When I was a teen, I took to swearing with great gusto. The movie Heathers was very hot among my friends then, and we’d quote it with relish. “Fuck me gently with a chainsaw!” “Why can’t you just be a friend, why do you have to be such a megabitch?” And I’ll admit that since I’ve always looked younger than my age, coupled with my small frame, I got even more pleasure from swearing like a sailor and shocking people. Sweet little Mur said WHAT?

I’m not saying I’d go up to old people in the malls and call them cunt blossoms or anything, but I didn’t hold back when I was with my friends.

I did have limits, though. I remember reading an interview with Mike Tyson in Playboy a while back, where nearly every third word was “fucking.” I had to search for the story drowning in the sea of expletives.

There are made-up swear words. The ones that leap to mind of this geek are “frell” (from Farscape) and “frack” (from Battlestar Galactica). BSG fans found it hysterical that KFC completely missed the mark and advertised the “Frack Pack” on the opener a couple of weeks ago. Twitter was ablaze, “They do know they’re selling a Fuck Pack, right?” While the words do fit for network television, allowing our characters to swear as much as they want, they do sound a little watered down and sad.

I was surprised when people started reading my book and complaining to me of the swearing. “I don’t see why so many people need to say unnecessary swear words.” Some of my friends say that it’s a gender thing: some people react more strongly to women swearing than men, and when I read the audio podcast of my novel, people could get turned off by “sweet little Mur” swearing like a character in Deadwood. Others say that the content of the book –– superheroes –– implies it’s safe for kids while the language is not. (Ever read Powers?)

But people haven’t told me there’s too much murder in the book. Or too much torture. Or too much dismemberment (actually one person said there wasn’t enough dismemberment, but we won’t talk about him). People are immune to violence, but if you throw in some swearing, nudity, or (gasp) a gay character and they’ll get their panties in a wad.

(As an aside, I just got done watching Season Two of Dexter on DVD, and Lila was a favorite character. She was not a trembling violet; she was brash, rude and sexual. When she was nude in the kitchen and Dexter's sister Deb walked in on her, Lila casually draped an arm across her breasts, smiled, and said, “Pardon my tits.” That was true to the character –– anything less wouldn't have fit.)

To research this more, I went to the pros. Both New York Times Bestselling Authors, Scott Sigler and Tracy Hickman are very different storytellers.

Sigler is the author of Infected and Contagious, scifi/horror thrillers that are peppered liberally with violence and swearing. He calls it “asinine” that people think they live in a pristine world. “You have to use the language that fits the story,” he says. “If you don't, you're producing a contrived projection of the way you think the world should be. Not the way it is. Some people swear, therefore, it's logical if some characters swear.”

I told him of the reader who hinted strongly that if I wrote stories and books without swearing, he’d be a faithful supporter. Sigler said, “It's a free market literary economy; if people don't like it, they can put it down. Just like they can turn the channel if they don't like what's on the TV.”

When asked if he’d ever consider cleaning up a work to appeal to an audience, he said, “I have a book called The Rookie. It's about a futuristic football league; in football, people swear. But the sci-fi and sports elements of this tale make it ideal for teenagers and pre-teens, so I am modifying the cursing to suit that audience…to bring it under the threshold most parents sustain for their children. Once people are old enough to make up their own minds, however, I let the story be what it needs to be, and the characters be what they need to be.”

On the other side of the spectrum we have Tracy Hickman, bestselling fantasy author who is very active within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He has a different opinion of the use of colorful language. He does swear in his books, but not very often. “Swearing is like spice...If you do not use it the text feels unnatural and bland. If you use too much of it, it makes the whole [book] unpalatable.”

He does add most people fall on the ‘unpalatable’ side of the balance. “The problem is that people today swear too much. Swearing is a crutch in conversation. It's what you say when you haven't got real words.”

Hickman recently brought an older book of his, The Immortals, back into print. Different from his usual fantasy stories, this book is about future U.S. internment camps for victims of a new strain of an AIDS-like virus. He says that the new version is altered from the original. "In my original manuscript and first publication there was quite a bit of swearing in it. I used the 'f-bomb' in that book on a couple of occasions; the only time in my writing career that I ever knowingly did that. My justification at the time was that 'real people in the real world' would speak that way. Later, when I had a chance to republish the book, I went back and removed all the 'f-bombs.' On a second reading I found that it got in the way of the message for me. While people 'in the real world' may not guard their speech so carefully, the book isn't about the 'real world.' The important thing is the story and the message, not the verisimilitude of the whole thing."

Hickman then pointed this out, "Being emotionally inarticulate doesn't get you anywhere. There's a difference between letting people know THAT you feel and letting them know HOW or WHAT you feel."

I’m still of the opinion that a well-placed, “sunnuva bitch” can carry a lot of weight. Much more than a, “darn it.” It’s shocking to put a swear word in the mouth of a character who rarely swears. Some of the more creative epithets can add a lot to a story. Like adverbs, passive voice, or any part of language, swearing is a tool. If you use it properly, it can add a lot to your story. If you don't, it shows as glaring overkill.

You can't please everyone, however. If you use swearing, you'll turn off those who don't like it. And if you don't use swearing, someone may notice and question the "realism" of your story.

To close my thoughts on swearing, I'd like to quote a wonderful blog post on swearing. I’ll let it speak for itself.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcaster who recently released her first novel, Playing For Keeps. She Speaks Geek every month on SuicideGirls.com. Click HERE for more of Mur's musings.