Wow, that was brutal. My good friends Mike and Mary took me to lunch today to share their feedback on my book, Chasing Money. They hated it. The swear words in particular really turned off Mary. My first reaction was “Hey, this is a thriller and that is just how guys talk.” But my wife ran a search through the manuscript and counted 585 swear words, which seems like a lot. “Fuck” was my go-to word, I used that 164 times. Was that too much? We did some research.

This article on Profanity in Writing was really helpful. It validated my belief that swearing is important for the authenticity of certain types of characters, particularly in genres like crime thrillers. And, as a guide, it provided the aptly named “fuckety index” with possible scores ranging from 0 to 2.0 or higher. You count the number of times you use “fuck” in your book, divide by the total number of words, and multiply by 1000. Zero is an Amish romance or a cozy mystery. Most crime thrillers are in the 0.5 – 1 range. Anything over 1 is a lot of swearing, even for a gritty genre. When you hit 2.0 you’re way over the top. My score was 2.13. Seems like a problem.

Michael