Some writers pepper their fiction, especially dialogue, with expletives. Others swear off them completely. Lora Bishop considers striking the right balance
Wolf of Wall Street © Paramount Pictures
Many years ago there was a BBC documentary about a writing agency, its at-the-time ascending star, Sheila Quigley and her extremely successful debut novel, Run for Home. She was questioned by the programme maker on the amount of swearing in the book, six words on the first page alone. Sheila made the point that the character was working class (so apparently would swear lots), that he had also been shot and was running for his life. Hence his internal monologue was understandably littered with naughty words. So what is the deal with swearing? Should we be using it in our writing and if so, how much and in what context?