At the most recent
meeting of the Sagebrush Writer’s Guild, one of the members, Laura Kostad, read
the first three pages of her new project, The Highland Carbonado Golf Club Employee Handbook. Her use of some mild curse words in a
couple of places raised some eyebrows and produced some comments from some of the
reviewers. As a guild, we rather live by the suggestion to minimize cursing (and sex and violence for that
matter.) Comments were inevitable. Part of my personal opinion is that well
developed stories can include just about any wording that enhances the mental
movie. I also believe that any story that depends on overuse of sex, violence,
or cursing to sell the story must be a pretty weak story.
On the other hand, I write
nuclear thrillers. I depend on violent bad guys and, in some cases, violent
good guys to add validity to my stories. It’s hard to have rogue militiamen
steal nuclear weapons from an U.S. Army base without a measure of violence to
seal the characters. Because of my genre, I almost never use sex scenes in my
books. It’s just too difficult to work a sex scene into the covert theft of
nuclear weapons secrets from a national laboratory. Cursing doesn’t fit either.
Most of my perps (foreign and domestic) are well educated, culturally
sophisticated, and working to display an artificial persona in order to ‘fit’
into American culture. Most of them are also not adept enough in American
idioms to risk a mistake, to risk being noticed
Kostad’s character was,
however, unique. The character was educated, part way through college. She was
accomplished, a full scholarship ROTC cadet and national science fair finalist.
Best of all, the character was strong, willing to work to complete her education
on her own terms. To me, the characterization worked. As for the cursing, if a
college co-ed didn’t curse before joining an ROTC program and spending weekends
and summers in a military situation, she had to get comfortable with cursing quickly
to survive. The same logic seemed to fit the potential new job, being a caddy
at a golf country club. Again, if she didn’t curse back, the male dominated
caddy shack crew would eat her alive.
I appreciated Kostad’s
restraint in limiting the amount of cursing. She could have fallen into the
trap of inserting too much colorful language in an attempt to demonstrate her
character’s grit. She added just the
right amount to subtly make her point. Kostad also showed a mature writing
ability in her implication of
nervousness and of the underlying presence
of threat and intimidation. She never said these things in her story, but as a
reader, I felt them. This was the first time that I sat in on a review of a
Laura Kostad submission. I was impressed with Kostad and her writing ability. I
predict that we will hear a more from Laura Kostad and her books in the future.
I want to know what happens next to the newest caddy at the Highland Carbonado
Golf Club.
So, back to the original
comments about the appropriateness of cursing in the writing arts? If it’s
appropriate to make a subtle point and complete a character, I say it’s okay. I
guess we’ll have to continue to read Laura Kostad’s books to see if she
continues to use cursing with such skill.
Jeff
Bailey’s latest release: The
Defect. Future
releases by Jeff Bailey include I’m
a Marine, The
Chilcoat Project, and Wine
Country.
Welcome To My World
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