F-bombs and other profanities...in fiction

Got a wild hair up my @$$ to count the number of curses in my most recently completed novel and was actually kind of embarrassed by the total.

Eight swear words and their variations, adding up to 231 profanities/vulgarities/obscenities/etc.

$h!t.

(On the bright side, 231 is only .03% of the total words in my manuscript.)

Here's what Writers Digest has to say about using such words.


Happy writing!

The First Novel

Found this on The Writer's Almanac today; fascinating!

A version of the first novel

The first American novel was published in Boston on this date in 1789. The title of the novel was The Power of Sympathy: or, The Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, and its author was William Hill Brown, although he published it anonymously. It’s an epistolary novel, told entirely through the letters that the characters write to one another; Brown modeled its form after novels like Pamela, by Samuel Richardson.

The Power of Sympathy tells the story of a young New Englander named Thomas Harrington. Harrington has fallen madly in love with a girl named Harriot — who is, unbeknownst to him, his illegitimate half sister. Harrington’s father must decide whether to reveal his own dark secret to save the couple from sure damnation. He dashes off a quick note to his minister: “He is now even upon the point of marrying — shall I proceed! — of marrying his Sister! I fly to prevent incest!” Mr. Harrington Senior intervenes on the eve of the wedding, and the engagement is called off. Poor Harriot dies of consumption, and Thomas — after many letters to his best friend, Worthy — eventually shoots himself.

Brown was inspired by a local scandal: a Boston woman named Fanny Apthorp had had an affair with her sister’s husband, a man named Perez Morton. She became pregnant and ultimately committed suicide. The Apthorps lived next door to Brown, so he had access to all the inside information. He changed the names, and relocated the story to Rhode Island, but the Mortons and Apthorps had political connections; with Brown’s agreement, they stopped publication of the book and requested that all unsold copies be burned. For many years, people believed that the novel’s real author was Sarah Morton, the betrayed wife, but eventually Brown’s niece came forward and confirmed that her uncle had written the novel.

Lest you should choose the racy tale as your next must-read, the Paris Review diplomatically warns: “The passing centuries have hidden its charms.”

-Garrison Keillor

And the winner is...not me. Obviously.

Hello again web friends,

I knew this post was coming, and perhaps you did too. Sorry to myself (and you, reader, if you care) for the delay.

The New Wrinkle Publishing 2016 Writer's Contest just ended, with Australian children's song and script writer Melanie Schubert named the winner. Read more about her here.

Now, I want you to know that I'm not disappointed. Not now. I was a couple weeks ago, but not for the reason you might think.

A couple weeks ago, NWP offered Lynette Kraft's second book, Archie of Outlandish, for free download, with the soundtrack. Catchy title, nice illustrations, great soundtrack (although I would've liked if they'd noted which scenes or chapters in the Table of Contents to be read with the music), and an intriguing concept. But as I read on, I also found the book dishonest.

My biggest complaint was probably the church- and prayer-related content/themes that abruptly appeared in chapter 6 and increased throughout. As a Christian, I have struggled to find a way to spread the gospel as a writer; I have reasoned, on occasion, that the occupation of novelist (or journalist) is completely incongruous with Christian life, and often still have my doubts. I have been dying to read a modern novel that is at its core Christian, but not poorly written, cliche, cheesy or distasteful to the general, non-Christian public. But this was certainly not it. (I'm not even sure it can be done, though that's not Archie's fault.) The references to prayer, God, church, etc. were totally inauthentic to this story. I think Lynette Kraft did her story, her characters and herself a serious disservice by forcing religion into this book. It would have been a much better book without it, especially this SPOILER! part of the ending:

“I can’t just live with you, Archibald. It goes against my beliefs. You know that.”“No, that came out wrong. I’m not asking you to just live with me, Tallie.” He laughed. “It goes against my beliefs, too.” [...]“Tallulah Z., I was hoping you might agree to marry me.”

I understand people (in real life) who feel this way. Really, I do. And maybe it's not unreasonable to try and plant a perceived moral seed, as a writer. But this is just way, way too overt (not to mention Archie and Tallie's "beliefs" were never specified in such detail until this moment, making their declaration of such awkward and prudish). AND there's no mention of Archie's "faith" or anything of the sort in the book's synopsis, so it almost feels like a trick when you read about it a few chapters in. This is what I'm talking about when I say dishonest.

Since we're talking about honesty and authenticity (and lack thereof), let's talk about those English accents she gave Archie's mom and the book agent; not necessary, inconsistent and totally artificial by the end. (Tallie's life situation also seemed contrived, but it was something where you could "suspend disbelief;" kind of like Carrie's set-up in Carrie Pilby, which, by contrast, is one of my favorite books.) The neat little wrap-up with Archie getting his SPOILER! book deal in the end was also too good to be true. Too many things went right for him (and Tallie, and everyone else in the story) without a hitch.

But there was another important thing I noticed: Archie was most certainly a NaNoWriMo novel.

If you haven't heard of the National Novel Writing Month program, the goal is to write 50,000 words in the month of November. There's a not-totally-fool-proof verification method on nanowrimo.org, along with all kinds of pep talks and networking and message boards to give you ideas; like giving your character an accent. Playing with names. Throwing in curveballs everywhere just to get your word count up. And it's great. It helps a lot of people accomplish things they never thought they would (myself included). But if you can't figure out how to cut that stuff and flesh other things out before you publish it — or get another pair of eyes that can help show you what needs to change — you're not going to be a good author. If you magically find some financial or other kind of success, great. But you're not going to be good. You're not going to be that writer that the world talks about, that schools want for commencement speeches.

That's who I want to be.

So I don't want a company like NWP, as it is now, editing and representing my book, and I realized this weeks ago. I'm so glad I didn't win that contest, not just because I don't trust NWP to put out a book I can be proud of, but because my novel is not ready, and Archie of Outlandish showed me that. That's the great thing about all this: Even though this company and their book turned out to be a disappointment, they showed me how to find those writing tactics and plot devices that, while they might seem "good enough" in the context of my whole story, they're not. They stick out like sore thumbs to readers, and they bring down a novel that has the potential to be great. I saw some of my failings in Archie, and I'm glad for it.

Because like I said, I want to be great. And I'm not sure if there's any point publishing if I'm not willing to put in the time to become great.