Fictional curse words

[Nickeris86]

One of the things that I love about Jim's writing is that he creates very colorful language for his characters that one does not see in the real world, especially with oaths, curses, and so one.

Known DV curses: Stars and Stones, Hells Bells (is a real saying but rarely used where I live), Empty Night.
Known CA curses: Anything involving Crows.

I was wondering if any of you have come up with your own unique curses or caloqeal terms, and if you have what process's did you use to come up with them.

So far I have for my SciFi novel: Stone Hearted as a term of praise, Soft Soul  as a insult
Fantasy Novel: still working on it.

[meg_evonne]

I have a post apocalyptic YA 1000 years after a meteor shower.  Lots of fun words I use with that. You can imagine. LOL

[Gruud]

So far I have two variants that I'm using:

Curses based on the old middle ages way of doing it. RL example: Zounds was a resut of  swearing "by God's wounds", so I've used a few similar instances using diety names and known afflications, parts of the canon, etc.

Curses based on ancestor worship ... sort of. Examples: by my uncle's beard, and so on.

Keeping in mind that curses actaully developed as sworn oaths ... hence swearing = cursing.

*shrug* best I can do so far.

But what I could really use are some suitable substitutes for modern day "cuss words".

It seems hugely incongruous to use the acronym of "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", althogh I have done so, twice, because it just fit the situation perfectly.

But I'd really raher use someting else.

I have one idea, but can't figure out how to slip in the defintion so it makes sense to the reader, without hitting them over the head with it.

[Nicodemus Carpenter]

Using "made-up" words and terminology in any context is a delicate balance, and all the more so when it comes to invective. Generally these moments in your story will come when a character wants to emphasize his/her seriousness.  These key scenes will either make or break the immersion for many readers.  One mistep and you'll find yourself landing in either hopeless melodrama or unintentional hilarity.

Joe abercrombie has a pretty good post on the subject of swearing which can be found here:
http://www.joeabercrombie.com/2007/09/23/zounds-swearing-in-fantasy-2/

[Quantus]

From what Ive seen it tends to go one of three ways:

Made up words:  Frak, Frell, Dren, Gorram, etc.   These need to be similar enough to common curse words that the reader gets what you are hinting at, without pissing off any censors/editors involved.  Not bad but it is rather obvious by nature, which is why you typically only see it with censorship pressures.

Cultural:  Great Furies, Merlin's Beard, Empty Night, By the First Egg, In the Name of Zeus's Butthole, By the Blood Tears of Lisen, etc.  This type of swearing makes sense only within the context of the story itself.  Its predicated on the idea that swear by things important to the culture, usually from whatever passed for myth or legend. 

Local/idiomatic:  Crow-begotten, thrice-damned, two faced son of a <insert insulting comparison here>,  etc.  These are your general curses that could basically work in the real world too, if something made them popular enough.  Crow-begotten was common in Alera because of the cultural awareness of crows and war, but the reader doesn't really need to know anything about the story or setting to get the point. 




Not sure that really helps, but its the two cents I have on me right now

[fantazero]

smeg
shazbot
shapoopy

[OZ]

I seem to remember the word "Shells" being shouted out in McCaffery's Dragon books as an in culture reference to the dragon eggs. It seemed to fit and not throw you out of the books.

[Linnemir]

One of the things that I love about Jim's writing is that he creates very colorful language for his characters that one does not see in the real world, especially with oaths, curses, and so one.

Known DV curses: Stars and Stones, Hells Bells (is a real saying but rarely used where I live), Empty Night.
Known CA curses: Anything involving Crows.

I was wondering if any of you have come up with your own unique curses or caloqeal terms, and if you have what process's did you use to come up with them.

So far I have for my SciFi novel: Stone Hearted as a term of praise, Soft Soul  as a insult
Fantasy Novel: still working on it.

Odd, what people are familiar with - I grew up hearing "Hell's bells and Belezebub's bottom" ... My dad was very fond of just "Hell's bells!"

[Blaze]

Hell's bells was a staple at our house as well!

[Quantus]

I seem to remember the word "Shells" being shouted out in McCaffery's Dragon books as an in culture reference to the dragon eggs. It seemed to fit and not throw you out of the books.

Indeed it was.   By the First Egg came from there as well. 

[Orbweaver]

I had a character who, in place of blood, had a more concentrated force of "consciousness" flowing through her veins- liquid memory.

Her curse was, appropriately, "ashes of blood". It generally came out of her mouth whenever she was shocked, upset, or frustrated.

[Quantus]

Very Red Lantern.   I approve 

[meg_evonne]

smeg

I like this one! I'll adapt it to smegaloon!   >-)

[BobForPresident]

From the Erevis Cale Trilogy: "Dark. Dark and empty!"

Empty by itself was an insult, too: "You're empty, shade. Broken."

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Think about your cultural context.  Even in the real-world, the relative emotional intensity of curse-words sexual, excremental or blasphemous varies widely and can tell you quite a bit about a setting.

In the space-opera I want to be working on, the most common things to swear by in common parlance (given that I'm not dealing with a particularly religious character and the idea of sexual swear-words would make the central characters look at you funny and dig out their college anthropology texts) are "Absent Earth" (guess what that tells you about the setting) and various entropy related ones, "void and ashes" being what the sidekick in book #2 most naturally says when under stress.  "Void and salted ashes" when under extreme stress.

This is assuming that one wants swear-words which will feel satisfying to a primarily Anglophone reader; I have not the first clue of equivalents that would feel right to a Mandarin speaker, for example, which might matter if your culture is Chinese-based.