Just this week I reopened a novel I had been working on back in 2014. I had a good idea/plot and wrote around 10 chapters just setting the story up, but somehow I lost my way with it and as a result it has sat untouched for 10 years.

As I read it again this week I remembered one of the tussles I was having within myself. The story involves some pretty gnarly people who when you offended them, didn’t say ‘oh bother – please leave me alone.’ They spoke like those people would in strong expletives and plenty of them.

I’m probably more settled in myself these days so I’m not likely to get rattled. If anyone disagrees with strong language being used in stories then I presume those same people would not watch movies or TV shows with ‘bad language’? Yeah that’s where we need to be if we are gonna be consistent. Of course that then raises the every shifting question of what actually is ‘bad language’ and when does it become offensive?

I don’t plan on trying to shoot that ever moving target!

But having revisited the issue this week I’m a bit curious as to the change in my own position in the space of 10 years. Actually on reflection I wrote the story with necessary expletives in place, but I just didn’t have the confidence to articulate why it mattered. I think we get rather het up on  minor things in the church and while I’m not advocating for a swear jar in every foyer (hey there’s a fund-raising idea… 😂) I am firmly of the opinion that a story will have no credibility if it’s primary characters do not speak in the language of the vernacular.

How does that feel to you? 

(While the book will carry itself around themes of justice, revenge and grace, it will not be a ‘Christian’ book and I doubt very much you would ever find it in Koorong…)