After getting some really negative feedback from a beta reader yesterday, I started working through my book today, examining every profanity I used. My wife pointed out that while the F-bomb might trip off my tongue frequently, every character shouldn’t sound like me. Some of the characters, like Abbie, probably wouldn’t swear at all. And the Russian characters would have a completely different set of swear words. It amazes me that I put so much attention into making each character in Chasing Money have their own unique voice and yet, somehow, I had failed to customize their swearing, and no one else had caught it. I’m reworking it all now. I cut my use of “fuck” from 164 to 26 today, and I’m busy researching Russian profanity to make my dialogue more authentic.

Michael