No Offence Intended
fff
Di PS I used the British spelling of the word offence. I hope nobody is offended.
“causing someone to feel deeply hurt, upset, or angry”
That’s fair enough. But then the question of what causes those feelings comes up. Personally, I’m not offended if someone curses. However, if a group of people are letting the expletives fly at the beach when I have family there. Then that’s a different matter.
Oh dear, then we have the question about what a curse word is. And there is intent. If someone drops a casserole on their foot and let’s the “f” word fly, is anyone going to take offense. If someone uses the word as every third word, that’s another matter.
What about subject matter. Someone once said you should never discuss religion or politics. And indeed there are people that are offended if you say anything that goes against their own beliefs. So then it comes down to the actual content of your book. If what your are saying integral to your story, then by all means say it. If you are just on a personal mission or vendetta to piss people off, then maybe you can leave it out. And even the word piss off was extremely offencive 40 years ago. Now you can hear it on the 11 0’clock news.
Then there’s sex. Yikes. Some more gentile folk bristle at the mere mention of the word. Others wouldn’t bat an eye if a bus load of tourists disembarked and started fornication in their hotel lobby.
Being offended is very subjective. So when you are writing what do you avoid; or do you?
Simple answer for me is nothing. If you have something to say, say it. But there is a caveat. Well, several. If your book is deemed to have the potential to offend two-thirds of the people who read it, then perhaps you need a few tweaks. You also don’t want a reputation as an abusive, intolerant pratt. You want people to read your book not squirm in their seats because of your comments.
The fact is, there are people who are offended if the sun comes up. They take offense like it was their day job. To those folks, I can only say no one is forcing them to read the book, so why worry?
But on the other hand, I see no purpose in deliberately setting out to say hurtful things, or to be disrespectful to the average person. You can be critical without being completely nasty. You can call out someone without resorting to childish insults.
You might have a sex scene, a violent altercation in your story, but there is a point where is just becomes gratuitous, rather than descriptive.
I could go on about this with a dozen more examples but I think you get the point. Don’t let fear of offending someone stand in the way of what you need to say. On the other hand, don’t feel you have a mission to shock or outrage people. Leave that to the shock jocks.
