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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Apr 2017 at 12:18pm
My thoughts:

We're all adults in this challenge, therefore the presence of adult language/profanity in the right context should be no more offensive than the presence of dissenting political or social opinions.

We all bring different experiences, perspectives, and creative imagination to the challenge which is part of its appeal.

I think the only absolute prohibition should be personal and hateful attacks on the authors.


Edited by LoboGal26 - 30 Apr 2017 at 12:25pm
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Scarlet Screenwriter View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Scarlet Screenwriter Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Apr 2017 at 8:47pm

We are talking cussing here, not cursing  ... turning someone into a toad ... profanity, swearing ... I figure if it comes out of my mouth, it can come out of my characters' mouths ...

There have been some well picked bones of contention here over the years ... sometimes with judges and sometimes with peers ... I once accused a judge of being a "grammar Nazi" ... a well used term, I thought ... and had the full force of Holocaust guilt brought down ...

Last round of the Short Screenplay, I became a Nazi apologist because I had Adolf Hitler as a character ... purely a coincidence ... I had ancestors on Schindler's list.

One judge used to harp on about spelling out numbers under ten ... another about the Oxford Comma and international spelling ... haven't had one of those in a while since this comp is more multicultural ...

So I think cussing/cursing/swearing/profanity are simply colours/colors that we use ...








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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote stephenmatlock Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 2017 at 12:43am
I agree with Scarlett here -- what the character does is not a reflection on the story itself as a story, but a development and revelation of the character. In my opinion, swearing can be overused. It can also be underused, which can lead to a weaker story, especially when we, the reader, realize the writer is being false in the narrative. I don't much sprinkle my own language with swearing and Carlin's Seven Words, but sometimes the right word is the right word, whether in a story or in my own life.

I have been writing now for quite a while, and in only two cases have I dropped the f-bomb. Once in a scene where a funeral is taking place, and there's all this talk about sacrifice and good deeds and patience and God's mighty hand and tender grace--it's all quite moving. But a character stands up and disrupts the service because this person who was killed was alive once, and fancy words aren't going to bring him back or make changes in the lives of others as long as things stay the same. The character's frustrations built during that service until it was too much.

The other is in the current story I entered, where a character has to express an emotion all at once in a few words--or even a single word.

It wasn't a short-hand method of "I have two pages of dialog to condense," but "what is the most effective way to reveal the character here with all the conflicting emotions of self-preservation and self-awareness at this dreadful unfolding scene?"

Be true to the character. Be true to yourself as a writer. Write the thing as it should be written.

I heard some great advice at a writers conference a decade ago: "You can't write until you mom dies." What she meant was, as long as you think "but if my mother read this, she'd be shocked," you won't write freely. Substitute "mother" for "pastor" or "teacher" or "spouse" or "my own children" or whomever is standing over you, telling you how to write so as not to offend them.

Until you tell them "begone," then IN MY OPINION, you won't be as strong a writer as you need to be.
Pithy sayings are for the apt. For a longer message, you need a condo.

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