Swearing in Writing

You can probably tell by the title of this post that this certain topic is about cursing or you can also call it swearing or even 'those bad words that I close my ears to and highlight over with a black highlighter'. Cursing is kind of a common thing now a days (I wouldn't know about the States since I haven't been there for a while now) and swearing in Young Adult novels is definitely common. Some people (especially parents and older adults) think that certain swear words do not have a place in novels and I'm sure there are some people out there who think that there shouldn't be any swearing at all in novels.


I have read many 'stories' (some are so ill written I can't even bare to call them stories) online written by teens (many on Wattpad) and many of the stories are just packed with profanity. I personally think that profanity is okay, but there is a limit. Many of us swear (or at least think of swearing) when we are so over come with emotion or something over whelming has happened. But many of the stories I have read on just Wattpad use profanity kind of in this way:
I just &!*$ loved his so #&@*! much! When I first saw him I was just went Holy #@&!
This isn't a copy from a story, just something I quickly threw together; I'll leave you to think up the curse words. But this is how many young people seem to write. Of course, I know not every young writer writes this way, but so many young writers now seem to think that if you swear it makes your character a huge bad ***. There are so many more words you can use instead of swear words, you just have to actually look for them.

I was raised in a conservative home so personally in my own writing I have a rule that I force myself to follow. Replace any curse words with a different word unless there is no alternative. As I wrote up above, I think profanity is okay with limits. I'll give you an example that my dad gave me. A soldier (soldiers being known for 'colorful' language) will not say, "Dang it! That son of a biscuit shot me my fudging leg!" He is going to use the neon colors of the language color box. So wherever a swear word seems appropriate I think should definitely be used. So for myself I try to avoid using swear words, I think that they can be avoided and be replaced with better words.

If you replace every curse word with a different word you'll maybe find yourself becoming more articulate. So I encourage you to try and replace curse words; I tend to replace everything with food (but not when I write... I can't see my characters calling someone a son of a biscuit).

So what's your opinion on cursing? Do you think it should be as common as it should be or should there be less of it in novels?
Here's an article about novels with swearing and here's another one, that is actually written by an author (I always like to get fellow writer's perspective on writing, it makes it more relatable).