Alternative Swear Words

With: Kadie Scott

I have to start by confessing a particularly bad habit of mine… I swear like a sailor. Actually, to be more accurate, I swear like a Quentin Tarantino film. It’s bad, and I promise I’m working on it. In my defense, certain words communicate the emotion better than the watered-down versions. And certain words just feel so good on the tongue.

With that in mind, you’d think writing a character who is deliberate about using alternative swear words would be difficult for me. In The Wrong Kind of Compatible, Cassie swears a lot (like me), but she substitutes alternative swear words. Not because she minds the swear words. Her reasons have more do with a little competition with her brothers (who have kids) to see who can be the most creative with the alternatives.

As a mama who struggles to tame this tendency around her kids, I love the idea of a character who tempers her habit for her nieces and nephews. However, I didn’t want Cassie to sound too prim or too “perfect mommy,” and so I had a goal with the alternatives.

Goal: funny but not too cutsie (which is a tricky balance to strike).

The other tricky part is coming up with word combinations which are obviously being used as swear words. There were a few combos I tried which, in context, I think would throw readers because it'll take a minute to figure out that it's a curse.

I thought you might get a kick out of some of the ones I came up with.

·               Cheese and krakens (couldn't help myself. the geek in me rejoiced at this one.)

·               Goodnight nurse

·               Fish in a barrel

·               Fiddlesticks

·               Shut the truck up

·               Sure as shootin'

·               Honest to gravy

·               Bananas

·               Son of a nutcracker

·               Mother trucker

·               What the fedora

·               Gorgonzola on a stick

·               Cracker jacks

·               Heavens to megatron (this was mergatroid, but the geek in me had to change it)

·               Bull honkey

·               Work her corn nuts off

·               Farfegnugen

·               Dang rabbit

·               Fraggle rock

I mean, can you read those, or picture using them, without giggling? I can’t, which made them a lot of fun to write. I didn’t get to incorporate all of them, but I certainly tried.

How about you? Do you have any entertaining swear word alternatives?

The Wrong Kind of Compatible 

Data analyst Cassie Howard may be brilliant (and, okay, a little awkward), but she’s worked hard to get where she is. She definitely doesn’t need some sexy new analyst coming in and taking credit for her work. Or the inappropriate thoughts that keep popping out of her mouth she’d rather he not hear.

For undercover FBI agent Drew Kerrigan, computers have always made more sense than people, but he’d better develop some slick social skills in a hurry if he’s going to win over the too-tantalizing-for-his-sanity Cassie. Hacking their systems was easy. Now he’s just got to hack the one person in the company most likely to see through his ruse…

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About Kadie Scott:

Award-winning contemporary romance author, Kadie Scott, grew up consuming books and exploring the world through her writing. She attempted to find a practical career related to her favorite pastime by earning a degree in English Rhetoric (Technical Writing). However, she swiftly discovered that writing without imagination is not nearly as fun as writing with it.

No matter the genre, she loves to write witty, feisty heroines, sexy heroes who deserve them, and a cast of lovable characters to surround them (and maybe get their own stories). She currently resides in Austin, Texas, with her own personal hero, her husband, and their two children, who are growing up way too fast.

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Website: http://www.kadie-scott.com

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