Fad Words, Bad Words

As a writer I make it my business to be aware of the way words are used. For example, certain words and phrases come in and out of fashion. Last year it was "awesome." You don't hear that much anymore. It's been replaced by "amazing." When I was a young man and a pretty girl walked by, we might say "hubba, hubba." Weird and silly, no? In modern times, it seems that the expletive "f—king" has become an all-purpose adjective with no meaning. I'm kind of sorry that it has become so prevalent. It has lost the impact that it used to have. Not many people are shocked by its use anymore.

This brings me to my second topic, bad words. I have to wonder what makes a particular word considered naughty. For example, in the paragraph above, I did not spell out the word "f—king" completely so as to not shock the sensibilities of anyone reading this. What is strange about this is that most of its synonyms such as fornicating, making love, having sexual intercourse, screwing, copulate and so forth are not bleeped on TV. The same is true to references to a part of the female anatomy. Vagina is okay, but c—t is a no-no. I don't know of any bleeped words for the equivalent organ on a man, although there are many slang words for penis, such as dick, prick, dong, wang and willie. S—t is a not allowed, but excrement, manure, poop and so forth are not. Why?

The way all this is handled on TV is ridiculous. Bleeping the word out or replacing it with an innocuous similar sounding word is silly. Everyone knows what is meant; so why not come right out and say it. Most children by the time they are seven or eight have heard the words if not from their parents, from other adult and older children. Many are confused when they are chastised for saying what is commonly bandied about.

Do I use these words in my writing? Sparsely. Only when a character's personality is such that he or she would use such words. In a satire I wrote, I had a character that uses expletives quite frequently, but would not use the actual world but its synonym. He would say things like, "You fornicating so and so." Also, he would chastize other people when they would use the "bad" words.

How My Morgaine Series Grew

I thought maybe some of you might be interested in how my Morgaine Series of novels became a series. It started with a song, Dancing in the Moonlight. When I heard that song, I pictured Wiccans or some other new age group in a meadow in the forest having some sort of ritual. I thought, Suppose an ordinary person became somehow involved with such a group by fate, not by choice. So I created Melody Trent, a young widow, who falls in love with a psychic, Michael Ellul. But, who is this Michael? I decided to make him a thousand year old sorcerer who had been granted this extended life by a demon. I figured that Melody should have a rival for Michael's affection, so I created Morgaine Fabiano, a witch. I threw in some other complications such as Isaac the robot and soon I had a novel, which I titled Dancing in the Moonlight.

When I found a publisher for it, it was an E-book publisher, Renaissance E-Books. The publisher thought it was too long for an E-book. She wanted me to split it into two novels, which I did. They became the first two novels in the series, Morgaine and Michael, and Morgaine and Melody.

I was not quite satisfied with the ending. I thought to myself, What is going to happen when Melody ages and Michael remains youthful? It seems like he would disappear from her life after a while. Perhaps he would seek a means to restore her youth so that she would remain his lover and companion through the long centuries. And what would Melody do when he disappears? Hunt for him, of course. Well, she couldn't do this herself, so she hires Raven Lenore, a tough PI and Wiccan (a witch to catch a wizard). And of course, Morgaine has to fit into the story somehow. She returns as demon in order to somehow regain the love of Michael. Mix in a meglomaniac out to steal Michael's robot, and viola, you have Morgaine and Raven, a suspense thriller.

In the next novel, I told the story of how Morgaine became a witch in the first place, and how she met Michael for the first and second times, and from her point of view, why she did the things she did. Alas, this also turned out to be too long and had to be split into two books, Morgaine and Gretchen, and Morgaine and Asmodeus.

As a writer of science-fiction and fantasy, one of the things that's great fun to write about is the end of the world. I used the Book of Revelations of the Bible as a sort of outline plus some stuff from the internet about Armageddon, included the possibility of earth being struck by a gigantic meteorite, threw in Frankenstein, Dracula and various demons, bad guys, aliens and other strange characters. And of course the schemes of Morgaine played a big part. This weird mix became Morgaine and Armageddon.

At that point, I thought I was done with Morgaine and company. But then I thought, With all the strange things that had happened at Moonwood (Michael's mansion in the country), it would make a great background for a haunted house story. So I invented two new characters, a young engaged couple, Tom and Bridget, who were hired as contractors to repair the mansion. Of course, Morgaine and various demons and ghosts make life at Moonwood hell for the couple. I called this book Morgaine and Moonwood. My sequal to this is what happens after Bridget has the baby that she conceived when she was raped by the demon Asmodeus. This was to be the final book of the series and was called Morgaine and Nicholas. Nonetheless, I followed it up with Morgaine and the Necromancer.

My Love of Fantasy and Science Fiction

I loved these genres since I was very young. My parents were great readers and so I became one too. I loved to go to the local library and browse through all the wonderful books. I liked books about pirates and the usual fairy tales. When I was seven, something wonderful happened to me. It was the movie "The Wizard of Oz." Back then, it was shown in theaters. On the big screen, it was wonder of wonders. After that I began to buy Oz books, of which there were many, not only by Frank L. Baum, the creator of Oz, but by his successors, Ruth Plumly Thompson and John R. Neil (who by the way was the illustrator for all three authors).

The next good thing happened when I was in the third grade. I came across a book about an imaginary trip to the moon and the planets. That hooked me on science fiction. I read everything I could find about space travel, time travel and so forth, mainly the comic books, Superman, Captain Marvel, Planet Comics and so forth. When I was twelve, I discovered the pulps, eight and half by eleven magazines with garish covers and printed on thick cheap paper. These contained stories by such greats as Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Robert Silverberg and so many more.

About that time I also saw the movie "House of Frankenstein" with such a great cast, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carridine and Glen Strange. It's still one of my favorite movies. Although billed as a horror flick, it's really science fantasy. Speaking of movies, a few years later my favorite movie of all time came out, "2001, A Space Odyssey," which I saw on the wide screen. Believe me, it is stunning in the theater. Since then, there has been "Alien" and its sequels, all the Star Wars movies, Star Trek and its spin-offs, Jurassic Park and its sequels, etc., etc. We're living in my idea of paradise as far as movies go.

And then there are the books. I have so many favorite fantasy and SF authors that I could fill this page with their names.

From a love of these genres I decided to try my hand. The results you can buy at Renaissance Page Turner Editions, Fictionwise.com, Amazon and other online book sellers.