Lee Hauser
Sep 22, 2023

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I think it's very context sensitive. You're right, a story about military life might be inaccurate without swearing, but I think it can be overwhelming to read too much swearing, which becomes background noise when you hear it so often. As Margery says, writing is editing. Is it inaccurate to leave out every "uh" or other fillers in dialog, though there are speakers whose words are full of such things?

In today's society, where (as was pointed out by another commenter) every other word seems to be a swear word, perhaps in writing some F-bombs can be replaced by less potent "damns" or "hells", and the "fucks" saved for the really important moments.

If every swear word in your writing is at the top of the nasty list, where are you going to go when you really need to use highly emotional language in a climactic moment?

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