The Floor is Open

It always amazes me where I find lessons in writing. They're everywhere if you just pay attention. Today's lesson was about not taking the easy out when you're writing insults into your dialogue. What insults, you ask? You know, when your character calls someone a f**ker or a motherf**ker or even a sumbitch. That's the easy way out, the lazy way, some would say.

It was a conversation between my grandsons that put this thought into my head. Here's the conversation, a bit paraphrased as I can't remember what they were arguing about, only the last line that drove the lesson home.

"You're so stupid."

"Well, you don't know what you're talking about."

"Everyone knows."

"I don't"

"You're in second grade, if you don't know, you should go back to pre-school." This from the one in kindergarten.

And yeah, the coffee flew all over the front of my shirt. It was just the perfect insult, coming from the younger brother, that left the older one totally speechless. Which made me think, why don't writers try for this sort of comeback more often. Why do we think that the shock of a curse word is more effective than a simple, well-aimed insult?

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a little cursing in a story, if it fits the character, but some writers tend to over-do the foul-mouthed characters. Yes, foul language is a part of everyday life, but do we need to go that route in our writing? Let's face it, most of the dialogue we write isn't the way real people talk. It would drive readers mad if you wrote the way people really speak with all their little ticks, like adding "ain't it" at the end of every sentence. That's in my region, I expect you've got others like it in your area.

So, the floor is open. What writing lessons have you learned lately? How do you stand on the use of "dirty" language in a story? Or, what tricks do you use to make your dialogue come to life? We're open to any and all writing topics today.