It's in my work that the bad language really begins to rear its ugly little head. I just can't stop the hooligans on my pages from using the foulest language you'll hear this side of a nunnery.
I have thought of tempering the language a little, but it really does serve to distinguish the characters in a way that only language can.
I run a little vintage shop in a small Cotswold market town and my doors are always open wide, so I can hear every sound that echoes through the streets. Some of the language that I hear while folks are pushing prams, using their smart phones, or just yelling at one another sometimes beggars belief.
I'm not a prude. You only need to dip into Slow Poison to realise that, but while kids and old people (hey, that's me...) and anyone really are just minding their own business, they certainly don't need to put up with words of four letters assailing them from all sides.
Cole Porter got it right. 'Authors who once used better words now only use four letter words writing prose, heaven knows, anything goes!'. I applaud rich language. I abhor censorship. I queued up for my copy of Lady Chatterley and the Kama Sutra. But there is a time and place.
Still, without these public intrusions, I would have lost a great deal of inspiring moments that have found themselves woven into my prose.
So, what do you think? What is your take on the use and abuse of 'the expletive' in literature today. Can it work without it? Have you become immune to their power? Or is it the case that used correctly the expletive can raise a mundane scene to Trainspotterly heights!
After much thought, debate, advice and soul-searching, I decided to leave my work intact. I like to feel I have written those scenes with integrity.
I have posed this question on numerous forums and the consensus does seem to be that, in the right place and in the correct context, one should write - and be damned.
Your thoughts please. Just keep it clean!
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