My father nourished my love of reading by bringing books by my favorite authors home to me from time to time. Dad didn't read fiction but he knew how much I enjoyed a good mystery. One day when I was ten or eleven years old, he surprised me with a copy of “I, the Jury,” a Mickey Spillane novel.
I picked up the book and started to read, amazed and secretly thrilled that Dad had given me such an “adult” book. A day or so later, I had left my book on the coffee table, book marker in place. Dad happened to pick it up and read a page. His eyes got wide and he immediately confiscated the book. No more Mickey Spillane for me!
Back then, I was disappointed when my father took away my book but, as an adult, I’ve come to realize that what intrigued me as a child (probably because it was “forbidden”) bores me now. When I read a mystery/suspense novel with descriptive sexual acts, I find myself skimming over those parts to get back to the story.
I’m definitely not a prude and I have no problem with a sex scene
and/or “colorful” language if it’s integral to the plot and, of course, it's perfectly acceptable and even expected in certain types of novels. A steamy romance wouldn't be very steamy without, well, some steam. By the same token, in a book about a street gang (think James Caan and Kathy Bates in the movie Misery), I can't imagine one of the members saying, "Gosh, darn it!" when he's angry. That’s unrealistic and I think fiction should be realistic, believable.
But I seldom read those kinds of books and, in the books I write, I've chosen not to use profanity and to leave what happens behind bedroom doors (or anywhere else, for that matter) to the reader’s imagination. Because, it’s my belief that you can have a good story and still keep it clean.
