Why I Write Sinful Sci-Fi

When I publish my first science fiction novel, more than questions about the realism of future tech, time travel conundrums, or believability of characters, the question I dread most to be asked by a reader is something along the lines of, “Why do your characters swear so much?”

Maybe that’s the last question you see yourself asking, but it’s what’s on my mind today. It feels a juvenile to admit, but I’m a little afraid of publishing things with obscenities in them, for fear that the people I love, many of whom are Christians, will think less of me. I’m afraid they’ll wonder why I’m not writing Christian fiction like these novels from Bethany House, Revell, and Haven, advertised in an email recently from Christianity Today.

For Dennis E. Taylor fans, my worst fear is a confrontation like the ones Bob has with Minister Cranston of FAITH in the Bobiverse novels. If that happens, I’ll try to be open and will have to be unapologetic. I guess it’s that latter part where I’m concerned.

If you don’t know me, I am a Christian, and I don’t swear much at all. I don’t even like to take God’s name in vain. Sometimes I curse behind closed doors with my wife just to try to make her blush or giggle with my off-color comments. Aside from that though, my conversations are usually pretty clean.

“So then, Jonathan Fashbaugh, why do your novels have so much swearing in them?”

I suppose the answer has to be: my characters that come from inside of me, and that they expose an inner conflict—what you might call a moral defect in my own character.

The characters in my novels often use curse words and do take the Lord’s name in vain, sometimes combining the two in colorful ways. They can also be very crass, and my villains are sometimes hateful, brutal, and downright perverse at times.

When I write and a character blows up and lets the obscenities fly, I have a lot of fun giving the filthy part of mind free reign. Is that how Jesus would write? Uh, no.

I’m reminded of what the free-writing apologist, Stephen King, said on the same issue and about his love of the unquiet grave. “It’s what I have.” (On Writing, Stephen King, 2000)

Don’t blame my upbringing. I wasn’t raised in a home where my parents used curse words. That’s not why my mind’s characters have foul mouths. I’m just a fallen man.

Gemini's depiction: Jonathan Fashbaugh, a science fiction author, furiously types with devilish intensity, a red glow coming from the screen. His words corrupt him.

Maybe it comes from the books, shows, and movies that I consume. I suppose that’s only logical. My pastors often warn against listening to, and watching, material that Christians shouldn’t consume. They’re probably right. It’s Stephen King’s fault. 😏

So why don’t I clean that up and only read novels like the Christian novels pictured above so that I can write fiction that's less likely to offend?

No offense to these authors, but I have no interest—not even a little bit.

I know it can be done, and I’ve read good Christian fiction. “Like C.S. Lewis!” you say, “and Tolkien!”

Yes, yes. I've read them too. But it feels unrealistic to write dialogue as though all the characters in my stories, who are not in ancient or mythic lands, are good, church-going, Bible-toting Christians. They’re not. So why would they speak that way?

Realism is important to me—that's a little funny to empasize when the books I’m writing are speculative fiction—but I want to write books that transport the reader to a new reality. To do that, I need to pull out as many stops as I can in suspending their disbelief. To that end, I don't want the dialogue to be rigid and sanitized.

If the language in my books offends someone, will that hinder their transportation or interest in even being transported? Will they opt not to suspend their disbelief if obscenity slaps their religious beliefs in the face? I hope not. I care about all my readers, and certainly don’t want to offend anyone.

I’ve wrestled with this for a few years now, making it a focal point of my mid-life crisis, actually, and I’ve opted to:

1. Write first with no constraints.

2. Edit with the reader’s enjoyment of the story in mind—religious qualms aside.

3. Do my best to publish quality novels.

I will apologize to you, my mother, my pastor, and anyone else who reads my books and says that they’re offended if my apology will mean anything to them. And I promise not to be offended if they refuse to read them because they know there’s profanity in the pages. That’s okay. I’ve never believed that everyone would love to read my work. That’d be ridiculous. When I sell my first 100 copies of my novels, I’ll be doing backflips.

If, instead of saying they’re offended, they say that they’re disappointed in me…I’ll probably cry. I will. I’ll just—man, who wants to disappoint anyone? The approval addict and the rule follower in me will really freak out. Ugh. 😮‍💨

But it won’t change my approach.

… Maybe at some point, God will convict me. Then I’ll repent, and will stop writing the way I do.

For now, when I talk to God about it, I just see a picture of a father smiling, his hand on his child’s shoulder as the child scribbles the deformed image of an animal on a blank page. The kid’s tongue is sticking out as he works diligently on his art. I’m not saying that God approves of my work. I just know that He loves me.

I think Jesus can handle the swearing in my books. He’ll like that good wins over evil in the end of all my stories. I think of him eating at the table with the tax collectors and prostitutes, hands ceremonially unclean, as the scribes and pharisees looked on in disgust. I would be more comfortable at the table with Jesus and the sinners. I guess that’s another reason I write sinful sci-fi.