I'll be the first to admit that some of my characters have potty mouths. I know that many readers don't always appreciate vulgar bombs in their writing. To me, as long as it fits the characters, I don't mind. Many people swear in real life; some even swear a bit too much.
Rae, my heroine in my urban SciFi novel Blue Maneuver, could make a sailor blush. She knows it. I knew it going in. But she's trying to change so she decided to have a swear charge. Every time she lets one rip, she pays the jar a quarter per forbidden word she utters (She's unemployed so that's all she can afford). Note the emphasis on utters? That's because, while she only occasionally slips verbally; mentally is another story.
And while a quarter per word may not seem like much, she's amassed over fifty dollars in the last month.
I told you she is quite fluent at it:-)
She had planned to buy a flatscreen TV with the proceeds. After all, shouldn't a change for the better be rewarded? Before being drafted as a coordinator for aliens on Earth, she worried that she might have to dip into the jar to buy food. Now she's worried that she might have to take from it to feed the technology inside her (but that's a story for another day)
While writing Blue Maneuver, I decided Rae wouldn't curse (much--after all, she's only human) and if I wrote 'she cursed under her breath' money needed to be added to the jar. So how did I let the reader know that she was upset in a few, somewhat pithy words?
Rae invented her own curses. Her favorites are crap on a cracker and son of a monkey's butt. I didn't use my all-time favorite: Got dandruff; some of it itches (say if fast and you'll get it). But I think it's pretty clear what words she substituting for, isn't it?
So if you had to give up swearing what phrase would you substitute? Those who leave a comment will be entered into a drawing for a free electronic copy of Blue Maneuver.
Linda Andrews
http://www.lindaandrews.net
http://lindaandrews.wordpress.com
Blurb:
The extraterrestrials have landed and they're human.
Rae Hemplewhite didn't believe in aliens until a close encounter with out-of-this-world technology drags her into the extraterrestrial security program. Helping alien refugees adjust to life on Earth is difficult enough, but her first clients have a price on their heads. Plus, her new partner seems torn between the urge to kiss her or kill her.
And that's the good news.
The bad news: Alliances are forming in deep space. If Rae doesn't keep her witnesses alive long enough to transfer their top secret information to the right faction of humanity, Earth will become a battlefield.
About Linda:
Linda Andrews lives in Phoenix, Arizona with her husband, three
children and a menagerie of domesticated animals. While she started
writing a decade ago, she always used her stories to escape the redundancy
of her day job as a scientist and never thought to actually combine her
love of fiction and science. DOH! After that Homer Simpson moment, she
allowed the two halves of her brain to talk to each other. The journeys
she's embarked on since then are dark, twisted and occasionally violent,
but never predictable
Blue Maneuver is now available:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Smashwords
Next on my blog tour, on Wednesday, I'll be talking about the big 'What if' question with Lynda Hilburn on Paranormality and I'm talking about the budding romance between Rae and the two men in her life (who are on opposite sides) on Tracy Sumner's blog on Friday.
