500 Words About the F-Word

I’m the kind of guy who has to edit as he writes.  Can’t help it.  I suppose there’s a little dash of OCD in me.  Especially spelling errors.  I have to fix them before I continue typing.  I’ll even backspace over an entire sentence and retype it all just to repair a single spelling error.  This means I often look at the screen and keep an eye out for underlined words and phrases which MS Word has deemed worthy of review.  I keep a close eye on these little Word flags because of my slight OCD for spelling and grammatical errors.

So yesterday, I was typing along and came across one of those instances when Word tapped me on the eyeball and said, “Hey, Big Steve, check out this phrase you recently typed.  It may be offensive to some audiences.  You might wanna look at it and decide if it is appropriate…maybe use different wording.”  This particular phrase it was flagging had a certain F-word in it which is indeed offensive to many people.  Some members of polite society would call it vulgar; some would say it’s shocking. 

Now, I’m not so strict as to entirely disallow these little Word flags in my first drafts.  Right now, it has “have to,” “wanna,” and “particular phrase” flagged…I’m okay with these.  I know what the issue is with these words and I’m allowing them because this is how I want my prose to sound.  And I also left the F-word flagged in my WIP because it was in a line of dialogue and it could not be substituted for a less offensive word.

For a little context, the dialogue is from my main character who is a devout Baptist, a deacon of his church, someone who almost never cusses, and a father who has just found out his son is gay and moving in with his boyfriend.  I need this guy to show extreme anger.  And if my audience is uncomfortable with the F-word, good!  Perfect!  Get upset!  Get pissed!  I want you to be upset about this character at this moment.  This character’s son is upset, and you should be, too.  Although you really shouldn’t be upset about the F-word which has lost a lot of its power over the last couple of decades due to overuse, you should be upset about the situation. 

Sometimes I see writers post in writers’ groups asking whether they should tone down their manuscripts for certain groups who might be sensitive to certain subjects.  Fuck no!  Grab your audience by their recently transitioned testes and twist until they have no choice but to listen to what you have to tell them!  Your words need to evoke an emotion or they are not worth the digital paper they are printed on!  Don’t get me wrong, you don’t need to use profanity to evoke an emotion, especially in our social media society where profanity runs rampant.  My point is don’t censor yourself for other people’s sensitive triggers.  Squeeze that trigger, then double-tap!

Side note:  I find it interesting that Word flagged the F-word but not the other f-word (little “f”…for “faggot”…ew, I cringe just typing it).

And why doesn’t Word flag all these exclamation points? 

-Big Steve