Curses! And not the urban fantasy hex kind...
Or how I ended up with Greek gods in the Lyra Cycle
Curse words and Greek gods — I swear (no pun intended) that they’re related.
Do you have an opinion on swearing in fiction? Or, I guess, in life? I know some people feel very strongly.
In my urban fantasy, my characters occasionally swear — I didn’t really think about it when writing the Bloodborne Pathogens series because, spoiler alert, I occasionally swear. Art imitates life. And maybe because, I let out the occasional expletive, they doesn’t jump out at me as a reader. I’m currently working my way through the Murderbot Diaries (feckin’ awesome, btw) and there’s profanity sprinkled throughout but it fits with the character of Murderbot.
That said, when I started my scifi series, although I was pretty sure most of the main characters where people who’d cuss now and then, I didn’t want to use our modern swear words.
I should take a step back. Although I do occasionally swear, I’m as likely to use The Good Place method (great show, btw). As often as not, I use things like forking shirtballs or holy jeebus . Or bleeding hades in place of bloody h-e-double-hockey sticks (hell, I mean hell).
So when I came across a spot in A Dead Ship in the Deep Black where a character would swear, I’d put in bleeding Hades as a placeholder until I decided what to do about curse words. (Frack was taken by Battlestar Galatica while Farscape claimed frell).
I do use Jacks in The Lyra Cycle series — it’s on the scale of heck. And I have one character who, if she uses anything stronger, you know things are bad. But, in the end, I embraced my bleeding Hades placeholder, which is why I now have Zeus’ bollocks and Hera wept … I think I’ve taken the name of a couple more Greek gods in vain. Oh, Poseidon’s pox.
Writing update
Still plotting book 4 in The Lyra Cycle. I’m taking a sewing workshop this month, with lots of homework, which has eaten into writing time a bit. But plotting is going well. I’m hope to sneak in a short story before diving into writing the next book.
Books for your TBR shelf
If you’re a Barnes and Noble customer, check out these great sci-fi and fantasy books.
And there’s still time to snag one of these free sci-fi books:
Happy reading … and have a frelling good day!
— CR
Where to find my books
If you’d like to read any of my sci-fi or urban fantasy books, you can find them at your favourite online retailers. Or you can buy them direct from me on the Armchair Alien store (and get special offers and discounts).
If you liked this post from Curious Cat, Odd Duck and Author, feel free to subscribe and share.