Profanity/language in fan fic, a discussion

Spawned from the 'Certain Words' thread, I was amazed that people really thought that using what is deemed to be 'classicly foul language' could enhance a story, even if it can't be posted here. *

Me, I just don't see it.

Nothing will pull me out of the GFFA faster than an explosion of 'earth terminology'. This applies to Any character in any situation.

Luke, if he used profanity would most likely become a connisure of the Tatooine equivalent of bar soap, given his upbringing.

Han Solo is a smuggler, yet hearing him utter the 'F' word would yank me back to earth faster than you can say '98% pure'.

From Anakin to the NJO and beyond are pilots at war, yet once again, I refer you to the 'So pure it floats' train of thought.

Pulling this from the other thread.


Insted of relying on profanity to add power to your words, try a different approach. I had a difficult time while wring one scene in a recent story. One of the characters is aiming to verbaly smack another but even if I COULD use the profanity that came to mind, it would have cheapened the story.
Insted, I found this wording to be much more effective...


Gris had spoken to her, and Kampher, who had been captivated by merely seeing her again, was shocked into silence at her words. Surely she had misheard...

"Perhaps I should rephrase that," Gris said smoothly, not turning around. "I asked you which one had bedded you, or perhaps was it both?"

The reader knows almost exactly what Gris said, but phrasing it in that way, "Perhaps I should rephrase that," Gris said smoothly, not turning around. "I asked you which one had bedded you," sounds so much better narratively than having the character say "Which one did you ****?"

It's not a matter of appealing to a more mature audiance and people who have ventured into my 'off board' versions of chapters will know for a fact that I don't have issues with things like 'mature themes' such as descriptive lovemaking, (homosexual and hetrosexual inclusive) yet I think there is a differeance between writing 'for adults' and gratuitous earth swearing.



*For the full list of 'forbiddon off colour language' see the FAQ in the Forum lists in the banner/header.

 

I agree earth swearing or other slang can yank a person right out of the Star Wars universe and it's best to find other ways around it. However it can be tough sometimes. For instance, I have a fic I am planning out now and there will be a moment where a character is in a VERY bad spot and somehow, "Oh, darn" or "OH, poodu" is just not going to cut it. It's a very scary moment where readers should be worried about this person and not laughing at some silly made up curseword. Not that I'd have the character say "oh ****" or whatever, since I don't care for that either but in some ways it seems more appropriate for the moment than "Oh, poodu". So, I haven't figured out what I'm going to do yet and probably won't until I get there.

sg

 

Profanity - I swear a lot. A LOT. I make people laugh with how much I swear, and thus sometimes it's really hard to limit things to "damn" or "hell." I know a lot of people use words like "kriff" but those just sound a little odd to me. Then again, I have no problem using "Sithspawn" or "son of a sith" - maybe that's because they've been used more often?

Earth terms - these are so hard to deal with sometimes. You just never know what words people in the GFFA would retain or change, and when they do change them, the result sounds a little weird. For instance, a bathroom becomes a refresher - that always makes me laugh. And yet Timothy Zahn has Luke drinking hot chocolate. The way I see it is that there has to be a balance. I think it's fine to use Earth terms once in a while as long as the story isn't saturated with them. On the flip side, if you make up terms, the readers have to know what you're talking about. A "frequencing wave modulator" sounds really hi-tech, but when I wrote that just now, I was thinking of a radio. One thing I also keep in mind is that even though the GFFA has radically-advanced technology, the people in that universe still use things like paper. They rarely ever refer to it as that, but you still see that word here and there in the novels.

 

what is kriff supposed to mean btw? (if it can be explained without getting anyone in trouble, that is )

sg

 

Personally, Earth curses wouldn?t tear me out of the SW moment of a fic. In fact, SW curses seem ? to me ? so obviously contrived to avoid the ?real? swears they?re substituting for that they (and not the Earth swears) tear me out of the moment.

To begin with, I think we fanfic writers sometimes forget how many Earth terms there are in the SW movies in the first place, and we seem to get along with those just fine. Off the top of my head:

?Jumping to hyperspace ain?t like dustin? crops, boy.?

?Then I?ll see you in hell!?

Where in the GFFA have we ever seen crops, much less a cropduster?? (Aside: now I have this mental image of a biplane chasing down a fleeing Obi-Wan Kenobi?) And ?hell? is most definitely an Earth theology term; IMO it?s very out of place in the theology of the films. (I realize the EU has ?fixed? this with the concept of the Corellian Hells and thereby making sense of Han?s reference).

Second, if you?ve read Matt Stover?s Shatterpoint you?ll understand the other half of my point. When Stover writes, ?Frag!? or ?fraggin?? I sure know what he meant (and that was before I realized how freely he uses the F-word in his other novels). Same for ?kriffin?? and others ? especially because the character is played by Sam Jackson and we all know how well he can carry off violent, profanity-laden roles. And while I admire Stover for his creativity in coming up with a dejarik-related explanation along the lines of a knight?s pinning two pieces in chess, when I read that Mace realizes that he is ?well and truly forked?? Come on! That?s not fooling anyone. In my opinion, the contrived phrase is considerably less effective than if Mace had just said what we all know is the subtext of the literal language.

Now, I?ll freely admit that gratuitous cursing tears me out of the SW moment. But that?s true regardless of whether it?s Earth curses or GFFA substitute curses. In a war-focused book like Stover?s, or perhaps a dogfight with the Rogues, strings of Earth profanities would probably have me laughing out loud (like some scenes in Pulp Fiction, for example) ? not torn from the moment. There are great action films with no swearing; there are also great war movies with lots of it. It?s a matter of whether it?s well done ? not the swearing itself. IMO.

So that?s my little dissent on Earth terms in SW.

 

?well and truly forked??

Oh PLEASE! That sounds like sloppy writing IMHO.

I find casual use of profanity to be the mark of ill refinment (as far as the Jedi would go... I'm one to talk myself...).

Anakin would (being a street kid) probably know a dictonary worth of profanity, but I find it a much more effective tool to allow the reader to insert the words of choice.

Prime example...

Adam Sandlers "Ode to my Car"

Here we go

Piece of **** car
I got a piece of **** car
That ****in' pile of ****
Never gets me very far

My car's a big piece of ****
'Cause the shocks are ****ing shot
And my seatbelt's ****ing broken
I got to tie it in a knot
(It's a piece of ****)

I can't see through the windshield
'Cause it's got a big ****ing' crack
And the interior smells real bad
'Cause my friend puked in the back
(It's a piece of ****)

(Piece of **** car)
Piece of **** car
(He's got a piece of **** car)
It sucks **** ****
(That ****in' pile of ****)
100% ****
(Never gets him very far)
Oh **** you car

It's got no CD player, it only got the 8-track
Whoever designed my car can lick my *******
(They can bite his **** too)
And I got no ****in' brakes
I'm always way out of control
Eleven times a day I hear "Hey, watch it ****"
(You ****in' piece of ****)

(Piece of **** car)
I got piece of **** car
(He got a piece of **** car)
Diesel gas sucks my ****
(That ****in' pile of ****)
That pile of metal ****
(Never gets him very far)

Oh what the **** did I do
What the **** did I do
What the **** did I do
To get stuck with you
You're too wide for drive-thru
And you smell like the shoe
But I'm too broke to buy something new
Oh **** me

Well the engine likes to flood
The car always ****in' stalls
And the seat cushion's got a big rip
So a spring always pokes the ****
(Ouch, ouch, ouch)
Plus the door locks are busted
I gotta use a ****ing coat hanger
(What a pain in his ***)
And if a girlie sees my car
There's no chance I'll ever **** her
(He never ever gets ****)
Hey shut up
(Piece of **** car)
You piece of **** car

(You got a piece of **** car)
You piece of **** car
(Piece of **** car)
Bald ****in' tires
(You got a piece of **** car)
No rearview ****ing mirror
(Piece of **** car)
Seven different colors
(You got a piece of **** car)
****ing rag for a gas cap
(Piece of **** car)
Tailpipe makes the sparks fly everywhere
(You got a piece of **** car)
(Piece of **** car)
(You got a piece of **** car)
(Piece of **** car)
Oh the whole town thinks I'm a loser
(You got a piece of **** car)
Cabby give me a push
(Piece of **** car...)


In the radio edit, car sounds were played over the profanity. (I would LOVE to have that! It was funny as hell). I heard the uncut version and it really put me off... my 'version' of the censored lyrics (in my mind) were funnier (and in many cases, much more vulgar).

To each his own I guess.

 

A very effective way around the whole dilemma is to just say something like Luke swore vehamently or Jaina angrily cursed like a drunken pilot.

Granted sometimes dramatically that doesn't really work in a scene. I mean just remember "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" when Indy's caught in the middle of the hanging bridge and he's trapped, what does he say "Oh darn!" Methinks that was the understatement of the year

It's all a case of finding balance. Sometimes madeup curses work, sometimes they don't. If you worry that your cursing might be jolting to readers then it's probably better to just remove it entirely.

 

Using common in-universe curses works. Using the simple statement that the character cursed works. Using an Earth curse doesn't work.

Even if it didn't yank you out of the universe, it often is less effective. After all, profanity is the feeble attempt of a lazy mind to express itself forcefully.

 

I mean just remember "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" when Indy's caught in the middle of the hanging bridge and he's trapped, what does he say "Oh darn!"

You must have watched an edited version because on my copy he says, "Oh ****."

 

DB

Trust me, Stover's writing is anything but sloppy. He's one of the very best writers in the EU - which is why his selection to write the Episode III novelization is (IMHO) pure genius.

The crux of our disagreement, I think, is your phrase casual use of profanity - and my belief that when it is well done, the use of profanity is anything but casual.

I'll happily concede that much profanity in pop culture is gratuitous and unnecessary. But remove the profanity from a film like Pulp Fiction, and the story simply fails. Even better, the South Park movie - which is a brilliant satire of casual profanity. The book Shatterpoint is a graphic depiction of the horrors of war, and in my mind without question the most mature novel of any in the EU. For that reason profanity, as well as bloodshed and gore and death, are fully appropriate to the tale. This isn't the Jedi Council chamber - this is the worst side of war. Some people didn't like the book because they said it wasn't Star Wars (too realistic, I guess), and I respect that opinion. But given that we have that kind of tale, I think Stover made the right decision to include curses (like "frag!" and "kriff!"). And I think Earth curses would've been even more effective, not less, because the contrivance is distracting. There are plenty of Earth phrases in SW as it is - so there's no reason to go out of the way to contrive around them. Sometimes the Earth word is better and more powerful.

It's all about technique and craft, IMO. Well done profanity doesn't tear me out of the SW moment any more than well done sex scenes or well done R-rated violence, which aren't allowed here either. That's all.

 

I agree completely and totally with Darth_Lex. Hear, hear.

They've used many so-called "Earth" words in SW, but the fact of the matter is, almost every culture and society (including ones in a galaxy far, far away) will come up with ideas of "hell" and "damnation." So there's really no need to explain Han's remark in ANH since, we can assume, an idea of hell exists everywhere.

Now, of course, "***k" is an acronym which originated in the Middle Ages (how I know this, I cannot recall) which stands for something ending in "...king." And "****" is just poo. This certainly exists in SW.

I guess I'm just not fazed (phased?) by swearing. You can recognize when it's gratuitous and immature (someone quoted Adam Sandler before, and, as a whole, his style of comedy is very 13-year-old), and when it's used appropriately (Good Will Hunting, SW space battle, Pulp Fiction).

And, I agree with Lex especially on the point that the SW alternatives to swearing are more distracting (so much for willing suspension of disbelief!) than "Earth" swearing because they seem so obviously science-fictionized. Like using "wrist chronometer" instead of "watch". Just silly.

Daughter_Yubyub "After all, profanity is the feeble attempt of a lazy mind to express itself forcefully." I find this statement rather harsh. Many people, when in trouble, and no matter how refined and intelligent they may be, will probably use profanity. Can you imagine Obi-Wan, gentleman he may be, saying, "Oh my, what a quagmire!" when something terrible happens? Hmm.

 

first off, words like "wrist chronometer" and "refresher" are indeed really distracting. But the issue there is that they are replacing perfectly good, normal words that would work in their place- wristwatch and bathroom.

Swearwords are trickier. Part of the problem is that it can be difficult to come up with a good swear word, and most authors fail.

Kriff doesn't work because it ends in a fricative. You can't spit it.

Good replacement swears follow the pattern of existing swears: they start with a fricative or other soft sound (a noise that can be made without using your voicebox, like a long s, sh, f, th, h, etc) and end in a hard stop, generally also one that doesn't require voicing (such as hard T or K).

Think about most of the swearwords we use. you're only voicing one sound. They have to be words you can spit. Words you can yell. Even exceptions to this rule, such as hell, don't contain complicated sounds.

This is why Smeg never worked. You could trip over the G.

Sith Spit has always come across pretty well. mostly, I think, because you can hiss it.
Kriff isn't as good, because you're voicing several sounds, and it doesn't end in that hard stop that gives a word its power.

'By The Force' has honestly always sounded more than a little silly to me. It's like saying "By God." Most peope don't say 'By God' anymore, so the phraze is obtrusive enough to begin with. Throw in the fact that it's been lengthened and changed, and it just snaps you right out of the story.

 

Okay, maybe it was a little harsh, so I should probably explain why that comes so readily to mind for me.

I just finished high school in June. My school was located in a rather, erm, backwater area. Most of my classmates had a rather irritating tendency of using curse words as if they were commas. There were days where I almost wanted to throw a dictionary and scream "There are other words you know!"

Needless to say, this has left me rather annoyed with cursing, so it had better be used for a darn good reason, and sparingly so as not to be relegated to comma status.

 

I think that frequent use of profanity "devalues the currency." I rarely, rarely use truly harsh words. Consequently, when I do use them, my friends know that they need to tiptoe and speak very softly and that if they have any sense of self-preservation they'll get out of my way.

In fan fiction, the heavy-duty Earth profanity does pull me out of GFFA, particularly when it's spoken by Jedi. I think of them having either more self-restraint under pressure, or, at the very least, a far more sophisticated vocabulary. I think a line along the lines of "He swore long and creatively in several languages" works well. Or, (as in Indiana Jones and the bridge scene), it can be effective to underplay it by having the hero display a very different reaction:

Mace Windu rested his hand on the pommel of the now-useless lightsaber, surveying the army of Clonetroopers who were slowly closing in on him around all sides and trying not to wince at the foul breath of the gundarks, restrained at the end of their leashes. He could see the troopers at the back edging aside to make way for a tall, black cloaked figure.

"Well," he said, "this looks as if it's going to get interesting."

 

One of the few moments I was really bursting out into laughter while reading a StarWars Novel, was at the Black Fleet Crisis (I think it was that series), where C-3PO actually states that R2-D2 is heavily cursing and swearing, but no-one knew because it was just another language !

 

In my fiction, I restrict myself to the use of "hell" and "damn" (and variations thereof) as well as the various SW swear words such as "sithspit," "sith," and in rare moments of insanity, "blast."

My use of the less potent SW swear words is somewhat frequent (I don't know about the rest of you, but while I almost never curse, I do tend to say "darn" regularly.) However, I've used a grand total of three "Earth" swear words in my longest fic, which runs well over a hundred pages. Each time, they seemed necessary to me - sometimes you just have to express something that doesn't have words to describe it. IMHO, the phrases "What the heck" and "What the hell" just don't mean the same thing.

PadawanRoo has an interesting point concerning the vocalization of swear words. Now that I think about it, swear words are words you can just hiss or spit. When they get too long, they loose some of their value - they simply take to long to say.

"Hell" and "damn" don't bother me, but other words do. I can't say for certain why - just that they don't seem as natural. I think GuerreStellari has a point in saying that hell and damnation are universal themes that find their way even into SW and other fiction seemingly unrelated to Earth. As for SW's invented curses, they just don't seem anything more than, well, invented.

 

I think that Earth swear words come out more easily than anything made up, sith and sithspit and sith spawn all flow easily, but some like Kriff or well I can't think of any others just don't make much since. I find it much easier to use **** because it gives somebody the understanding of what's going on. Hell is a word that I use like duct tape, it's good for anything, I'm sure some of yall've seen Monty Python's skit about **** where he says its uses, a good swear word follows these, and many of the GFFA's words just don't work. It's like trying to force something out of your mouth, you should be able to spit it, and when I can't actually post the words I use I'll say something like "He spent the next minute going through his vocabulary of swear words until he found that'd he'd repeated himself twice already." And when faced with a stressful situation people are naturally going to be more liberal when they swear. Which is why you have the stereo-type of soldiers swearing. And I find that the flow of the story is more interupted with GFFA curses than Earth curses.

 

I didn't know that saying the word "bang" was truly profane. Most of the time stuff like that sounds like immature teenage euphamisms. LOL! Bang her. Hehe.

Anyway, I guess the only reason why I have occasional profanity (which is always in-universe or made-up profanity) is because I like writing about seedier, less-respectful characters. I don't usually like to write about good jedi heroes. I write anti-heroes or villains, and they swear. It's just as simple as that.

Jae Angel

 

In the films, "Blast!" seems to be the profanity of choice. Obi-Wan uses it in AOTC when being pursued through the asteroids by Jango and Luke uses it in ANH when he can't find Artoo.


Now using casual profanity in dialogue can be a way to demonstrate that a character is crude, but it should still be done in a way that fits in with the Star Wars "culture."

Here on Earth, words that are considered profane in one region sometimes aren't in others. Consider that the US, Britain and Australia all supposedly speak the same language, but although there is commonality to our swear words, there are just as many that are considered to be swear words in one country that won't even raise an eyebrow in another.


Extrapolating from this, it makes little sense for a galaxy far, far away to share our swear words.

 

I don't think that those words can enhance my story. It just brings emotion, and modern into it. It also makes it "my story". I use the language, and its me. -Oh Madonna!- Sorry. I'm watching the grammys.- Putting bad words into my fanfic doesn't make it dirty and bad. It makes it modern and more in this century. My stories are art. Thats what I make them.

 

DOYY: Most of my classmates had a rather irritating tendency of using curse words as if they were commas.
That sounds like people at my school. I mean.. not to say I don't swear because then I'd be lying, but people just use it when it is completely unnessasery. Like this one girl (who i hate) said '**** I dropped a nickel'... now really, what is the point in that? It was completely ignorant of her to do that during lunch, in front of a ton of other people... everybody except me seemed to take it in stride though. (which really made me think, 'wow, society has really degenerated' I felt like she had ruined my day... it was totally rude and I told her that... her answer was some more swear words and then I went on to tell her what was on my mind... it was actually quite funny and now she refrains from using **** as a commen adjective. So swearing in fics sometimes turns me off the fic... it just really depends on the context of the word. Like 'sithspit', 'sithspawn', and other things they don't bother me but using some earth words (i'm ok with the occastional damn it and hell [i even use that in my writing] but really, if it's overused it really gets annoying)(ie: ****, and other ways of describing sex) just upsets me.

 

Let's talk about swear words of choice in SW. Clearly, 'blast' is one (Luke in ANH, Obi-Wan in AotC). That's an earth expression, but it works. Likewise, Obi-Wan saying 'What in the blazes' in AotC probably comes out better than 'What in the hell'. But personally, I think that's more a character thing.

It's been proven in the SW films that words like 'hell' and 'damn' are undenyably SW Canon. Examples:

Then I'll see you in hell!

They'll be hell to pay.

What the hell are you doing?

Damn fool, I knew you were going to say that!

Afraid you might follow old Obi-Wan on some damned-fool idealistic crusade


I have no problem with those swears being used, but appropriately. But it's really silly, I think, to get all riled up when you hear those words in SW lit and think 'what?! This is the GFFA! They wouldn't say that!' Oh really? I bet they wouldn't speak English, either. Oh, sorry, Basic.

I personally don't swear really and only think it's really needed under certain circumstances. I think people who swear when they don't really need to are being uncreative and base. But the important thing in fic writing is, as always, is it in character? Characters like Han are clearly more likely to use swears. I approve of hell and damn for those situations because they are in the films and I'm used to hearing them in SW context. I don't think words like the s or f word would fit though. It just would seem wrong.

In conclusion, my favourite SW swear is sith, because you can hiss it, spit it, and it clearly has a negative connotation.

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

They wouldn't say that!' Oh really? I bet they wouldn't speak English, either. Oh, sorry, Basic.

exactly. I was waiting for someone to point this out. It's funny how in a GFFA they come up with the same EXACT dilect, they call it basic, and we call it English, well it's the same now I know that no one would want to sit through the star wars movies in Huttese, or maybe even the dialect of the Geonosians(well some of us might ), but it is a good point. They do speak the same language as us, and you can't neglect that.

As far as swearing in books and fan fics goes, I also have been thinking about this, becuase it seems that I can get the theme of war etc.. across in my writing, but then in the heat of battle, the best thing I have for someone in severe pain or trauma is blast or sithspawn etc...I personally swear rarely but I think if I were in a galactic battle I would curse like a sailor. So I still am not totally sure what to do, or what should be the common procedure, but when I read a book and it says "so and so cursed harshly" or something to that effect, I honestly imagine them saying the F word, or the S word. I just like imagining the star wars universe not as a kids fairy tale but as real life.

Forcebewitya!

 

this is my first post here. hi.
personally i have no compunction about using swear words in my writing, though i generally restrict it to dialogue. in sci-fi or fantasy settings it sounds wrong to me, though(except maybe cyberpunk). made up swears sometimes sound awkward, but they don't bug me as much as Earth swears. maybe it just seems out of context.

this thread reminds me of my favorite part from Tales From the Cantina:
(it's the Devaronian describing his own name)

"Labria" is an extremely dirty word in my native tongue. It translates, basically, as "cold food," though the Basic phrase loses the flavor of it.
By my horns, i don't understand humans. I've lived around them close to two decades now. The things they swear by! Sex, excrement, and religion.
I'll never understand them.

 

Hmmm. I think that a lot of our arguments come from our own personal take on profanity on Earth, not just whether it's appropriate in Star Wars. As Jaina_and_Jag mentioned, it seems that she--whether within the Star Wars universe or no--just doesn't dig swearing and thus gets ticked off (lol, I was about to say something else ) when she sees it in fics (or in school, for that matter).

Well, that's fine, and I think that's also why I don't really care if Obi-Wan lets an "Oh ****!" slip (I would find it, dare I say, rather sexy. As the roaming gnome would say! ). Because profanity in the real world has never really bothered me. To me, they're just words and people should understand when and when not to say them. (Though, as a side note, my boss used "****" the other day and I was all aflutter!)

Now, to get on my little podium, I'd say violence in the media is what "degenerates" our society. I've never understood why sexual topics and profanity are considered such huge no-no's, while gratuitous violence is considered OK. No, no, no! We've got it all mixed up!

But I don't want to go into it here, so I'll step off my podium.