Category Archives: My opinions on writing

Profanity in Fiction: When It Helps and When It Hurts

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Profanity is one of those tools writers either lean on too hard or avoid like it’s radioactive. But swear words aren’t automatically “bad writing” or “edgy writing.” They’re just words and like any other words, they need to earn their place on the page.

If you’re deciding whether to drop an f-bomb (or like in some of my stories, fifty), here’s some guidelines I go by:

Every word should serve character or plot

A useful gut-check: what does this profanity do?

  • Does it reveal a character’s temperament, background, stress level, or worldview?
  • Does it intensify a moment that matters to the plot?
  • Does it sharpen the rhythm of dialogue in a way that fits the scene?

If the answer is “it just sounds cool” or “it makes this feel more adult,” it’s probably filler. Profanity is strongest when it functions as characterization.

Try this: Remove the swear word. If the line loses meaning, tone, or character truth, you may need it. If nothing changes, omit it.

Profanity comes with a real risk of offending some readers

I do think this is less of an issue than it was say fifty years ago, but it is something to keep in mind.The key is to choose intentionally and ask yourself:

  • Who is my target audience for this story?
  • What’s the tone I’m going for here (cozy mystery vs. grim thriller, for example)?
  • Am I okay with losing some readers because of this?

One thing profanity is good at is a quick way to signal genre and voice. It can also break immersion for readers who don’t like it.

Profanity should be true to the character, not the author

The best profanity usually feels inevitable. In other words the character couldn’t have said anything else.

A few examples of true to character uses:

  • A character swears when they’re scared, cornered, or losing control.
  • A character uses profanity casually because it’s part of their everyday speech.
  • A character never swears… until the moment it finally slips, and that tells us something about what is going on.

On the flip side, try to avoid:

  • A character who suddenly starts cursing because the author wants the scene to feel “more intense.”
  • Everyone in the cast swears in the same way (same words, same rhythm), which usually makes it feel like it’s the writer’s voice coming out of all of them.

Can you identify who’s speaking if you remove the dialogue tags? If swearing makes the voices blur together, then it’s really not adding anything of value.

Profanity should also be thought of as a natural byproduct of:

  • real emotion
  • real conflict
  • real character choices

If the scene is already powerful, profanity can add some heat, but if the scene isn’t working to begin with, adding profanity won’t fix it.

The one F-word check. I see this in stories a lot more than you would expect; a story has little to no swearing then, out of nowhere, a character drops the F-bomb.

If you use the F word only once in the entire story, ask yourself whether you really need it. There are two reasons I can think of why, as Ralphie would say, the Queen mother of dirty words would only appear once:

  1. It’s true to the situation.
    Maybe it lands at the exact right emotional peak, and the rarity makes it hit harder. Sure go ahead and keep it it in.
  2. Shock value.
    If the profanity exists mainly to jolt the reader, it can feel cheap and manipulative. Readers can can tell when the author is yanking at the steering wheel. It reminds me of a creative writing teacher I had who would always talk about the author “Showing their hand.” His point was that only in rare cases is that a good thing.

Before you submit, ask these questions:

  • Does this word reveal character or move the plot?
  • Would this character really say it, right here, right now?
  • Is it doing more than just trying to sound edgy?
  • Am I okay with the readers I might lose?
  • If this is my only F word, is it really needed?

If you can answer “yes” to those, you’re using language with intent.

The goal is to write in a way that is true to the characters and true to the story. Remember a great way to to test is by taking out the “bad words” to see how it affects the story. If, after that you still can’t decide… well, sometimes you just have to say “Fuck it.”

-James

Why Writing with AI Can Undermine Your Creative Growth

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I thought I would take a moment to comment on the use of AI to write fiction. My position on it is that if you are using AI to write fiction, you are cheating yourself.

You also miss out on the opportunity to learn. Like many things, writing is about the journey rather than the destination. *

 There is an in-the-moment cognitive side to writing, but there is also a muscle-memory subconscious side to it as well. As any writer can attest, when you are in the groove, or flow state it is sometimes called, you get to a point of uncertainty as to where the ideas are actually coming from. It can feel like there is place almost outside of yourself that you draw upon like a medium, allowing the words to funnel through you and onto paper. You get to the end of the tale and realize the story took on a life of its own; independent, and separate from your initial intended direction.

I do find AI to be a good educational tool when it comes to writing. For example, I noticed a lot of stories in Analog are in present tense. I don’t write in present tense very often (or very well), so I prompted ChatGPT with “Write a short fiction story in present tense” to see an example:

Title: The Elevator Stops at Floor Six

The elevator jerks to a halt.

I frown at the glowing button panel. No one pressed six. I’m alone, briefcase in hand, already late for the pitch meeting on twenty-one. The doors part with a reluctant sigh.

The hallway beyond is dark.

Not pitch-black, just… dim, like the building forgot to pay full attention here. The lights flicker weakly overhead, casting yellow puddles on the faded green carpet. It smells faintly of dust and something sharper—ozone, maybe. Like after a thunderstorm.

I shouldn’t step out. I don’t want to. But something tugs at me. Curiosity, or maybe the sense that I’ve been here before, in a dream I forgot to remember.

I cross the threshold.

The doors close behind me with a metallic whisper. I turn, startled, but there’s no button, no panel—just blank wall where the elevator once stood.

The hallway stretches in both directions. Silent. Still.

I pick a direction.

The silence isn’t empty. It hums. The way an old CRT TV would hum, just on the edge of hearing. And there’s something else—a soft sound, like paper rustling. I follow it.

At the end of the corridor is a door. Pale wood, unmarked, slightly ajar.

Inside is a room with no windows and a long table surrounded by mismatched chairs. A single incandescent bulb dangles from the ceiling. On the table: a stack of manila folders. Each one has a name written in marker on the front.

Mine is on top.

I don’t want to touch it, but I do. I open it.

Inside are photos—of me. Some are recent. Others are from years ago, moments I barely remember: my eighth birthday, the night I broke my arm in college, the exact second I decided not to call my father back.

I flip deeper.

There are transcripts. Conversations I’ve had, thoughts I haven’t spoken. One page reads: He steps into the hallway, knowing he shouldn’t.

My breath catches.

I look up.

There’s someone in the chair at the far end of the table. I didn’t see him come in. He’s wearing a suit that doesn’t fit quite right and has a face that feels like it’s borrowed—familiar, but wrong. He smiles gently.

“You’re early,” he says.

“For what?”

He opens a folder of his own.

“For your reassignment.”

I stare. “I don’t work here.”

“You didn’t,” he says. “But you came to floor six.”

He gestures around the room. The walls are pulsing slightly, like they’re breathing. The air smells like memory.

“This building is a little miswired,” he continues. “Sometimes people press twenty-one and end up here.”

“What is this place?”

“A sorting room,” he says simply. “Some floors are about destinations. This one’s about decisions.”

I back toward the door. It’s no longer there.

“You can go back,” he says. “But you won’t be the same. That’s the price of seeing this place.”

“What’s the other option?”

He taps my file. “Stay. Help sort.”

I look down at the folder still in my hands. My photo stares up, mid-blink. I can’t tell if it’s asking or warning.

Behind me, the hum grows louder. The lights flicker once, then steady.

I pull out the chair beside him and sit.

Ok, that’s not too shabby. Maybe not the best short fiction I’ve ever read, but it did what I asked and gave a me respectable short fiction story in present tense.

Will I ever be tempted to submit this and feel like I was in any way the one who “created” it, just because I came up with the promp? No. Absolutely not. That is crossing my moral boundary and firmly against the rules of most markets.

(And yes, I do see the irony of publishing it on this blog, even as an example.)

Do I think AI will get even better in the future? Yes, absolutely it will.

AI will be able to emulate other writers and may even come to have a voice of its own (which is a weird and unsettling thought for me) but my voice is unique as well, and it is really up to me to put in the time and effort to build my body of work so I can be heard.

And I also think there is something cathartic about expressing ideas in your own distinct voice.

So until AI pries the keyboard from my cold dead hands, I will continue to write. I do it for the journey, for my own mental health, and just in case someone out there might read it and think, “Hey, I like what this guy has to say.”

-James

* I fully acknowledge this must sound like a bit of double-talk coming from a place with a tag line that reads: “All about getting published,”