McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Some possibly useful food for thought...
The Deposed King:
--- Quote from: Shecky on July 23, 2012, 02:54:58 AM ---That's Chuck's schtick, the faux rudeness and the crudeness. Those are tools he uses to punch through and get some people's attention. Doesn't work for everyone, but it works for some, which is a good thing in the end.
--- End quote ---
So long as it works, and in this case I think it does.
Personally, and maybe this is from my attempt to write a PG/PG13 book, I think you can use alternate words like. If you are getting so frustrated you want to take a two-by-four and pound someones melon like head until juices start coming out..., or you can go straight to Hades if that's your path but I suggest. Or sweet crying...
I agree the F-bombs and H's can get through to some that can't be reached otherwise. But if you are a word smith.... Like with my Amazon E-book helper post. You can hold them by the jacket and kick them in the pants at the appropriate moments until they get motivated, without necessarily crawling into the verbal gutter and rolling around.
That said, perhaps I am creating a mountain=molehill situation. Since I honestly wasn't offended or upset or anything by what I read, which from looking at my response so far I can see how I might come across as. Let me just finish by saying, I hope his post helped some people. It takes all types and all types of messages and communication formats.
If even one prospective author was helped and winds up putting out a book I will read and enjoy then his work is worthy and should be out there.
Just come on man, your a word smith, so smith some alternates language already! Show us some of those skills!
The Deposed King
Shecky:
--- Quote from: The Deposed King on July 23, 2012, 09:03:27 AM ---So long as it works, and in this case I think it does.
Personally, and maybe this is from my attempt to write a PG/PG13 book, I think you can use alternate words like. If you are getting so frustrated you want to take a two-by-four and pound someones melon like head until juices start coming out..., or you can go straight to Hades if that's your path but I suggest. Or sweet crying...
I agree the F-bombs and H's can get through to some that can't be reached otherwise. But if you are a word smith.... Like with my Amazon E-book helper post. You can hold them by the jacket and kick them in the pants at the appropriate moments until they get motivated, without necessarily crawling into the verbal gutter and rolling around.
That said, perhaps I am creating a mountain=molehill situation. Since I honestly wasn't offended or upset or anything by what I read, which from looking at my response so far I can see how I might come across as. Let me just finish by saying, I hope his post helped some people. It takes all types and all types of messages and communication formats.
If even one prospective author was helped and winds up putting out a book I will read and enjoy then his work is worthy and should be out there.
Just come on man, your a word smith, so smith some alternates language already! Show us some of those skills!
The Deposed King
--- End quote ---
The "keep it clean" stuff is a purely artificial stricture, one that actually limits a writer unnecessarily if they're targeting the audience who wouldn't be fauxffended by that language anyway. I've read Chuck's writing, and there's a verisimilitude in it that is vastly different from that of writers who force themselves to stay away from the blue.
In some ways, writing blue is even more difficult, as the basic vocabulary pool is actually kind of limited (if you're sticking to the blue as much as possible, that is). It takes a skilled writer to find precisely the right blue phrasing every time.
In the end, one thing I've seen from Chuck is that you find your own balance between audience and writing what you want to write. He's found his, and it works: much of his audience has commented on social media that his vocabulary is very un-limiting and visceral.
Aminar:
I have the hardest time coming up with alternatives to explatives given that generally speaking my characters only swear when frustrated. Thus the curses should be short and sharp. I could mack up words. Say Krug or things like that, but it feels childish. I could make up phrases like Robert Jordan. Blood and Bloody Ashes is great, but I lack the ability to find things that work. Especially seeing ninety percent of swearwords are about things from below the waist or from a god. I tend to mix those. By Peroxial's (god from my world's) nethers is always fun, but the context is gone half the time.
As for the article. Good advice given very very colorfully.
The Deposed King:
--- Quote from: Aminar on July 23, 2012, 02:27:31 PM ---I have the hardest time coming up with alternatives to explatives given that generally speaking my characters only swear when frustrated. Thus the curses should be short and sharp. I could mack up words. Say Krug or things like that, but it feels childish. I could make up phrases like Robert Jordan. Blood and Bloody Ashes is great, but I lack the ability to find things that work. Especially seeing ninety percent of swearwords are about things from below the waist or from a god. I tend to mix those. By Peroxial's (god from my world's) nethers is always fun, but the context is gone half the time.
As for the article. Good advice given very very colorfully.
--- End quote ---
Huh I never really had a problem with that. For instance in my book. I took the Greek version of Hell. Hades and when it fit into a sentance that could use that instead of hell. I made Murphy and Murphy's Laws into a Saint Murphy and promptly started taking his name in vain. Sweet Crying Murphy, What the Murphy to you think your doing, In Murphy's name, alternatively Murphy was a demon, kind of like some of those two sided gods. Demon Murphy but you've done it now, etc.
Battestar used the word Speck. Farscape used Frell.
The Deposed King
Quantus:
--- Quote from: Aminar on July 23, 2012, 02:27:31 PM ---I have the hardest time coming up with alternatives to explatives given that generally speaking my characters only swear when frustrated. Thus the curses should be short and sharp. I could mack up words. Say Krug or things like that, but it feels childish. I could make up phrases like Robert Jordan. Blood and Bloody Ashes is great, but I lack the ability to find things that work. Especially seeing ninety percent of swearwords are about things from below the waist or from a god. I tend to mix those. By Peroxial's (god from my world's) nethers is always fun, but the context is gone half the time.
As for the article. Good advice given very very colorfully.
--- End quote ---
The best advice I can think of is to juxtapose two wildly opposite things, like something mythically awesome and hopelessly mundane.
Something like: "How in the name of Zeus's Butthole-" Nick Cage, The Rock. The best one I think Ive come up with personally was "Christ on a stick!" because it is both literally true by the crucifixion, but also conjures a more "corndog" image than you usually see with religion.
Another interesting example was the Dragonrders of Pern books, which didnt have much in the way of religion, so they pulled from teh distant history that was on its way to becoming myth. They'd say "By the shell of the First Egg" or similar (a reference to the genetic creation of dragons as protectors from a unique and repetitive natural disaster), but often just shorten it to "Shells"
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