You are as dumb as a box of rocks. Do you have poopy brains?"

He was quick across the plank as well.

The two pirate brothers, that now happened to be tasty snacks for the sharks that followed the ship, had an older, pirate brother, who happened to talk like this, "Harr! Ye scurvy dogs! Ye must all have shit for brains for forcing my loyal blood across ye plank. I'll gut the lot of you and feed your fuckin' entails to me pet parrot, Bob!"

Instead of making the third brother walk the plank, they made him captain. It is rumored that this captain became so infamous, that the term, "He curses like a sailor" evolved from, "He curses like the cap't, the best sailor ever to conquer the seven seas." I digress.

When writing, especially writing fiction, vulgar speech can actual help to define a character, without having to actually define 'the character'. There is almost an allusion quality to it.

That said, I also agree with the adage that a writer literally improves his or hers conquest of language, by learning how to write well without vulgarity being used as a coloring agent.

In my everyday speech, I cuss a lot. "Fuck" and "Shit" being the most common ones out of my mouth-- but when it comes to writing, it's rare that any such vulgarities make it into my prose. It's not because I don't like it, or I have any qualms with profanity in writing; I tend not to include it because so much of my writing is dark or twisted enough as is... and a part of me enjoys trying to find more elegant ways to say filthy or hard to swallow things.

I think vulgarity in writing is as much an aspect of someone's style as it is their personality.

Besides, I've NEVER read something (yet) with profanity and thought, "Man, that would have been so much better without all the Bitches, Shits, Tit suckers and goat-fuckers," or whatever. So... be vulgar I say, especially if it feels right when you're writing it.

|| another-proser ||

Once upon a time, man became self-aware

and found within them, an unusual desire

to communicate beyond simple gesture

and so, spoken language entered our culture.

But of course, it's never enough to speak

so, we invented ways to write, eventually

and over time, vastly expanded our vocabulary

to include words that we've deemed vulgarity.

Let me repeat that, we've deemed vulgarity.

We made up the words and defined communication

so, shit, isn't it our writer's duty to fucking use them;

to color our writing and induce the reader's sense-

defend too, the shock-value of a vulgar word's presence?

For, if we didn't define and damn the use of vulgarity

these words wouldn't have the same impact in our writing.

- M.E.

201506210946

I don't really feel comfortable using vulgarity in my writing, though I do want to sometimes. I feel that it can convince some people not to read, especially if they're in a public space.

I'm also not that really blunt writer who just states everything as it is (that's not bad, it's a really great quality~!). I wax lyrical and romanticize everything (in blood or moonlight). So if I actually ever curse in writing, it's never in English. Norwegian is used most often since I love Norwegian curses~ (haha it's weird~)

Some people are also a bit...disturbed by vulgarity (especially some of the younger writers on here). I don't really want to influence younger ones to use vulgarity, since really, it's not something you would talk to your mum or teacher with.

This is just my opinion.

After all, we're all blossoming writers and we can use whatever we want in our pieces.

all I have to say is that I'm a slightly-wimpy and slightly-disciplined YA who has always been told swearing is wrong, but to be honest, I don't really care. I live with it and it's totally up to you if you do it when you write, but I'm not going to. Maybe as I get older I'll want to change in that category, but I know there are kids reading my work and many of them have been raised the same as me. I write certain words into a story if I need to, but maybe block out one letter. I know, I'm a wimpy baby. Don't point it out.

Although I try to refrain from cursing, I do think that sometimes it's more than acceptable to use vulgarities.

I mean, damn, they're a part of this bloody language and, if they were so fucking awful, then they wouldn't exist.

Sometimes, we feel things that cannot be expressed with regular words. Trying to say that you've had "a really bad day" simply doesn't cut it as saying you've had a "really shitty day." The effect isn't there. The first makes the person think "aw, poor thing," while the second really throws the punch. Without these "vulgar words," the intensity just isn't there. They just get a bad rap because they're usually associated with negativity.

Same goes for writing, since these words are best to express our own and our characters' emotions, as well as fully show our bright and colorful personalities.

No shit.

Just use responsibly.

Cursing in writing has evolved as my writing and I have evolved.

When I first started seriously writing, I was twelve, and so saying "crap" or "freaking" was basically the extent of my cursing in my first novel.

Once I hit high school, however, I realized that my first novel, started at 12 and finished at 13 (65,000 words, so not too short even) I had been writing with my parents looming over me, and my ultra-Baptist friend aiding my brainstorming, and so some more realistic sides of myself and my characters, I was afraid to portray. And that- as well as unexperienced writer errors- majorly took away from the realistic nature of the book and made it seem like a childish, clean fantasy when really it was a dark story of struggle and the fight for love and humanity, fought by mid to upper teens, not children who were afraid to say "ass" in front of mommy.

And so then, I started writing for me. I started writing the way I would live, and the way real people would speak and live, and now, as a young but legal adult and writing New Adult novels, I'm not afriad to drop words like "fuck" and "bitch" and "cheeky little twat waffle." I grew up, and so did my writing, and cursing came with that. I don't think there's a single thing wrong with cursing in writing, where it makes sense. If it contributes to the piece to drop an F-bomb twenty-five times, then by all means, go for it. Write that shit, dammit, or no one else will!

Curses are words too, so why limit ourselves as writers to only a select group of words, when we have the entire world of communication at our disposal?

Vulgar expressions can bother some readers, but fuck em if they can't relate to your mood

You are, who you are, whether you are this bitch or that bitch

Writing is an art

Craft your vision as you see it

Readers may reply or they may say

Nothing at all thinking you're

Beneath them

It's simply fuck this bitch

If they don't like my groove

The Stars agree they are suppose

To sit with the moon

That's why we only see them at night

This is a lifetime mood for them

Unlike us we curse in our writings

As our mood changes