The 17 Dirty Words... or Tell The International Market to Go Straight To... Er.... Heck. *sigh*

Once Dave and I started writing, we got into a pretty good groove.

Basically our process was broken into 6 steps:

1. Charlie writes a first pass at a scene. Sends it to Dave.

2. Dave prints the scene out, reads it carefully, composes some constructive feedback, and then lines his kitty litter box with it.

3. Dave completely re-writes what Charlie has written, maybe keeping one or two lines, so that Charlie doesn't feel completely worthless as both a human being and a writer.

4. Dave writes another scene on his own. Sends revisions + his new stuff back to Charlie.

5. Charlie sees the changes Dave made. Feels like an idiot for not having written it that well to begin with. Makes unnecessary tweaks to Dave's new scene out of spite.

6. Charlie drinks to fight back the rage and sorrow.

And like I said... its a process that's been working out well for us. Yes, us, and Mr. Jack Daniels.

But I digress. As usual.

Pretty early in the game, I noticed a consistent series of changes Dave was making to my writing. I'd craft a scene where a badass tough-guy would say something like:

"I'm going to rip off your head and sh*t down your throat..."

and Dave would edit it to:

"I'm gonna kill you!"

or I'd write...

"Someone cut off all the god**amn electricity!"

and it would come back as:

"Someone cut off the friggin' electricity!"

Frankly it was making me mental. I mean... bad guys curse. We all know they do. They say the "F" word, and the "s" word, and even "damn." Its a known fact. You show me a bad guy who isn't droppin' F-bombs every other word, and I'll show you a guy who's heart isn't in it.

So finally, I was like "Dave... What the fuc... er... heck, man?" (I wasn't sure if maybe it was a personal thing, and he'd given up swearing, what with a new kid coming and all)

"International market" was the reply.

Huh? They don't curse abroad?

He gave me a long-winded explaination about how in many of the foreign territories where this film will sell, cursing impacts the marketability. Asian sensibilities. Arabic sensibilities. Muslim sensibilities. Amish sensibilities. Scientologist sensibilities. Whatever.

So I tried cleaning things up. Basically went with Carlin's rule of the 7 Dirty Words. Continued writing. Sent drafts to Dave. And got back notes like...

"Uh... Charlie? There were two damns, a bitch, and an asshole in this draft."

"Hey dude... I don't judge the characters you make up..."

"No, I mean the cursing. You did it again. You can't say damn. Or bitch. Or asshole. Or even ass."

"What about arse? That's international."

"No."

"I can't even use curse words that they use on primetime television?"

"Nope."

"Piss?"

"Definitely no. I'm pretty sure that's on Carlin's list to begin with."

"Penis?"

"Yeah... you could probably say Penis."

"I'm not gonna write someone saying the word penis. At least not unless we're doing KINSEY II: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO."

Ironic, isn't it, that I can't use the word "sh*t," when its what Dave's cat is doing on the drafts I've sent over.

Up Next: How to write a guns-blazing, knives-flying, bodies-falling, shoot-em-up extravaganza... without blood.

Charlie