Profanity Is Pervasive

It’s unrealistic to expect that a novel about truckers or construction workers would have them yelling “golly gee” or “shucks” when they’re angry.

Cursing is an inescapable part of life. A well-placed cuss can relieve tension, express annoyance, or tune in an adversary.

Careful: You Lose Fans if You Overdo

Some readers are intimidated by even a single word of profanity. Your writing will appeal to a larger audience if you exercise the same care avoiding cursing that you do avoiding unnecessary adverbs.

But zero profanity is often unrealistic.

So how can you make your writing lifelike without resorting to F-bombs or other expletives? You, the author, are a tightrope walker tiptoeing a shaky wire between reality and comedy.

Yes, comedy.

If you overdo the cursing, your work will come off like the amusing tirade of an angry adolescent. Eliminate all but the occasional necessary swear word.

Swearing in Made-Up Worlds Is Easy

Think of the most despicable character or beast in your created world. Your villain could be described as a son of a [insert character or beast]. Or, if your world is ruled by women, you might change son to daughter.

Other possibilities could include spawn of a space sow, brood of a black star, or progeny of a wormhole.

If your fictional world is an alternate Earth, you could use terms such as son of a snake, son of a cur, or daughter of a slug.

Battlestar Galactica invented frak and felgercarb.

Firefly used gorram.

Other movies or series came out with words such as frell, poodoo, dren, Mik’ta, shazbot, drokk, and frag.

Profanity in Real-World Fiction Can Be Just as Simple

To continue with the son of/daughter of expressions, stories based in the past might use son of a gun or daughter of the devil.

Scrutinize the following sentences for different ways to show cursing.

• An explosion of expletives turned the air blue.
• Antiquated obscenities sprang from his lips.
• She filled the air with ripe invective.
• She spouted graphic one-syllable words of derision.
• He swore fluently.
• He flooded the office with articulate curses.
• He mouthed a feral blasphemy.
• Effusive imprecations flooded the room.
• A chorus of four-letter words exploded from her lips.
• She uttered a litany of curses too foul to repeat.
• Ripe speech was his specialty. He used it now. In spades.
• Her stream of cussing superfluities burned my ears.
• He spewed an entire dictionary of crude sailor’s words.
• His stevedore mouth exploded all over the bystanders.

Norman Mailer used fug in The Naked and the Dead. Was he any smarter or more innovative than you?

Dialogue Can Make the Point Without Cursing

• “Shut the front door!”
• “If I wanted your opinion, I’d have asked for it.”
• “Who do you think you’re kidding?”
• “Get out of here before I kill you.”
• “You gotta be jokin’!”
• “You’re more despicable than a meal-time telemarketer.”
• “My last deposit in the toilet had more character than you.”
• “I bet his mother stopped having kids after he was hatched.”
• “Have you been told today?”
• “Shut your pie hole.”
• “You dirty _____.”
• “Did anyone ever tell you you’re a _____?”
• “You rotten, good-for-nothing &%%#$#*@!!!”

Dialogue Might Also Offer Implied Alternatives

• “Were you swearing at me?”
• “He looks madder than my girlfriend when I leave the toilet seat up.”
• “He flipped me off. Can you believe it?”
• “She gave me the bird. Then she called her divorce attorney.”
• “She made an obscene gesture. With both hands.”
• “He gave the speeder a single finger. Twice.”

Exclamation Points Can Be Your Friend

Sorry, Mark Twain. You’re probably cursing at me right now for what I’m about to say.

If you avoid exclamation points in your writing, readers will notice them when they do appear. A well-placed ! (just one) will show intensity of emotion.

Body Language and Actions Can Speak Louder Than Swearing

You could make your characters:

• flare their nostrils
• clench their teeth
• slam doors
• stomp from point A to point B
• punch holes in walls
• prance with hands on hips
• shake their fists
• go red in the face
• get so mad they stutter
• point fingers
• stick out their tongues
• jut their noses in the air
• sneer, grimace, or smirk
• frown, pout, or purse their lips
• raise one or both fists
• give a thumbs-down
• raise the palm toward someone (“talk to the hand”)
• grab the genitals
• make a wanker gesture
• moon someone
• simulate a throat-slash with one finger
• thumb the nose

Repetition Dilutes Impact

Watch people in restaurants, at work, and on your commute. You might discover they don’t swear as often as you think they do.

No matter what method you choose to show your characters cursing, remember that any repetition, no matter how realistic, will dilute a word or phrase’s impact. Whether it’s scrutinized, cleared his throat, or your favorite profanity, more than occasional occurrences will annoy your readers.

Know Your Market When Submitting to Literary Journals

If your potential market offers free copies online, download and read them.

Study all guidelines. Pore through them again. And again.

Many of the alternatives provided here might be unacceptable for Christian markets. For example, some publishers might reject anything with the initials J C or phrases that incorporate gosh, gee, or darn — all of which are “politer” versions of Jesus Christ, God, and damn.

Check Out This List

Some of these are appropriate for young-adult or period fiction. Don’t dismiss anything at first glance.

Who knows? You might invent an expression that appears in a dictionary of the future.

A and B
a pox upon it, arse, balderdash, ballshirt, baloney, barf bag, barnacles, batask, beans, beeotch, bite me, blangdang, blankety-blank, blasted, blast it, bleeping, blimey [Aus.], bloody, bloomin’, blow, boogers, boy-o-boy, brat, brown sugar, bug off, bullspit, bum, bummer, bunk, bunkum

C
chaps, cheese and rice, cheeses, cheesitz, chit, confound it, crab cakes, crabs, crackers, crap, crapola, crappin’ crackers, crappity crickets, crikey [Aus.], cripes, crud, crumbs, cur

D and E
dad-gone thing, dad-gone-it, daggummit, dagnabit, damned, dang, darned, dingaling, dingdong, dipstick, d’oh, doggonit, donky dung, drat, dratted, dreck-head, dumptruck, earwax, eat slugs, eff, effing, egad

F
falderal, FAQ, farging, farging ice-hole, farkle, fart face, fiddle faddle, fiddlesticks, fie, fishsticks, flip, flippin’, flunkin’, flyin’ fudgesicle, for crying out loud, for freak’s sake, for Pete’s sake, for the lova Mike, frack, fragdaggle, frazzle-rackin’, freaking, fuddle duddle, fudge, fudge berries, fudge nuggets, futher mucker

G
gadzooks, garsh, gee whillikers, gee whiz, geez Louise, get stuffed, gobbledygook, golly, golly gee, good gravy, good grief, goodness, goodness gracious, gosh, goshdarnit, goshdashit, grasshole, guldurnit

H
hail no, hay, heck, H-E-double hockey sticks, H-E-double toothpicks, hellish, highfalutin’, hockey puck, hogwash, hokum, holy biscuits, holy crow, holy moly, holy shibblets, holy smokes, horse feathers, horse hockey, horse pucky

J to L
jeepers, jeepers creepers, jeez, Jiminy crickets, Judas Priest, jumpin’ frog turds, jumpin’ George, jumpin’ Jiminy, just flippin’ wonderful, kawabunga, kitty whiskers, leapin’ lizards, lint licker

M and N
malarkey, man, mongrel, monkey fingers, monkey flunker, mother blanker, mother of pearl, mothersmucker, mule pucky, my word, nag it, no way, nonsense, nuckin’ futs

O to R
oh bother, omigosh, pffft, phooey, pickle-puss, piddle, pig poop, pluck it, poo, poop, poopy, poppycock, rackafratz, raspberries, rassa-frazzin’, rat doo-doo, rats, rot

S and T
sack of dirt, sakes alive, shamalama, shat, shazzle, sheesh, sheet, shinola, shiz, shnikes, shoot, shucks, snap, snit, snitch, snot, steaming, stink, stinkin’, stuff it, stuff yourself, sucks, sufferin’ succotash, sugar, sunny beach, tommyrot, tool, troll, turd

W to Z
wazzock, weenie, what the?, what the duck?, what the frog?, what-the hey?, when pigs fly!, whillikers, whillikins, who-ha, wienerwurst, witch, wow, wu-wu, yikes, yuk foo, zounds