I am one of those people for which things like the F-Bomb are a pretty big turnoff. From an artistic standpoint, I wouldn't suggest compromising your vision of the character for reader tastes. From a market standpoint, I personally am unlikely to purchase a book that has any F-bombs on the first page. To me this is an indicator of certain attitudes that I find unappealing in a protagonist. Again, not saying you should reduce them, just providing some data.
Sanderson invents his own swears. "Sparks" and "Storm it" come to mind. These don't bother me. I guess they feel immersive. It's that F-Bomb and a few other words like it though that just jolt me in unpleasant ways.
I just wanted to say, I really appreciate this viewpoint (distinguishing between your personal preference and someone else's goals). Not a lot of people do that, surprisingly! We tend to equate our standards as being universal.
Although ironically, I don't like Brandon Sanderson's swear words haha. I guess because swearing, linguistically speaking, comes from things which are sacred or profane. Sparks doesn't make sense and he sort of uses it improperly (I can't help being a pedant about these things.) But it doens't bother me a huge amount. And it makes his books friendly for a younger audience and/or a wider audience. Those are good things. I enjoyed the concepts in his superhero series.
This entire post was very insightful, especially that last line. Brilliant. That could definitely make it work.
For me, I feel like swearing can easily become a crutch when trying to characterise or find your voice. Why do you want him to swear so much? I'm sure you can characterise him to be like that some other way, without quite so much swearing.
I filter it as much as possible in my writing, but that's my preference. It also makes that odd f-bomb all the more punchy.
I know you're not addressing me particularly, but this is effectively an argument of infinite regress ;-) You could ALWAYS characterise your character in a thousand different ways, without any of the traits they have. A cruel character could be cruel without pulling hair. A rude character could be rude without swearing. A nice character could be nice without giving gifts. And so on. There are endless traits to choose from.
Can't speak for OP. But I chose swearing for mine because the book is about two alternate selves of a person. One self-version is very profane and rude, fearless and indifferent, a consummate liar. The other is terrified of offending, and so is endlessly polite, etc. The rudeness and the jarringness is absolutely the point for the first, and tbh this thread is sort of proving my case. Swearing has a special significance, it is especially repulsive to a lot of people, and you cannot get the same reaction in other ways.
I don't want the *idea* of an unpalatable character. I want an actual unpalatable character.