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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30469
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30469
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The purpose of fiction is to give pleasure to the reader. The use of profanity, like anything else, works when it gives pleasure to the reader.

Of course, certain profanities will displease certain readers, so you will certainly lose some potential readers if you use profanity. The question is, are they readers you would otherwise have had? If not, you have lost nothing by using it.

Equally, the use of certain profanities will give pleasure to certain readers. The question is, will it give enough pleasure to those readers, over and above the other pleasures your story offers, to turn them from non-readers to readers? If not, you have gained nothing by using it.

Logically, then, you should use it when it gains you more readers than it loses you.

But there can be no general guideline for this, for the simple reason that the use of profanity adds to or takes away from the pleasures that a particular kind of story gives to a particular reader. The same reader may appreciate it in one kind of story and reject it in another, because it adds to the pleasure of one kind of story, for them, and detract from the pleasure of another kind of story, for them.

The right degree and use of profanity is always going to be highly specific to particular readers and particular stories, and even to the style of particular authors, one of whom may be able to pull it off where another cannot.

It is worth noting, however, that it is almost always possible to achieve the same dramatic effect without the use of profanity. There is always a risk in the use of profanity, in that most profane words are trigger words for some portion of the reading public. I almost always put a book down at the first bit of profanity, not because I am scandalized by it, but because it is almost always a flag for lazy writing. Unless you are very sure of what you are doing, it is probably safer to attempt to achieve the same effect by other means.

Original score: 7