Warning: This post contains strong language

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About a month ago I released Infernal Revelation, the first season of a supernatural thriller YA serial. It’s my first serial, it’s my first Young Adult targeted work. I’m bound to make mistakes.

Profanity and YA fiction

One of these mistakes, so I’m told, is the inclusion of strong language. Many readers of YA fiction don’t like characters cursing. My protagonists, teenagers all, say things like ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’. Some of them say it a lot.

I absolutely respect opinions that such language is crass and unpleasant. You’ve your right not to like it, and I’d never try to argue you out of that.

But that’s how we talked, when we were young. Not because it was “cool” to swear, but just because curse words were part of our vocabulary. Kids say shit. They say fuck. And dick and cunt and every other four letter profanity, and one of my goals for Infernal Revelation, despite the fantastic subject matter, was to reflect the reality of being an outsider teen. That includes linguistic patterns.

And when you’re a kid, man, sometimes shit’s fucked.

Sometimes Shit’s Fucked

Understand that I am not anti-puritanical, even though it’s not my way. Children don’t live in a sanitized world, and there are a lot of problems we need to tackle before “rampant profanity” even shows up on their radar. Racism, sexism, homophobia, wealth disparity, environmental destruction, women’s rights…

Studies have shown that profanity serves a useful social linguistic purpose in pain relief. Many of the things that torment us aren’t the kind of aches that an asprin can heal. Depression, frustration, exclusion, grief, isolation, helplessness… children face real social ills, both within their own microcosms and as part of society as a whole. Their problems are real, and if you can’t fix them, you can’t protect them, at least stop denying them their built in linguistic defenses against a world they cannot control.

Fuckin’ Veritas

But that’s not why Infernal Revelation contains profanity. That’s just how kids talk. And I will absolutely respect that you don’t like it, if you’ll respect my desire to reflect their reality.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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