Curses Again

Last evening at our bimonthly writers meeting at the Mt. Pleasant Library, we were introduced to the new head Librarian. His name is Charlie Quinn. He appeared very polite, affable, and knowledgeable. The leader of our group, Fred Adams teaches some aspect of writing at the beginning of each session. The topic for last evening’s meeting was the differences between curses, obscene words, words or phrases that might be substituted, and profanity He spoke about their uses, and why a writer may choose to use or not to use them. He shared some of the authors who chose to use them and those who carefully avoided them.

Some authors use the flagrantly offensive words for shock value and scatter them in their work to seemingly offend the reader. Some writers use language to portray and shape the characters of their books, perhaps in juxtaposition; good versus evil persons. Occasionally, an off color word used properly can enhance a character and an ill placed curse can destroy the character and ruin the reader’s enjoyment of what has been written.

Fred shared some examples of extended phrases that were curses as Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation or Shakespeare in King Lear making a lengthy rant fill all of passion of an anger filled expression frustration or anger.

I write about criminals in my Tommy Two Shoes series, and do use an occasional off color word, because they are words that criminals are expected to use. But I do not use the F-bomb and only use words that have been used in the Bible. In my next series of stories, I have managed so far to limit the criminal element and their speaking parts, thus eliminating the need for any profane language.

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I just found out about and submitted a few stories to another blog that is done much like a magazine. It is being handled by Al Sandusky. He shares stories and happenings around the Connellsville area. He tells me that he likes my scribbling and will be using some of them in his next posting.