Editing continues to make me want to pull my hair out. Today I ran into an issue.
Foul language ahoy! Or ahead, which is rather more accurate.
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The book I’m editing is in Taro’s POV, and Taro swears. A lot. It’s the way he is. He enjoys it, he’s good at it, and hey–if it makes people underestimate his intelligence, all the better. At least he’s not one of those people who swears every other word, right? †
In Knight Errant, Taro was sixteen. I worried about alienating readers with too many f-bombs, so I had him toning it down to keep his niece from copying him and getting in trouble. In His Faithful Squire, Rafe didn’t report Taro’s actual swear words, for the most part.
In this book, I haven’t employed any mitigating factors. I don’t need to–Taro is twenty now, a bit more grown up and not *quite* so full of invective. But he does still swear. And suddenly, most of the way through this editing pass, I’ve realized–there’s a term I’m learning to cut out in real life, and Taro uses it.
You’ve probably guessed from the title of this post that the word is bitch.
Now, I’m a novelist, not a preacher. So my characters don’t necessarily hold my beliefs. I wouldn’t censor Taro because I’m a feminist–no, I have to make changes because he is a feminist. If you had his sister, you would be too!
Seriously, that’s Eve’s Marine nickname. She is the Bitch. Taro wouldn’t call someone he disliked, someone he thought stupid or whiny or dishonest, that name.
Well, yeah, okay. Makes sense to me. I went back to take it out.
Ever need the help of a thesaurus, a dictionary, and several friends to find the right word? I had a hell of a time taking that word out. No other word worked as well, was vehement enough.
I’m a feminist, but I’m also an equal-opportunity swearer. I’m not cutting bitch out of my personal vocabulary because I think I shouldn’t swear at women. No, I’m cutting it out because in my mind, it’s so much worse a thing to call someone than bastard, jackass, prick, asshole, dick. In my mind, we have to go into multiples to get as nasty as a good solid heartfelt bitch. We might have to go to fucking prick, or you monstrous ass. Or I could take the reflexive but effective route of you son of a bitch!
Oh hey. There’s that word again.
So now I’m trying to let Taro swear, vehemently and without censoring, but in ways that he would. And the words just don’t seem strong enough to me. Because in my mind, raised in this society? The worst thing you can call a man or a woman–is some form of bad woman.
That sucks, in my opinion.
† I crossed paths with one of those people the other day. He was on his phone and I honestly wondered how much of his conversation the other person was catching. My brain was skipping the swear words as irrelevant, but I kept not catching relevant words because of it.
It really does suck. I’ve never been much of a cusser myself, but even trying to train my brain out of the concept of female insults being inherently “worse” is HARD. I’ve gotten pretty fond of “dick” as an insult, but you’re right, it’s not quite as intense as a serious cusser like Taro would require…
When people drive by blasting the bass so my house shakes, I usually respond with “sorry about the size of your dick.” I like that one, but it’s not vehement at all. I need something stronger sometimes.
Yeah. (I remember now that I chose ‘dick’ to replace ‘bastard’ because it’s ridiculous that even swearwords directed more at males involve degrading a female behind said male.)
I used to swear a lot. Now, a f-bomb or ‘son of a bitch’ comes out of my mouth, though most of the time I say ‘son of a biscuit’, but that’s it. Writing characters who swear is a lot of fun (not) because I have to balance what they’re saying against their personality and the society they live in. It’s doubly fun (not) when I have to create swear words because of the fact that the society is so different from ours that the current swear words are gone. Good luck with Taro!
Not to mention it’s difficult to find swear words that will mean something to the reader. Some just come off as silly. When I think of some that aren’t so silly–I think of Nynaeve scolding Mat Cauthon for swearing. After she rounded on him a couple times, I read those words as actual swears.