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Blasphemy

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Meemossis

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I'm in the middle of my edits, and I noticed I wrote: "Oh, thank god." Now, would readers be offended by this? I heard American readers can find it off-putting. F-ing this and f-ing that is fine, but if a character is startled and says "Jesus Christ", then it's a five-paragraph review on Goodreads saying the author has a potty-mouth. I'm not religious, far from it, but this does worry me.

How have you gotten around this? Do you still write it regardless, or do you change it to plain old swearing/cursing?
 

Ariel.Williams

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I certainly wouldn’t be offended by it and I think many Americans wouldn’t be either. But I guess it also depends on who you’re target audience would be. That said, I think I have seen stuff like “thank god” in a lot of books I’ve read.
 

starrystorm

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Personally, as a religious person, I don't find these offensive. I think things like OMG has become so ingrained in our culture, that it's meaningless. At least to me it's better than straight out cursing.

Also, "Oh, thank God" is praising God, not using his name in vain. At least that's what I believe.
 

Ari Meermans

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Always be true to your character. Know your character well enough to know what they would say or do in the situation you've placed them in—then have them do it. You won't have cardboard characters if you're true to the character you've created; you'll have characters who seem real to your readers, characters they can identify with.
 

indianroads

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I'm an atheist, but have many friends that are devout in one faith or another - I judge the character of an individual by what they do rather than religion. That said, I have no problem with saying, "Oh my god", or "Jesus, it's cold out here", etc.

Oh - forgot to mention I live in the US... if that matters.

In your place, I wouldn't worry a bit.

ETA:
Don't let your fears censor you. You can write the most milquetoast novel out there and someone might still get offended; just tell your story. The most you risk is a bad review from one customer on Amazon.
 
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lizmonster

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I've had many complaints about my work, but only one person ever complained about the profanity (of which there is a lot, including good old-fashioned blasphemy). He wrote me a very polite email telling me he'd enjoyed all three of my books, but he wondered if perhaps I could ratchet back the swearing a little.

Unless you're writing Christian fiction (in which case all the blasphemy needs to go), I don't think this is something you need to worry about. As Ari says, be true to your characters and you'll be fine. Your agent/publisher will tell you if it's too much, and request changes accordingly, but I'd be surprised if that happened with the examples you've given.

I'd also suggest never again giving a single thought as to whether or not you're going to get five-paragraph reviews on Goodreads, bad or otherwise. That way lies madness.
 

Kerry56

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Most Americans wouldn't be offended by Oh my god. That shouldn't be a problem unless you are specifically writing for octogenarian Christian fundamentalists.

The three books I've published are mostly PG, but there are some soldiers who come to the fore in the stories and their language doesn't come close to prim and proper. I wondered about censoring them a little, to make the books more acceptable for younger audiences, but I couldn't make myself do it. The characters are speaking to me and I feel like I have to capture their personalities as well as I can. They'd probably invade my dreams and cuss me out if I were to mangle their speech.
 

Cephus

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Virtually no one is going to care and those who do, you probably don't want to care about. Write for your intended audience. You can't please everyone and shouldn't try. You should never strive to be completely non-offensive. First, you'll fail because you'll always find some fruit loop who will be offended by something, and second, you'll produce an unpalatable slop that nobody is going to want to read. You do you. Stop worrying about people who aren't going to care about your book in the first place.
 

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I'm not sure if this horse is quite dead yet, so I'm going to take a whack at it.

I'm a strongly religious American, and I'm even the type who reads that and wishes you wouldn't. But, I would never write an unfavorable Goodreads review because your character used some blasphemies. I understand that this is the way real people speak. I don't waste any time being offended by it.

Sadly, I know some people who probably would, but those are people you can't please anyway. Don't try to please them. They don't represent religious people. They represent an agenda. If I were to come across a five-paragraph Goodreads review complaining about your use of blasphemies, I would just roll my eyes and scroll past it. No one is going to spend any time reading that review. No one cares about a random zealot's opinion.

I understand the worry. I'm a straight white male writer. I'm constantly worried that I'm going to be inadvertently offensive. I worry that my characters aren't diverse enough. I worry that I'm not representing other races and gender well. I worry about unconsciously writing something offensive. I think it's right to have these concerns, but you can't let them stop you from writing.
 

indianroads

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I'll add a bit more...

There are groups in the US that object to the phrase 'under god' in our pledge of allegiance, and want it removed and the oath returned to its original form. I'll admit that, as an atheist, it bugs me a little, because it's like I'm being forced into a particular belief. The words themselves don't bother me, it's that I'm being forced to say them. What I do is remain silent for that phrase, then continue on with everyone around me.

Am I offended by 'under god'? No. There are far more offensive things going on in the world - those are actions, and so words don't bother me much.
 

Maryn

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Be aware, too, that some readers who would not object to "oh my God" or "thank God" will strongly object to "oh my god" and "thank god."

My rule about whether it's capitalized relies on the beliefs of the character uttering the words, or the narrator using the phrase. The last pro edit I had wanted them all capitalized and I successfully defended the way I had it written. The person of faith means something different than the atheist uttering the same words.

Maryn, who's given this no little thought
 

frimble3

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Personally, as a religious person, I don't find these offensive. I think things like OMG has become so ingrained in our culture, that it's meaningless. At least to me it's better than straight out cursing.

Also, "Oh, thank God" is praising God, not using his name in vain. At least that's what I believe.
I think the same: "Oh, thank God" is a legit use of the Lord's name. "Oh, my God" is more calling the Lord's attention to something.
And, if someone is going to diss your book in a review purely on the basis of one or two mild exclamations, I think review-readers will notice and disregard it.
Especially if the rest of the five paragraphs are about how wonderful the book was, except for the couple of mentions of God. :evil
 

Kat M

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Always be true to your character. Know your character well enough to know what they would say or do in the situation you've placed them in—then have them do it. You won't have cardboard characters if you're true to the character you've created; you'll have characters who seem real to your readers, characters they can identify with.

My rule about whether it's capitalized relies on the beliefs of the character uttering the words, or the narrator using the phrase. The last pro edit I had wanted them all capitalized and I successfully defended the way I had it written. The person of faith means something different than the atheist uttering the same words.

Maryn, who's given this no little thought

QFT.

Please, for the love of all that's holy (ha!), write characters who are true to themselves. As a reader, I want to read characters who feel real, not characters who show me the way to perfect piety.

Also, if this is the story you've been workshopping, I think the folks who would be offended by "oh thank god" would also be offended by the subject matter and realllllly shouldn't be reading the book in the first place. Will somebody end up reading and get offended? Absolutely. Is that your fault? Not really.
 

Woollybear

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My husband says "Oh my Me."

Which gets a snicker and is far more blasphemous to my agnostic way of thinking, him comparing himself to God.

I had a 'Hell no' in my query letter and a Christian writer in our group who writes science-fiction end-times stuff from Revelation but fictionalized (which I find kind of offensive in its gratuitous pointlessness) said that he found that expression offensive. He only said it because we were discussing what might grab an agent's attention and what might put them off. (I doubt he'd have said anything otherwise.) But that query letter worked better than other versions, so :shrug.:
 
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amergina

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I guess the question I would ask is who are you intending your audience to be?

If you're going for very conservative, religious folks, maybe "Oh my God" would be beyond the pale. But in general... nah. People say it on TV.

Maryn makes a good point with God vs. god, though.
 

indianroads

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There are lots of gods (Gods, if you must). A specific God, such a Yahweh or Thor should be capitalized. Non-specifically, using 'god' as an epithet might not be capitalized.

I just made that up, but to me, it sounds ok.
 

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A lot of people who are offended these days are searching for things to be offended by, so it's not something I worry about when writing. That said, my writing isn't offensive, but some of my characters are.
 

Cephus

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A lot of people who are offended these days are searching for things to be offended by, so it's not something I worry about when writing. That said, my writing isn't offensive, but some of my characters are.

You can't offend someone against their will. If they get bothered by something you write, that's on them, not on you. Look at who is most likely to read your book and try to please them. No one else matters.
 

AW Admin

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Some of us are offended by stupidity.

We're serious about RYFW.
 
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