Hoi,

"The swearing really isn't necessary."

Now it's not that I'm saying everyone should have swearing, or that 
you shouldn't tell others to exclude swearing, it's just that most 
fanfic writers are teens or adults and swearing a common thing in >our 

lives, so a character saying "fuck" or "shit" shouldn't really >be 
something to argue over.

   Its been my experience that people who swear tend to be the less 
educated or "proper" of society.  That or in times of extreme 
frustration, where cussing is easier to come up with than any other 
words that would do the problem justice.  Now I realize that this is a 
large assumption and there are always exceptions.  As for swearing in 
writing or music I personally get very turned off of the story or song 
that contains lots of profanity, only because I am forced to listen to 
so much swearing during the coarse of my day (from other people 
obviously) that I really don't need to be subjected to it during my 
leasure time.

    Now that is not to say that swearing doesn't have its place.  For 
example if the character in any combat story goes through 2/3 of it 
without swearing once, all the time beating up his opponents and 
narrowly escaping all of the close calls.  Finally he meets up with the 
head bad guy and uses his best moves on him and the other guy doesn't 
flinch.  At that point if he says "Oh shit."  you know, as the reader, 
that the character is really concerned and is currently racing his mind 
to come up with some sort of plan.  Now if the same character was 
cussing left and right, through out all of the previous battle sequences 
then the "Oh shit" comment would not carry the same weight that it does 
in the first example.

    Personally I always try to find better words to use instead of the 
main stream cuss words.  One of my favorite examples of this comes from 
Street Fighter II the animated movie.  Near the end when Bison refers to 
Ken as a "...worthless piece of excrement"  That statement holds much 
more "power" than if he said "...worthless piece of shit".
    I will use cuss words to attempt to show a persons intellect.  I 
tend to give them to characters of lesser breeding or personality 
strength.  This person may be the hero of the fic and cuss up a storm 
the entire way.  But I would hope the reader would be able to figure out 
the type of person I intended the character to be, not just another 
cussing hero.

***    Knife Sharpens on Stone... Man Sharpens on Man     ***
***    - Tao                                              ***

Jayden Stormwalker

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