Ran accross an interesting post by Mark Henshaw. He’s an author whose written a couple of fiction thrillers. Mark makes it a point to write well enough that he doesn’t need to include profanity in his writing. He discusses 6 reasons why he refuses to use profanity in his books. Number 4 caught our attention and represents the feelings of people who use Clean Reader as a means to consume today’s great books without being subjected to the swear words and vulgarity so common in them. His 4th point is provided below. If you’d like to read his entire post you can find it HERE.
Profanity turns off many readers. Friends occasionally ask whether I read reviews of my books. I do. My favorite review of all time was this one, posted on Goodreads by a reader named Jackie about my first novel, Red Cell:
“Another one of those almost 4 star (but not quite) books. Although I should, by all rights, give this an extra star just for being clean and devoid of foul language. Thank you, Mr. Henshaw for providing an entertaining read without offending those sensibilities.”
Jackie only gave Red Cell three stars out of five, but I think she represents a quiet group — maybe even a silent majority — who just don’t appreciate having foul language thrown at them. I’ve heard a lot of people say they didn’t like a movie or a book because it was full of profanity. I’ve never heard anyone say, “it would’ve been a better book (or movie) if it just had a lot more cursing in it.” I’m writing for the former because I don’t think the latter exists and I think most of the rest really wouldn’t even notice a lack of profanity if the story was told well enough to sweep them away.
The post Insights From an Author appeared first on Clean Reader.