Inventing swear words

[dreamwalker]

Guys,
I've written my outline, and come up with the fine details, eg names and places for my trans far future space opera epic, now i'm about to write it.

When writing, do you guys ever make up swear works, slang, change conventional/colloqual speech conventions? If so, why do you do it, can it change the atmosphere? Is it for added edge? Are there any rules, guides or referances you use?
I can think of a few reasons why not to do it, (eg farscape lol) but most importantly, I wanna make it serious, and real and adding a made up swear word can serious throw people and reck that mood even if it is for some authentisity.
Look forward to your imput guys, thanks

[FelineEyes]

One: I saw nothing wrong with what they did in Farscape.
Two: Yes, making up swear words is good because having a fantasy character shout the f-word certainly breaks the moment. Slang is better but be sure to use in context the first time or the audience will have no clue what you're talking about. Or include a dictionary of slang. Read Alan Dean Foster's The Mocking Program as a good example of slang.

[dreamwalker]

What they did in Farscape worked in farscape, the type of show and its audience probably allowed it to work, although you never heard criton say the f word, strangly.
I'll check out your referances the next time I get to the library.

[cyborg_cinema]

Originally Posted by dreamwalker

Are there any rules, guides or referances you use?

opinion: if it's formal writing, you should avoid colloquialism. If you need to use colloquial expressions in your dialog, stick with what you know. Avoid profanity because it turns readers off.

[ajdecon]

Colloquiallisms are a pretty good tool for letting you "feel" the world you're working in, especially if they relate in some way to the environment or culture. Some examples: Arthur Clarke's The Songs of Distant Earth featured a world with a mammoth volcano that erupted shortly after colonizing. Its name, "Kracken!", was used as an expletive. Larry Niven did a good job of portraying increasing media censorship, where the word "bleep!" actually became a swear word because it was substituted so often for other words.

In a space opera setting, you might go for something suggesting a spaceborne culture. "Take a walk out the airlock!" might be a fairly nasty thing to say, for example. Or calling someone "bad at math" could be worse than calling someone a moron, in a setting where technical skills are essential.

That sort of thing has to be used fairly sparingly, though. I remember getting really irritated reading Niven's Ringworld, where "Tanj!" (acronym: There Ain't No Justice) was used so often it became distracting. Maybe throw it into a conversation you're using mainly for characterization, to get your readers to pay attention? But in an important or action-filled scene, unusual references can kill the mood.

Just a few thoughts.

[Green]

As long as you're not writing for children, there's no reason why you shouldn't use swear words PROVIDED IT FITS THE TONE AND CONTEXT OF YOUR WRITING.

I find made-up swear words to be fairly cheesy and embarassing really. Swear words have the effect they have because we have our own attachments to them, which we've built up over years of use. They have their place and their own impact.

If you start making up swear words, and unless you do it exceptionally well, then the reader just isn't going to react to them in the same way at all. It'd be akin to saying "phoot" or "darn". How cheesy is that?

Obviously, the point of tone comes in again. Take WoT for example... it would be out of character for anyone to use the "f" word in any of Jordan's novels, and so he uses phrases like "Light!" etc. It kind of works, but it still lacks impact with the reader. It just becomes a writer-ism.

So, if your setting is a futuristic version of our world/universe, then I'd suggest using our swear words, or at least some derivation of them. I'd disagree with cyborg_cinema that profanity turns readers off (in general). Sometimes it will, but if it fits your novel, then those who are turned away aren't right for your novel anyway. So at the end of the day, if you think it fits, I say go for it. Most people are adult enough to handle a little swearing in their reading.

[stencyl]

As long as you're not writing for children, there's no reason why you shouldn't use swear words PROVIDED IT FITS THE TONE AND CONTEXT OF YOUR WRITING

I agree, without the caps. Your own language will be far less powerful for your reader. Why not use the power that our own language has created for these words, seeing how you are wirint in the language.

And if you use made-up substitutes, you limit your audience. Use such language to target a younger audience, not appeal to a larger one.

[Green]

Originally Posted by stencyl

I agree, without the caps.

Hehe

[Ash]

Don't give too much credit to Farscape. Battlestar Galactica did it first! Actually other people did it before that, BSG did the blatant subsitution thing on TV first.

I guess a lot of TV shows do it now. The new Battlestar Galactica and Firefly are two recent examples. I don't think it works as well in text though. In older sci-fi it was a bit of a gimmick to imagine futaristic swearwords, but I think things like "Tanj", already mentioned, comes across as being a bit dated now.

If you're writing contemporary science fiction for the adult market I don't think swearing is that much of a problem. It's certainly not as much of a mood killer or as out of place. It depends on the context I guess.

One way to avoid it all together is to just say the character is swearing rather than what they're actually saying....

"Private Jones let out a string of profanities as she stabbed her finger at the eject button" or something like that.

[cyborg_cinema]

A Clockwork Orange is another good example of colloquialism.

Also, dialog can be tricky in the first place. Lovecraft's dialog sucks. Fortunately there is not a lot of it around. If a writer adds colloquial expressions to dialog that is already under par—the results may not be favorable.

[Brys]

Originally Posted by FelineEyes

One: I saw nothing wrong with what they did in Farscape.
Two: Yes, making up swear words is good because having a fantasy character shout the f-word certainly breaks the moment. Slang is better but be sure to use in context the first time or the audience will have no clue what you're talking about. Or include a dictionary of slang. Read Alan Dean Foster's The Mocking Program as a good example of slang.

I don't know, the way it's so fluently incorporated into China Mieville's novels shows that it can work almost perfectly, but then in a more traditional fantasy it could feel out of place. What would be far worse is for swearwords to be invented that just don't work, or completely abandoning them to avoid having to make them up. In Steven Erikson's Malazan books, he manages to make them up in what seems an extremely realistic way, using the Gods etc - ie someone would say "Beru fend" in the Malazan world, while someone may say "Christ" in the real world, or "Abyss" instead of "Hell" etc. But the problem I have is that whenever I try and create a swearword, it just lacks the conviction and strength of a real swearword for me, so I've left them in until I can think of superior alternatives. I think that you can just about get past with using your own made up ones, but they've got to make sense, and if there isn't a variety of words to use, it just makes it boring.

[tonic]

Look at Elizabeth Haydon's Rhapsody books, they each create swear words, I can't remember which ones since its been awhile since I've read them. But she does it well and creatively.

[bendoran]

i find in novels if they swear early on its easier to accept the swear words as you are yet to form an opinion(not on novel) on the setting. if you want to create sweat words, its always better to relate them to setting, especially if you have gods in the story, most swear words we use are derisive of religion and society's morals. erikson uses hoods balls as a popular swear in his novels, jordan "light". sometimes some work better than others.

[Cimmerian]

I agree with what all of you have to say. My science fiction novel "First Contact:Pawns" Has some swearing in it, but never the f-bomb or any similar four letter words. Let's be serious people, when you're facing down the entire alien fleet that's 20 ships/ one ship in your fleet, I doubt you'll say something like "Fiddlesticks, we're in for a world of owies" lol Nah, but that being said. You don't need to drop the f-bomb every sentence, or every second word in dialogue. After long, it takes the flavour away from your book, and less people will read it due to it's graphic swearing.

Some swearing can add just the slightest touch to your "fantasy world" that will help draw people in. Like salt and pepper on chicken, it gets the right zip that makes you want more. If you want to make your world believeable, it has to have things this world has, and some things that YOU as the creator of this world, would have differently. If the society in your book reverts back to slang like fisherman's wives, then so be it, but in order to make it work with your story, you'd have to write the book accordingly. Something tragic happened, or governments fell, society's crumbled that sort of thing.

In my opinion, swearing can be a good thing if used properly in your book, as I said, it can make or break your book. If you have a highly sofisticated society, would it be fitting to have the people swearing constantly? But, that's just my opinion.

[diziet_sma]

I agree with the sentiments of most. Colourful language adds a certain authenticity to a novel, but it can't be gratuitous. And as confronting as made up swear words (or indeed, every day swear words) can be, I find that they are easy to get used to in the context of the narrative.