Cussing in YA Novels

A guest vlog for Katie at Books are Dreams, http://booksaredreams.blogspot.com/

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• MVI
• 2055

[heyyydaniel]

I totally agree with you. But like we had a book club at school and we read Looking For Alaska, and the teachers were appalled by the amount of swear words in there. But that's just the way the characters were and that's how they spoke.

[gerbstoy]

I remember years ago hearing David Morrell speak on the use of swear words in his writing. He said they lose their impact if overused so he only uses strong language when absolutely necessary. That's always stuck with me. I think some characters - even in YA - would honestly use strong language (such as Alex Fuentes in Perfect Chemistry, who is a gang member) so substituting anything else wouldn't be honest. I guess in that case, it would come down to not overusing it (but how much is overuse?)

[beyondelsewhere]

Melissa, do you just sit around in your apartment every day wearing fancy dresses? Because you are always fancy in your videos! ;)

I only notice cursing if it's over-used. If it's not over-used I generally don't even realize I'm reading it.