It’s been a while again, but we’ve been traveling.
Dialogue #4
I skipped over using profanity, but now I’d like to address that subject in dialogue. If you are a Christian fiction writer, at one time or another you will have to face what to do about anger and how it is expressed. If your character is not a Christian, should he/she be allowed to use swearwords? Do the swear words enhance the bad character? My answer to that is no, not at any time.
Your writing is a reflection of your character more than your protagonist or villain. If you claim Christ and your life is changed by your belief in Him, then you cannot take His name in vain. Some writers resort to “minced oaths” or a derivative of the real words; unfortunately, “Gosh darn” means the same as G– D–m. I won’t name them all, but go online and look up “minced oaths” to see what you come up with. You may be surprised!
Sooo, what words do you use? In contemporary stories, you can say, “He/she swore”; in my Biblical Fiction, I use the words, he swore, or sometimes, he cursed, but the scene needs to be set up to show why he/she cursed. We know what swearing and cursing are and don’t need to spell it out to impress our readers. They understand.
When you are tempted to throw in a swear word or two, stop and think of how you might be able to show your character’s anger by his/her gestures, stance, actions, and leave out the four-letter words. 🙂
