Why My Characters Don’t Cuss

Knowing My Roots

One of my first memories of my Dad’s Dad, Grandpa H, is visiting the log cabin home on a mountainside in Oregon, middle of winter, a wood-burning stove in the corner, Grandma H in the kitchen and Him sitting in his comfy chair, watching TV, and hitting “Mute” on the remote for commercial breaks. She brings over a heavy medical blue, rubber ice pack; he holds it to his head. He breathes deep, eyes narrow. When the show comes back, he clicks the “Mute” again to bring back the volume. Considering he towered over me, something like 6’3” and 230 of natural Big-White- Boy, even as he aged his impression was intimidating. This is a guy who flew more airplanes than I can name but he did look really good in a P-51 Mustang.

Later I got a good look at the remote. A metal face, inked numbers and labels for each of the keys were easy to notice. Then the polished, ink-removed spot where the label for “Mute” should sit caught my eye. This wasn’t just something for when I was around, this was his way of life – I was just a part of it.

His Opinion on Movies

Memories piled up over time, visits to Oregon and skipping empty soda cans with a pump-action .22 rifle right off the front porch, riding on a bulldozer in a gravel pit, catching lizards with fishing wire…family time was important. When Grandma and Grandpa H moved down to Texas for a while, before hating the weather and moving back up to the Pacific Northwest, I did get to watch a few movies with Dad and Grandpa.

Grandpa H got to control the remote. When a sex scene would come on, he’d fast forward. Why?

“I don’t like cheap physical stuff.” – Grandpa H, paraphrased

A lot of the time, looking at the film and placement and style of the sex scene, it was hard to disagree on a philosophical level. The physical stuff was in to try and, well, elevate the story in concept, but his running premise was that it was a cheap short-cut.

“Swearing is what people do when they don’t have a better vocabulary.” – Grandpa H, paraphrased

What he said is something that I know I’ve come across as a quote from a couple other sources as well. I think he probably heard it and latched on to it as a reason for his already existing opinion. He did speak well; I can’t recall him cussing other than once calling me a “smartass” when I tried to sucker him into a dumb joke. There was, I guess, something really high-level in how Grandpa H wanted to talk with people, be it family or anybody else. He didn’t cuss, and would prefer not to be around cussing.

Cussing as Punctuation

As a short story writer, a lot of my material has cussing, drinking, crime, cussing, murder…but when I sat down to work on screenwriting, I wanted to push back. Tarantino’s style made it fun to swear in cadence, which is kind of like how Scorsese works in his most comfortable motifs, and I wanted to challenge myself. Use the emotions, the situations, the vocabulary and body language in writing rather than blow a gasket.

Whatever faults my dialog inevitably has – too many “Yeah” or “Sure” or “Um” or tics that come during my bashing out process – the one I won’t have to answer for are lines littered with empty cussing. Don’t think of this perspective as any kind of edict on how your characters speak, they should feel natural after all. In the big picture, I guess that’s what I’m trying to do in my own way.